Well, she’s at the vet. He’s giving her fluids and blood tests, so I guess it’s not quite time to write her off. I’ll know more this afternoon — he asked me to call her around 3pm.
Oh, and in the ongoing farce that is my life, on the way to the vet I got pulled over and given a ticket because I didn’t come to a complete stop at a red light when I turned off on a side street. It wasn’t even a complete turn, this street just divides at an angle off the main road, but it leads straight to my vet’s office. It also leads past a private school where apparently the parents complained that all those turning cars made it difficult to stop and pick up their pweciouses, so the city of Casselberry gave them their very own traffic cop. Now including the $235 I paid the vet, I will be out another $140 for the ticket, and if I don’t want three (count ’em, three) points on my license (you know, for endangering the kiddles with my huge beastmobile — even though they were in the classroom at this time, not out playing around, and it was not school pickup time, so no parents’ BMWs were being inconvenienced by my giant SUV which is currently disguised as a battered Japanese econobox, but never mind) I have to go to traffic school. Whatever, it’s not like I’m working and have better things to do. Anyway, that’s the output so far. And if I end up having to have the cat put to sleep I have no idea what that’s going to cost. So I’m having a fundraiser.
I’m so sick of Florida.
Update on the update: well, she’s still hanging in there. The vet says he needs to get her thyroid levels down, and that she’s having some kidney problems, so he wants to keep her overnight. They’re giving her fluids. The one problem is he says she just can’t live on the regular cat food (Fancy Feast, etc.) that she likes — she has to eat the special cat food that is prescription only. Which happens to be the food she hates. I don’t know what her problem is, but she won’t eat it. She’ll gnaw on old chicken bones from the garbage (which I caught her trying to do one day until I stopped her) but try to give her the vet’s food and suddenly she’s a connoisseur. Well, I’m going to try again.
Update: I changed the sidebar photo. That’s Squeaky back in June when she was feeling better.
6 Responses to “Sick cat update”
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December 18th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
You can do a simple online test instead of classes. It’s cheap and you get the results immediately. Good luck.
Sorry about your cat.
December 18th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I don’t know if they offer the online thing in Florida. I haven’t felt like looking at the ticket — I just shoved it in my bag and continued on to the vet. I don’t really mind going to the “school” thing (yes I’ve done it before though it’s been quite a while) because they usually get some comedian to do it, or at least some guy who is funny, and they serve coffee (hey, free coffee! don’t knock it), and it’ll be the first social outing I’ve had in months except a brief visit to my one remaining friend down here the day before she moved back to Ohio. What really rankles is the amount of the fine, the fact that I think I stopped long enough at the stupid red light (so I didn’t put the car in park, get out, run around the vehicle twice… I paused! in Florida that should be good enough!) and the fact that I’m sure they’re taking advantage of the fact that this is near a school to charge the max.
December 18th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Sorry to hear about your cat. I completely understand. It really sucks to go through this, seeing a miserable cat but not knowing if she’ll get better or whether to have her put to sleep.
Tonight I just picked up the ashes of my cat, Porkchop. She was euthanized December 1st. (Since the bill is right in front of me: $33 for euthanasia, $102 for cremation with ash return – don’t know how much different it’d cost in FL.)
Porky was diagnosed with kidney disease almost 3 years ago, a few days after Christmas, the same day my cat Zek was put to sleep (diabetes) and just 4 months after my cat K’Ehleyr died in my closet (diabetes and kidney failure). I was an absolute wreck. The vet said she could live 2 months or two years, but she lived almost 3 more years.
There were 2 or maybe even 3 different kinds of prescription kidney disease foods I tried. None of them seemed that great, but she put up with one called Modified. Kidney disease affects the thyroid, so she had to go on thyroid medicine. Then there was the blood pressure medicine, and then the arthritis medicine, and sometimes I’d give her fluids at home…it just seemed to be so many little things adding up, and I didn’t know where it all would stop. And I didn’t really have money for all those cat meds.
She turned 17 years old in June, and I thought that was old enough. I refilled her prescriptions one last time, and then let them run out. She had already decided a few months earlier that she didn’t want to eat the Modified anymore. She held in there from July until Thanksgiving, when she stopped eating.
So…I guess my point is: Squeaky can possibly live several more good years, and don’t let yourself get suckered into more than just prescription food + thyroid medicine.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Shouldn’t that be “I totally paused!”.
Sorry about the putty tat. My family have had three cats in total, but they have all just wandered off by themselves and died somewhere. I guess that may indicate a lack of care and attention on our part, but apart from being very quiet, hiding under the table and not wanting to play for a day or so, they didn’t give out much of a hint of their pending departure.
December 19th, 2008 at 4:34 am
You don’t have to pay the ticket. You may have to pay it (post bond) but tell them you plan to contest it in traffic court. Chances are, the cop won’t show up in court or he won’t remember you. Then you’ll get your money back. I’ve beat several tickets that way. Another way is, you can tell the court the ticket is a financial hardship , and volunteer for community service. You can pet cats or walk dogs at the shelter for a few hours, that sure beats giving them money.
Good luck with the kitty. I had a kitty who lived an extra 2 1/2 years with kidney failure, she was also hyperthyroid for a long time before that. The kidney thing turned out to be manageable, I administered fluids at home. She refused to eat the prescription food, so I gave her high quality canned food, and did well on that.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Re administering fluids to the cat: I’m contemplating doing that, as the vet suggested it. (See my latest post.) If your kitty was okay — as in, not suffering too badly — with it then it will be worth it. I’m going to try her (again!) on the prescription food, but if she doesn’t eat it it’s back to the better store food. Or maybe I’ll look into making her food from scratch. I mean, I make my own dinner.
When it comes to the ticket thing, I don’t know if I want to go through all that court trouble. It would be just my luck that the cop would show up and remember me. I have that kind of luck. I have thirty — well, twenty-nine — days to think about it.