Never a dull (nor inexpensive) moment
Jun. 21st, 2007 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
green_dreamsSo. While Toby (not pictured in icon) was in boarding, the vet noticed a lump on his rear left paw. It didn't seem to bother him, and since Toby had yet another UTI, we arranged for him to be brought in when the antibiotics were done.
Took him in today.
(1) There's still blood in his urine (not much, since when I squeezed him yesterday morning I didn't see any, but some). Culture results should be in Monday. Meantime, kitty stays on antibiotics.
(2) I had to squeeze him yesterday morning. Toby is apparently one of those special rare cats for whom amytriptyline can cause/enhance bladder retention. Trying a new anti-anxiety drug (I will have to pick it up at a human pharmacy: very odd) which should not have the same side-effects. I wish it were otherwise, but living with Toby when he is not on working anti-anxiety drugs is not feasible.
(3) Back on May 2, he jumped off the kitchen counter and caught his paw in a drawer-pull on the way down. He was taken in for X-rays, and they found no breaks, assured us it was soft tissue damage. Today's X-rays showed an old fracture--at least a month old, probably a little older--on his left rear paw. The middle two metatarsals were fractured (the outer two were not, and are thank all the gods acting as a sort of natural splint), and appear to be healing well, but he'll need follow-up X-rays in four to six weeks.
(The vet felt compelled to mention that (1) there may be a tumour there, it's hard to tell[1], but if there is it may have weakened the bone and contributed to the fracturing, and (2) this is incredibly unlikely.)
*sigh*
---
[1] Given the limited accounts I have been given of how collodial tissue (scarring) interferes with attempts to detect tumours via X-ray, I find this *completely* unsurprising.
Took him in today.
(1) There's still blood in his urine (not much, since when I squeezed him yesterday morning I didn't see any, but some). Culture results should be in Monday. Meantime, kitty stays on antibiotics.
(2) I had to squeeze him yesterday morning. Toby is apparently one of those special rare cats for whom amytriptyline can cause/enhance bladder retention. Trying a new anti-anxiety drug (I will have to pick it up at a human pharmacy: very odd) which should not have the same side-effects. I wish it were otherwise, but living with Toby when he is not on working anti-anxiety drugs is not feasible.
(3) Back on May 2, he jumped off the kitchen counter and caught his paw in a drawer-pull on the way down. He was taken in for X-rays, and they found no breaks, assured us it was soft tissue damage. Today's X-rays showed an old fracture--at least a month old, probably a little older--on his left rear paw. The middle two metatarsals were fractured (the outer two were not, and are thank all the gods acting as a sort of natural splint), and appear to be healing well, but he'll need follow-up X-rays in four to six weeks.
(The vet felt compelled to mention that (1) there may be a tumour there, it's hard to tell[1], but if there is it may have weakened the bone and contributed to the fracturing, and (2) this is incredibly unlikely.)
*sigh*
---
[1] Given the limited accounts I have been given of how collodial tissue (scarring) interferes with attempts to detect tumours via X-ray, I find this *completely* unsurprising.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 04:48 am (UTC)I'm *praying* his bladder irritation--whatever was causing the blood to show up, culture results in tomorrow please god--will clear up soon and the new anti-anxiety meds will kick in, at which point he should be okay to let out again.
(I've had to start speaking to the vet about finding him a new home. Maybe one of his neighbours out in the country--he described the ideal situation as a heated barn, where he'd be fed and checked on and loved, and wouldn't constantly be peeing on books or floors or carpet. Because if this peeing behaviour doesn't get under control...
(...we're in a basement apartment, he can't go outside, and the kitchen/hallway/carpetted livingroom are all not separated by doors and are essentially one big place where we cannot keep having randomly decanted puddles of cat pee two or three times a week. And the weather's going to get hot and humid, and John can't sleep with his door shut--the air circulation is hell on wheels. And I can handle the idea of keeping him in the bathroom a good chunk of the time for maybe a week while the medication kicks in. But he can't live like that.
(I love my cat. I love him like crazy. And I want so much to see him live a long and wonderful and happy life, because there's nothing as beautifully warm and perfectly content as a happy cat, and he's my Toby-cat, and he deserves that. But I'm not sure anymore that he can do that if he's living with me.)