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Sep. 1st, 2004 11:06 pmBolt's been looking sort of down lately, and was puking and worrying me. I needed to take Tif to the vet anyway for follow-up so I asked if they could work both cats in- not 'til 2:30pm. I sat around the house and worried and fretted until then, then loaded the relevant cats up and headed south.
They checked Tif- she still has giardia, so more meds for that. Her ear infection cleared up, which is nice because the medication for that is unpleasant to administer for both of us- it's greasy and ooky. The lab has not told us about the skin stuff that might be ringworm, it usually takes them a couple of weeks. But the vet (the regular one this time- it was a stand-in before) said that ringworm was contagious enough that we might as well dip her unless we were planning to isolate her for the next 2 weeks. The dip wouldn't harm her if she has something besides ringworm, so I okayed it. The downside is that one of it's main ingredients is sulfur, which stains everything yellow and smells awful. But they dried her off well so now she just smells faintly of match heads. When we get the lab report then we either do more dipping (if it's ringworm) or antibiotics if not.
Bolt's visit did not go as well. He is very temperamental and can be high-strung, and he whizzed all over himself as the tech pulled him out of the carrier. That was alarming- he'd never done that before. The vet looked him over and took a blood sample. They take it out of a vein or artery in the neck- that was news. The tech held his head and blew in his face- apparently that was enough to distract him from the fact that someone was sticking a farking needle in his neck. Ah, to have a walnut-sized brain. Anyway, the results from that will be in tomorrow. The good news was that while he's lost a little bit of weight, he's still around his usual 10-12 pounds; and though he had a tiny fever, she said the fact that he was upset could account for it. But she said he looked okay to her eye, and she suggested maybe we might end up doing his sub-q fluids more often. She was glad to hear that he wasn't drinking lots of water which is one of the main signs that the kidneys are getting worse. So perhaps he is just a little depressed or has a bug or something.
Another thing I learned- it's very difficult to catheterize a male cat to get a urine sample. She tried to just stick a needle directly into his bladder to get a sample, but he didn't have enough in him to make it worth it. Hopefully what he has is not a bladder infection; if he doesn't perk up and the blood tests don't show anything I may need to take him in again. I really hope not. It stresses him out, it stresses me out (I was exhausted afterwards) and frankly all this is hitting me pretty hard in the pocketbook.
The very nice vet tech helped me out to the car with the felines, and an enormous or very ill bird managed to crap all down the driver's side door of my car. I drove over to Nat's to see if she wanted some company, but she wasn't home. I took the opportunity to use her hose to clean off the bird poop. I left her a message so she wouldn't have to wonder why her sidewalk was all wet.
I drove home through rush hour traffic (suck!) and hub and I discussed plans for the evening. We decided to visit Costco, and got a membership. We didn't buy anything, but I had been wanting to support their happy labor practices and hub saw that they sold electronics for pretty cheap there. We looked around until we were both starving and headed over to Twin Lion. We hadn't eaten there for quite some time and really enjoyed it, and going out for ice cream after. It was really nice- he said he was glad to have a 'date night'. We're such house trolls that oftentimes we'll just watch dvds or something at home- it is good to get out now and again.
Keep your fingers crossed that Bolt's bloodwork comes back okay tomorrow morning.
They checked Tif- she still has giardia, so more meds for that. Her ear infection cleared up, which is nice because the medication for that is unpleasant to administer for both of us- it's greasy and ooky. The lab has not told us about the skin stuff that might be ringworm, it usually takes them a couple of weeks. But the vet (the regular one this time- it was a stand-in before) said that ringworm was contagious enough that we might as well dip her unless we were planning to isolate her for the next 2 weeks. The dip wouldn't harm her if she has something besides ringworm, so I okayed it. The downside is that one of it's main ingredients is sulfur, which stains everything yellow and smells awful. But they dried her off well so now she just smells faintly of match heads. When we get the lab report then we either do more dipping (if it's ringworm) or antibiotics if not.
Bolt's visit did not go as well. He is very temperamental and can be high-strung, and he whizzed all over himself as the tech pulled him out of the carrier. That was alarming- he'd never done that before. The vet looked him over and took a blood sample. They take it out of a vein or artery in the neck- that was news. The tech held his head and blew in his face- apparently that was enough to distract him from the fact that someone was sticking a farking needle in his neck. Ah, to have a walnut-sized brain. Anyway, the results from that will be in tomorrow. The good news was that while he's lost a little bit of weight, he's still around his usual 10-12 pounds; and though he had a tiny fever, she said the fact that he was upset could account for it. But she said he looked okay to her eye, and she suggested maybe we might end up doing his sub-q fluids more often. She was glad to hear that he wasn't drinking lots of water which is one of the main signs that the kidneys are getting worse. So perhaps he is just a little depressed or has a bug or something.
Another thing I learned- it's very difficult to catheterize a male cat to get a urine sample. She tried to just stick a needle directly into his bladder to get a sample, but he didn't have enough in him to make it worth it. Hopefully what he has is not a bladder infection; if he doesn't perk up and the blood tests don't show anything I may need to take him in again. I really hope not. It stresses him out, it stresses me out (I was exhausted afterwards) and frankly all this is hitting me pretty hard in the pocketbook.
The very nice vet tech helped me out to the car with the felines, and an enormous or very ill bird managed to crap all down the driver's side door of my car. I drove over to Nat's to see if she wanted some company, but she wasn't home. I took the opportunity to use her hose to clean off the bird poop. I left her a message so she wouldn't have to wonder why her sidewalk was all wet.
I drove home through rush hour traffic (suck!) and hub and I discussed plans for the evening. We decided to visit Costco, and got a membership. We didn't buy anything, but I had been wanting to support their happy labor practices and hub saw that they sold electronics for pretty cheap there. We looked around until we were both starving and headed over to Twin Lion. We hadn't eaten there for quite some time and really enjoyed it, and going out for ice cream after. It was really nice- he said he was glad to have a 'date night'. We're such house trolls that oftentimes we'll just watch dvds or something at home- it is good to get out now and again.
Keep your fingers crossed that Bolt's bloodwork comes back okay tomorrow morning.
