Simone's Condition Nosedives

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Because of recent events, this post will focus on what's happening in the last few months. 

Journal Entry:  November 21, 2010

The vomiting has decreased a little.  Simone vacillates between spending time in the basement and the bedroom.  The basement couch was covered in cheap sheets to keep it from getting stained from vomit if she spends the night there.  Overall, she seems pretty alert and affectionate.  She spends most nights with me in bed.  She still growls and cries for food.  She's not eating as much as usual though, either morning (big meal) or evening, so Twinkles is enjoying the leftovers.  [He's even demanding them now!]

The loss of appetite was a bad sign, but I didn't catch it early on, because the amount of food Simone was eating was decreasing slowly.  She went from gobbling all the food down to three-fourths to one-half to one-quarter, and recently she stopped eating altogether.  I didn't take it as a serious sign because, throughout the treatment for CRF, she had frequently had days when she didn't want to eat much, but she would bounce back a few days later.  By mid-December, I could tell she had lost considerable weight.

I made an appointment with the vet to have her blood checked and to get a physical exam.  As expected, Simone had lost a full pound.  That may not sound like much, but for a 6 1/2 pound cat, that's 15% of her body weight.  The rest of the exam went fine and there weren't any obvious signs why she wasn't eating.  Dr. C. suggested that I give Simone a supplemental food called NutriCal.  This dietary supplement adds calories via corn syrup as well as provides vitamins.  I tried mixing it with Hill's a/d, which was used for the other supplements.  I quickly learned not to like it.  It's a hell of a sticky mess!  It got caught up in Simone's whiskers and other places on her face, where it dried into a nasty crust.  She didn't seem to care for it and that made it easier to stop using it.  After a week, I abandoned the NutriCal.  I particularly didn't like the fact that the extra calories were coming from sugar, as opposed to protein or fat.

There was some good news during this period.  The blood panel showed a strong rebound from the worst signs of CRF.      

Test	Aug  2009 Reading	Norm	Dec 2010 Reading
BUN (mg/dL)	116	12 - 34	42
Creatinine (mg/dL)	6.4	0 - 1.5	2.9
Phosphorus (mg/dL)	6.2	4.0 - 7.0	5.0
Calcium (mg/dL)	12.6	8.4 - 10.8	8.8
Potassium (mg/dL)	3.2	3.8 - 5.0	4.3

Apparently, Simone was not reacting to the CRF ... there was something else wrong.  But Simone continued not to eat much and lost more weight.  The vet suggested trying Purina Fancy Feast kibbles, which she described as "kitty crack."  But Simone took a sniff of the stuff and turned away.  Also, other foods were tried and rejected.  By the second week of January, I was getting extremely concerned.  At that point, I decided to start an assisted feeding program, the details of which will be provided in the next blog.  The goal was to stem the weight loss until a cause could be found.  The vet recommended starting Simone on another appetite stimulant called mirtazapine, and it was ordered from a pharmacy.

One evening, when I was about to give a sub-Q injection of fluid to Simone, she walked over to a nearby litter box and just sat there for several minutes.  Obviously, she was straining to urinate.  Concerned about a bladder infection or blockage, I took her to the vet.  The vet ruled out a blockage but thought she might have a bladder infection.  Also, Simone was frequently sniffling like she had a cold and shaking her head in an odd way.   Simone got a shot of penicillin and, a few days later (Wednesday of this week), she received a more potent antibiotic.  The really bad news was that Simone had lost even more weight ... now she was down to 4.5 lbs (a 31% loss of weight), and she was looking rather gaunt.  I increased the caloric content of the food that she was getting by syringe, and, as of today, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Maybe with the elimination of the infection and cold virus, she will start eating again.  On the bright side, Simone continues to move around, purr, and seek attention.  She's still with me!  Stay tuned, cat lovers and purr on!

 "The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest." (Henry David Thoreau)