the tiny perfection picked the most perfectly inappropriate time to present w kidney disease

[cimorene]

The BB has kidney disease! But they still need to do more tests to determine exactly what kind and how bad it is and what exactly we need to do in the future. We've done some research and this is true, it seems like there are a million tests that all require multiple samples. In the meantime,

• We still don't know why she peed in the wrong places a few times! Is she in pain? Maybe! She was kind of yowling when using the litterbox but she also is still using it and she also is acting happy and playful and still eating and drinking the rest of the time which isn't really normal for cats in pain.



• The vet did prescribe us a painkiller... but the special painkiller that isn't dangerous for kidney diseased cats is, apparently, an opioid... that's actually for humans, just in smaller doses. It's in capsules that we'd have to break open in order to mix it into her food, and then she would actually be like, high on opium??? And we're not even sure if she's in much pain. And right now we're trying to finish packing all of our stuff to start moving it tomorrow evening!



• Does she have a UTI? Maybe! I'm pretty sure the vet left us on 'maybe' with that and therefore 'maybe' with the antibiotic, but when they called me back yesterday the vet was at a different animal hospital and it was just an assistant passing on a message. So I've gotta try to call the vet, and ask them to call me back, but I have approx. 1 million questions and am having difficulty even prioritizing them in my own mind, let alone into a script.



• Her diet needs to be altered as possible to persuade her to eat the kidney-disease-appropriate food with the low phosphorus and phosphorus-binding, whatever that is. Although it's more important that she just eats period, and she is, but she never eats very much at the 3x so far we've tried to separate the cats to feed them, she has just responded with confusion and eaten a few bites, and then been like "WHY IS THIS NOT MY REGULAR EATING PLACE AND WHERE IS MY DINING COMPANION!!!" In each case, I fed her in the normal place in order to get her to eat more of the food (which did work, thankfully, although again: a very small serving).



• Is she actually eating less than normally though? She never has been that big on food and treats, and she almost always eats frequently in small snacks, even with the wet food that she really likes (which we can't buy anywhere anymore, and it has starch thickener in it anyway, and tuna is bad for the environment anyway and ocean fish in general is not good to feed to cats in large quantities because of potential mercury levels which are more dangerous the smabitsller the cat and she's very small. But she did REALLY like that extra-stinky, extra-cheap tuna that nobody sells anymore). But if we have to separate the cats in order to feed them, they aren't gonna be able to eat like that in the future, but they're both old and stubborn and very attached to each other. This is such a headache. I can't just starve them until they give up and eat alone because that's dangerous for diabetics like Snookums. Augh.

Also, I'm expecting some MORE strangers to come look at the flat in a couple of minutes, so I have to delay trying to disassemble the livingroom bookcases and calling the vet until that's over.

Since my executive function is such a mess and I deal poorly with anxiety I usually would just "nope can't" out of something like this and go hide somewhere taking deep breaths and distracting myself with books until I was calm, but I can't do that because of the time limits on... all of this stuff that I can't forget which seems to be happening all at once.

Comments

[viggorlijah]

feeding stubborn cats who don't want to eat is a bear. I got good advice which was wet wet food and things like hand feeding them. mr Mamat would eat off a teaspoon and my fingers when he wouldn't eat from a bowl and he ate way more fed multiple times than in 1-2 meals. I also found it a lot easier mentally to weigh him daily and track his weight gain/loss rather than try and think "is he skinnier, less active?" I used a syringe to squirt water into his mouth too. someone on askme suggested like feeding tubes which I think are actually a good option with an otherwise ok cat with a chronic condition who just hates food. I got a cat who thinks human tuna is nasty and will only lick canned cat food with disdain and thinks the best thing in the world is dog kibble, so you know, their tiny peabrains do not always work well with their stomachs.

I wrote like a long list and then made a tiny flowchart and then a little daily checklist and a little cat care kit in the kitchen for him and pretended I was a giant Alien Nurse and he was a courageous soldier from the wars who was recovering. In my head, not out loud. That did help. Also watching stupid cat tv bird videos with him.

[viggorlijah]

kisses to the cats. and sunshine warm places to sleep in.

[yvannairie]

:(

I really hope it's just an UTI, we lost our cat to kidney failure.

[cimorene]

She does have kidney disease, definitely - we just thought she might have a bacterial infection as well, but she doesn't.

It's really common in old cats though, and she's 12 now. But there's a wide range of severity within there, and her symptoms are still quite mild.

[yvannairie]

Ohh okay I totally misunderstood the original post. :((( I hope it doesn't get worse and she stays okay.

[spark]

Having tended several elderly and best beloved cats during their last years with kidney disease, my understanding is that pretty much every cat will outlive their kidney function if they live long enough, it's just what happens. It sounds like you are doing an awesome job of researching and vet consulting and caretaking. Here's a brief note of possibly useful things from my experience, in case helpful:

- when researching, remember Google Scholar and peer reviewed veterinary journals are more trustworthy than individual topical websites, even when the website owner has DVM after their name. I always need to periodically remind myself of that for all my animals.

- if your cat can be mellow about receiving subcutaneous fluids, that is incredibly effective as a treatment. Regretfully, mine was not, although he was totally cool with taking pills.

- warming up wet food can make it a bit more smelly and attractive -- an awesome pet sitter showed me that trick.

All the best to your furbabies, and remember this is a chronic rather than acute condition (aside from the possible UTI) and so if you aim for practical rather than perfect during the disruption of your move that will most likely be perfectly fine.

[krait]

Oh, no! Lots of hugs and sympathy; cats sometimes seem to pick the worst times for this sort of thing, don't they?

I was reading a really interesting website about feline diets and kidney disease just last night; I'll try to find it again, in case it could prove useful for your kitty.

[untonuggan]

much sympathies, this is A Lot to deal with.

[laurenthemself]

Good luck with the keetoms. Ruri just spent a weekend isolated as she's been throwing up and the vet thinks something might be a bit wrong in her abdomen.