I can completely understand how overwhelmed and disheartened you must
feel right now Cassandra. You need to shake that off if you can.
Concentrate instead on keeping your spirits up and doing everything
possible to help Kisa feel more comfortable and regain her health. Who
knows why these things seem to come out of nowhere and heap themselves
one on top of the other. I too had years of healthy "no problem"
animals and then boom! One after the other started falling ill to
things I'd never even heard of before. Instead of wondering 'why', or
even wondering 'why now', be thankful for all those wonderful years of
blissful ignorance. One obstacle at a time, one day at a time.
Celebrate every little success and esp celebrate every moment you have
with your loved ones. You can do this, you can and you will for Kisa's
sake.
Talk to your vet about injectable steroids and transdermal appetite
stimulants. If Kisa is vomiting, then she would probably benefit from
some sort of anti-nausea med as well. Get her meds in forms that don't
have to be administered by mouth to lessen the stress and possibility of
them not staying down. I don't know if it's appropriate, but you might
want to ask your vet about different steroids like dex or depro. Depro
is longer acting and dex is fast acting. It was nothing short of
amazing how much better my Spencer felt, (and ate), after starting small
dose daily dex shots subq at home. Are you giving Kisa subq fluids at
home? Sometimes fluids can make them feel better all by themselves. If
she starts feeling better, she's liable to start eating better.
Has your vet consulted with or have you brought Kisa to an oncologist?
I get it about the money factor too. Sometimes all we can do does not
include the heavy financial costs involved with specialists. It sucks,
but that's the way it is sometimes. Just do the best you can with the
resources you've got. Ask trusted vets to use their intuition and to
suggest, based on their experience, the most cost effective treatment
plans.
Please keep us informed, we're all pulling for you guys,
Nina
C & J wrote:
Well, after going to the vet today, it's not looking good for Kisa.
She has elevated bilirubin in her blood/urine, and elevated number of
lymphocytes. Therefore they believe she has a liver disease, possibly
lymphosarcoma.
The only way they can tell for sure what the problem is with her liver
is to do a biopsy which means surgery. They didn't suggest doing
this though because of the FeLV and her immune system being compromised.
They gave me prednisone and baytril for her, though i'm really not
sure how she'll handle keeping those down when she is vomiting so
easily. They're hoping the steroid will make her feel a little better
and maybe regain some appetite.
I've really got to try and get her to eat something, she hasn't eaten
since Saturday night now.
I don't understand why this is all happening at once. First I watched
Tomi get sicker and sicker for nearly 2 months. As soon as he started
getting better, Koda got sick with kidney and liver failure, and
died. Now, barely a week later Kisa goes from being a super healthy
and active cat to death's door. I haven't even had enough time to get
used to Koda being gone, now its another crisis situation.
This is all after having nothing but healthy, happy, and active cats
for 12 years.
I used to think how awful it would be if my house burned down while I
was away and my 5 cats were inside. What is happening now is almost
worse than that since it is so prolonged and i'm beginning to wonder
if something I am doing is causing all this (like feeding raw food).
I've always kept my cats indoors because I didn't want them to get run
over by a car, etc....but they seem to be no safer indoors.
Sorry for venting on you all, its just really starting to affect me,
both emotionally and financially.
Cassandra
