OK Anita -
Stop beating yourself up. Now. And ignore the pessimism from the vet. I adore
cats and my Tony especially but face it, they're just not much on facial
expression. You wanna tell me what a "haunted" look on a cat would look like?
Fever - you couldn't tell he had a fever unless you were violating his civil
rights daily with the thermometer. I was worried enough about Tony so that I
*did*, when he was at his worst, and - there was almost no correlation
between how warm he "felt" to me, his body or his ears, and what his internal
temperature was.
The spleen is packed into the middle of his abdominal cavity, not out where
you might notice a bulge developing in his belly. The most you could possibly
tell is "Hmmm ... I think you're gaining a little weight, Smoochy, good cat!"
Subcutaneous injections are not difficult at all, although the thought is
scary. I learned on little 2-pound kittens, a grown cat would be easy. It
does help to have someone else "scruff" him and distract him by doing a very
gentle shakeshakeshake - bouncing the head more than anything else, but
hardly moving him at all, really. If you don't have anyone there to help, you
can scruff and pinch the skin with the same hand - practice that for a while
before you seriously start trying to give him a shot. To give him a shot,
you pick up a pinch of skin, halfway along his flank and a little around to
the side from his spine. You make it a 3-sided pinch of skin (like <l ) with
thumb & 1st 2 fingers, and pull up gently. The needle should go in where
there's a little "space" inside the pinch of skin, because you want it to
only go through one thickness of skin - you don't want it to go through the
second thickness and come out the other side of your "pinch" of skin. Hold
the syringe parallel with his body and put the needle up touching the spot on
the skin where you want it to go in and then use just a little little oomph
to punch it in (you *can't* just press the tip in with more and more pressure
and have it "slide" in - it takes a little jab). Press the plunger just a bit
- if it slides easily, you're in. If there's resistance. you're stuck in the
skin. If enough of the needle has vanished so that you might have gone
through all of the first skin thickness and might be into the second , pull
back gently - if you think you probably haven't made it through the first
thickness, punch again - just a little oomph! - and see if the plunger will
depress now. If neither one works, pull the needle out entirely, and try
again on the other side. My vet didn't have me swab the site with alcohol - I
was surprised, because nurses always do on *me*, but I never saw any problems
because of that - and I was looking! So. Calm down, you can do this.
Remember, it will do him good. Rub him into a state of purring ecstasy first,
and rub him some more afterwards. He will *not* hold it against you.
BTW, it looks to me like you *can* spell prednisone, but - is "Epoetin Alfa"
a tradename, or were you reaching for erythropoietin-alpha, which nobody
normal could possibly spell - I only can because my misspent youth was in a
hospital.
No. It does not sound like he's at death's door. And if he were, it wouldn't
be your fault. Go wash your face, do something nice for yourself, and then
cuddle down with His Smoochiness.
Mary
