Thank you VERY much to all those who participated in my fundraiser about 2 weeks ago, at which time I was in full-blown panic mode because Ginger seemed very sick! I hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t been eating (having multiple cats can make intake difficult to track), when suddenly she staggered and collapsed! She went immediately to the vet, where she weighed in at about 3 pounds! The vet did a little preliminary work but wanted to run many more tests, since none of those showed anything wrong. Ginger had an ongoing diagnosis of IBD and the vet saw she was dehydrated, so she gave her new appetite-stimulating meds and subQ fluids, but that was all I could afford at that time. I also started feeding her via syringe when she didn’t want to eat.
Clik here to view.
Thanks to your generosity, we were able to go back that Friday and get a full round of lab tests and x-rays. We also picked up more meds and subQ fluids for me to give her at home over the weekend. Thanks to the suggestions of the Peeps, she ate organic chicken baby food and tuna-cat-food enhanced with human-tuna oil over the weekend. Results the following Monday still showed nothing wrong! She gradually started eating better and better. We returned to the vet and her weight had increased. We added GI tests and ultrasound. The vet later emailed me — still found nothing! She thought maybe Ginger was losing her sense of smell and/or taste, part of the joy of being a senior pootie. So I tried feeding her the smelliest cat foods — tuna and duck. And she started eating those voluntarily by this point. So that does seem to support the vet’s hypothesis that this is part of the problem.
Clik here to view.
Well, today we returned to the vet — in the middle of a snow squall! The vet was very pleased. She noted that Ginger was purring at her! She is now over 4 pounds. Her fur coat feels luscious again, which tells the vet she is absorbing nutrients well. She was still mildly dehydrated (I had stopped giving her subQ fluids when she seemed to be eating and drinking enough), so she is back on fluids for this week. Then the vet thinks she’ll be fine and I can stop. And Ginger talked to all her vet friends whilst she was there, so showed them how much better she feels! (If unhappy about the snow)
Clik here to view.
So she seems to be over her crisis and well on the road to recovery. Whew! I now check the dishes right after she or Oreo eats or drinks so that I can tell how much each is eating. So hopefully if she loses her appetite again, I’ll be right on top of things, rather than assuming she’s eating just because she puts her face in the bowl! The vet wants to see her again in the Spring, and of course meanwhile if anything changes.
Thank you all so much again! I don’t know what we’d do without her. Even now that she has lost her sight, she can still find things that I lose! I swear she’s psychic. Oreo needs her too — not only are they best buds, but a couple times when he’s had a diabetic crisis, she has alerted me to it! So she is the glue keeping us healthy together. I know it seems like an awful lot of work to find nothing seriously wrong, but we had to know so we could treat early if anything was found, and those are a bunch of tests she won’t need again probably for years! Take a bow, y’all.
