twistedloops

Today, I finally got around to blocking the Handsome Triangle Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. Once it dries, I’ll find a way to take some nicer photos of it.  In a previous post, I’d hoped to have this shawl blocked more than a week ago, but life threw me for a loop that I wasn’t prepared for.   

When I started the blog, I swore that I’d keep it to mostly knitting content, that the world didn’t need commentary on my daily life.  But, the last ten days have been tough, and I think it would be helpful to get it out. So…

Warning – no knitting content follows.

Early in the days of dating my husband, he acquired two kittens.  He named them Pablo and Rauschy, after Pablo Picasso and Robert Rauschenburg.  Pablo was an Ebony Smoke Oriental Shorthair and Rausch was a Seal point Oriental Longhair with blue eyes.  I’ll admit, when he first got them I thought that they were funny looking – they had huge ears.  I’ve since come to realize that most of the cat breeds based upon the Siamese need to “grow into” their ears.

Over the years, the two kitties have presented their fair share of challenges.  Pablo had been diagnosed with feline asthma brought on by allergies.  Didn’t know that a cat could have allergies or asthma?  Neither did we.  In Pablo, it presented itself similar to human allergies – lots of coughing and some occasional sneezing.  Like his human owners, some symptoms were present year round, but there were flare ups during certain seasons.  Rausch has had his share of unusual maladies too.

Two weeks ago, we noticed that the coughing/sneezing Pablo had been doing of late seemed worse.  There was an awful wheezing noise that happened most nights at 2am, waking us.  It also seemed to us that he might have lost a little weight.  We made an appointment and took him to the vet on Tuesday the 12th.  He got a massive dose of steroids (for his asthma) and antibiotics (just in case it was something else), and came home with some additional antibiotics.  The steroids and antibiotics seemed to do the trick, and he seemed to be on the mend.  He ate, he played, and we felt better. 

The turnaround was short-lived.  By Thursday night, the steroids had worn off and he crashed.  He wouldn’t get up off the couch, and it took significant effort to make him eat.  By Friday, things were worse.  There was weird disfiguration starting to happen on his face in the upper mouth and nasal area.  He’d definitely lost more weight, and he was developing two weird bumps on his back.  We called the vet and went in first thing Saturday morning.  When I got there, his mouth/nose area was bleeding – not something I’d noticed at home.  Our regular vet, who wasn’t there on the previous Tuesday visit, took a quick look at him and knew something was really wrong.  She’s fairly clinical, so it was straight to the point.  She was fairly sure that it was cancer, assuming it had to be a large tumor in the nasal passage causing the facial disfiguration.  She mentioned that there were very slim possibilities that it could be fungal, but as an outdoor cat it would be rare.  We agreed that we wanted a definitive diagnosis, so lab work needed to be done.  She recommended we take him to the emergency animal hospital that could do an IV and get fluids in him since he was so dehydrated.

I went home to get Jim and head to the emergency hospital.  We were packing up a few things when the phone rang.  It was the vet.  After I’d left she’d continue to think about the issue and had some alternative options for us.  She recommended we come back to the clinic.  At the clinic, we learned how to administer subcutaneous fluids, to help keep him hydrated.  She managed to get a swab into his nose to send off to the lab for testing.  But, she also took an x-ray, and discovered a large mass in the lungs.  We again discussed that the prognosis was not good, but agreed to not take major action until we had a definitive diagnosis.

We took him home for the weekend, administering subcutaneous fluids and syringe feeding him.  We prepared ourselves for the worst.  On Monday, Jim spent the day at home keeping an eye on Pablo.  Around 3:45pm, he called and suggested I get home soon because I might be running out of time to say goodbye.  When I got home, I sat and just petted Pablo for a while, waiting for the vet to call with the lab results.   I soon heard a strange noise coming from the laundry room and went to investigate.  To my horror, I saw sewage coming up out of the floor drain.  This is not a complication I needed to deal with.

While cleaning up the mess, we got the call from the vet.  It was not cancer.  However, it was blastomycosis, a fungal infection (the one she mentioned would be really rare in an indoor cat).  We discussed our options.  Pablo had an advanced case, but it was treatable.  If he could make it through the first few days of treatment, she gave him a 50/50 shot at survival.  Had it been cancer, we were prepared to let him go, but we felt that we had to try and treat a 50/50 diagnosis in an 8 year old cat.  I ran off to pick up the medicine at a pharmacy (the only one stocking it in about a 20 mile radius from the clinic), and Jim packed up to take Pablo to the emergency hospital.

Pablo spent the night at the hospital.  They were able to start the medicine, feed him, and put in an IV.  I went to pick him up on Tuesday morning and take him to the vet while Jim waited at home for the plumber.  His right front leg was all bandaged to keep him from chewing on the IV, so walking was out – he could only limp.  He spent all day Tuesday at our vet clinic receiving treatment.  In the afternoon, we chatted and agreed that we could bring him home for the night, as long as we would feed him every few hours.  When we picked him up that evening, we had more discussions with the vet.  We agreed to bring him back Wednesday to put in a feeding tube.  Even in his weakened state, the vet staff was having difficulty getting the amount of food into him that he needed – he just fought all efforts to get near his mouth.  We agreed, knowing it was pointless to pursue treating him only to let him starve.  Before we took him home for the evening, they gave him a dexamethasone shot to help with some of the inflammation.

He spent Tuesday evening sitting on the couch.  Within 10 minutes of going to bed, we heard him.  He had hopped off the couch, hobbled to our room, and was sitting at the foot of the bed, wanting to get in with us.  We picked him up and set him on the bed.  He stayed with us all night.  It was a good night.

On Wednesday, while under anesthesia to put in the feeding tube, his heart stopped.  It was the end of our Pablo.  I’ll admit that it has been hard, especially because it is hard not to feel guilty about the whole process.  The sneezing and coughing, all the signs we missed, dismissing them as his normal asthma/allergy symptoms, it’s heartbreaking. 

I am now a paranoid cat owner, and Rauschy is going to the vet on Tuesday to see what kind of testing they can do to ensure that he does not have blasto too.  While he does not have any symptoms, I don’t want to take any chances.  Losing Pablo has been so hard that I couldn’t bear to go through this again any time soon.