Welcome to Gaia! ::

I’m glad I got some good stuff today before the bad happened. But as it is, 2:30am aside, I NEED to write just to calm me down.

It really was a great day. I got a B in my online biology quiz. Dennings (best friend), Alan (husband), and I went out for sushi, after which we went to hang out at his place. We watched 3 episodes of Pushing Daises, and loved it. Really, the videography, characters, and dialogue are all fantastic. Dennings surprised me with cheesecake. One the way home Alan and I had a lovely bout of banter where I burst out laughing. Then, at midnight, with thunderclouds threatening, we drove down a dark alleyway and found our local nook of the neighborhood in which we’ve decided to rename Ulthar for how many cats there were. Imagine turning down a dark road, putting on the brights, and seeing easily 30 or so feline eyes reflected at you. It was delightfully spooky.

That was the good parts. The bad part is Jester. He seemed to have stopped eating the last several days. I’ve started trying to entice him with wet foods, but he still eats little to nothing. His ribs don’t seem to be sticking out, but he’s a fluffy cat and it’s hard to tell. But his spine and shoulders seem much bonier. He defiantly feels lighter. Well, tonight I noticed his ears were yellow. Not wax.. and not just the ears… his skin is all yellow. Now I already had a vet appointment set up to sat. Worried, I did a quick google search on “cat sick yellow skin” and quite a few of the results seemed to indicate liver failure. Therefore, tomorrow, my birthday aside, Alan and I will be sitting in a vet’s office all day if need be to try to get him in.

What really hurts though is I keep wondering if I did something wrong to cause this. I feed my cats Nutro Max Cat (not the cheapest, but not the most expensive, and pretty well reviewed). His litter is changed regularly, and he goes for his yearly checkups.

And, if it is the case, I’m not sure how much Alan and I can afford to spend on Vet Bills. Office visits, blood tests, transfusions, ect… it could run up quite a bit. Really, anything more than a few hundred I don’t think we can swing. I even have my doubts about that much. And I just hate that money may dictate if we can keep him alive or not.

Well, I know nothing for sure yet. My tummy is all in knots and I have to try to sleep if I’m going to do anything tomorrow. Any prayers or healing thoughts send our way is appreciated. I will post as soon as I know anything else.

This morning we took him into the vet. I ended up going to the same one I usually go to because they have his previous records and they were able to fit us in on short notice. The other two vets I wanted to try (Farley and Four Paws) had no availability

When the vet first looked at him, he was very negative, going on about how he was emancipated and dehydrated… and it made me feel so bad, like I should have noticed it was so bad earlier than this.

He ran several tests. Jester does not have hepatitis, or diabetes. The kidneys are good, but he is anemic. Some blood count levels of something else that I forgot what it was called were good, which indicated the liver isn’t gone yet. At that point he turned a bit more positive. Though the tests do indicate a likelihood of a chronic condition, he says there’s a snowballs chance it might be able to be turned around.

So he gave him fluids, a cortisone shot, and sold us painfully expensive prescription wet cat food. I’m to bring him in tomorrow for another shot and more fluids if needed. He said if we get any positive results in a few days, then we may be able to save him. Otherwise we’ll have to put him down.

Our hope is that it’s not in liver disease or cancer, but that it *might* be a blockage, which hopefully the cortisone shots will fight. The good news is the liver does still seem to be functional, and Jester is eating on his own, albeit only a very little bit. But the vet says that’s enough, so long as he does eat something.

I’ll update on this again around Sat or Sun when I know more.

Glad to hear the jaundiced look is clearing up. Hopefully the food will help. I put my cat on a similar diet food and she had problems throwing up too. Hope things turn even better for your kitty

oh dear im glad it isnt liver failure because when we lived in oregon we had a mice problem in one of our sheds that we kept the cat food int and we put mouse poision in the shed well we suspected at the time Miss Kitty had caught and ate one and she had liver failure because of the poision in the rodent and in a few days died. That was a few years ago but im glad it doesnt have anything to do with liver failure anymore from my understanding ^_^