Kitty going in for tests; wish him luck please

[ghostjmf]

I am supposed to be packing tonight for Thomas Point (a private campground on the coast of Maine) Bluegrass Festival. Instead, I am packing the catfood away so that TuckerMonster doesn't eat any after 10:00pm, just like with humans & medical tests, because his blood tests came back with raised gamma globulin levels. He doesn't have diabetes (catabetes, I've been calling it & hoping its not so) or thyroid problems (the vet's other suggestion from his symptoms) but he apparently does have something, dammit.


So they want to X-ray & ultrasound his abdomen, which is no big deal, & not invasive, & my other cats viewed these processes with typical cat bemusement. And resigned themselves to them. Tuck, who again tried to take pieces out of the people holding him down for just a regular exam last week, is unlikely to cooperate this week. I was told "our practise is to try the usual way, & if he doesn't cooperate, then sedate him". And this was from one of the people holding him down last week, they know its not gonna work. Maybe I can convince them tomorrow to go straight for the drugs.


That's if I actually can get Tuck into the carrier again at all. I have to get him there between 6 & 8:00am, & its a 30 minute or so drive, so I guess we start at 5:00am.


I could have booked it for some other day, but not for a couple weeks, & I wouldn't enjoy myself up in Maine knowing this loomed. I hope I can make him feel better enough holding his paw & such when its all over that I can take off for the rest of the festival Saturday. We'll see.


I so want them to find nothing.


But I came back from Thanksgiving 13 years ago to find the best cat in the world near death, & he hadn't even acted sick the week before. Turns out he had a giant tumor. They wanted to just let him die on the operating table, but I insisted they take it out & sew him up, but Tracy died anyway.


I've long debated, knowing how Tucker acts with vets, if it wouldn't be more humane just to let him go if he got sick. I guess I am answering myself now. When he's only acting a little sick, I can't let him get worse if I have a chance to stop it.

[WaldoDummy]

Al the best to TuckerMonster from yours truly as well as my psycho brother Charles Starkweather Manson. Oh, yeah...the goofy-looking two-legger sends good vibes as well...

[gsabc]

Working the JPC for the best outcome for both of you.

[mrkelley23]

Sounds like you and the vet staff need as much or more vibage than Tucker does....

[SportsFan68]

Good luck, KittyCat. And to you, Ghost.

MissYetiGirl was diagnosed with thyroid problems when she was about 10 years old and lived several more years after that.

[MarleysGh0st]

Best wishes, Tucker.

[a1mamacat]

sending lots of good thoughts to you and Tuck

[Beebs52]

Vibage to ya, Ghost. It's horrible when you don't know what's wrong and can't do anything about it. Snuggles to Tuck (you snuggle him, I need my skin).

[T_Bone0806]

Ghost, I am hoping for good things for your furry friend...all of us with four-footed kids understand....

[ghostjmf]

Very brief update: 3 levels of tranquilization, via needles which is how the vets do it, did not calm him down & now he is going to be put under general anaesthesia. Which means he goes back in a queue for the tests & could be there 'til 8:00pm tonight.


I did get to ask the vet why all these tests & they say that often the increased gamma globulin component thickens the blood & makes the cat thirsty, which is why I noticed him drinking more. I asked it it has this effect in people & vet said they didn't know. But the gamma globulins could be a response to stuff they want to rule out. But they've not yet even done a simple urinary infection test, which makes me mad. But I'm not going to stop these very expensive procedures now. They ran a test for diabetes off the urine sample Tuck generously peed onto their table, but not for infection. They'll get a less contaminated sample now.


Please keep the vibes up. Tucker was calm at the hospital when people came over to talk to me & said "we're not ready for him yet". I had asked to keep him with me until they were ready. The minute the nice aide came to say "its time" he bared his fangs, hissed & growled. I apologized for his behavior, but aide grinned & said "they can pick up the vibes".


So let's get him the "let's get out of here" vibes instead.

[ghostjmf]

Patient is home. I felt I owed you who cared brief report, so I'm briefly here; library pulls plug in 9 minutes anyway.

Woozy, still-sedated patient is motoring around & around the apartment, at first falling down a lot, eerily reminiscent of his 1st foray into said apt, as a 6 week old kitten, where I saw nothing but the occasional tip of a little yellow tail for hours. He's bigger, now, so easier to see.

Scans found no cancer. That's the great news.


Scans did find bladder stones, & gall bladder sludge.


Vet feels the bladder stones explain the maximum water being drunk & the high gamma globulin levels, though I don't know exactly why the 2nd. Urinalysis will tell if he's got a urinary tract infection, which from his recent sluggishness I believe he may have; I don't see how stones alone would make him sluggish.


Vet offered the services of the surgery dept to take out the stones, as he was already sedated. But that would cost another $2,000.00, & though I didn't discuss this with vet, I know from my own & others experience with kidney stones is that stones come back. Vet also offered a stone-dissolving diet, which Tucker will be on. Special food, which I warned them Tucker would not eat, as he hates wet food. "Oh, it's yummy!". They weren't listening. I got them to order the same special food in dry as well, thank G-d. I carried home both.



Tucker also had a slightly enlarged heart, but no problems with heart were obvious in scan.

There goes the computer.

[DevilKitty100]

I could have booked it for some other day, but not for a couple weeks, & I wouldn't enjoy myself up in Maine knowing this loomed. I hope I can make him feel better enough holding his paw & such when its all over that I can take off for the rest of the festival Saturday. We'll see.


I so want them to find nothing.


But I came back from Thanksgiving 13 years ago to find the best cat in the world near death, & he hadn't even acted sick the week before. Turns out he had a giant tumor. They wanted to just let him die on the operating table, but I insisted they take it out & sew him up, but Tracy died anyway.


I've long debated, knowing how Tucker acts with vets, if it wouldn't be more humane just to let him go if he got sick. I guess I am answering myself now. When he's only acting a little sick, I can't let him get worse if I have a chance to stop it.

I love your heart and sentiment on this issue, Ghost. Wish everybody in the world showed the same level of concern for their animals.

Have read your following posts and am glad to hear your kitty is responding. Good vibes and wishes for his recovery and good on you for taking care of him.

[a1mamacat]

Pretty good news, considering what it could have been.

Here's to Tuck absolutely loving the new food

[kayrharris]

Glad the trauma is over and the medication and food will work wonders. Tuck is lucky to have such a loving parent.
Hope his progress will be swift.

kay

[ghostjmf]

After his 1st bout of energy at being home, which I think may have been due in part to the drugs they gave him to bring him out of anaesthesia, Tuck has been very sedate/lethargic. Much more so than he was being which provoked me to bring him to vet in 1st place.


He is alert, but not interested in moving around much.


I am hoping this is all the result of the sedation drugs, & the anaesthesia drugs, & will wear off. They didn't tell me if they gave him any contrast dyes; with a human they ask, maybe they don't feel they need to ask the human of a pet. I don't see why they would need contrast dyes for sonograms & X rays, though. They don't with humans for those things, only with MRIs & CT scans & such.


After his 1st bout of scarfing down the new food, he isn't much interested in the wet food version, at least. I keep opening cans & leaving part of them around. I can hope.


Someone I talked to today, who is a cat sitter for living, a good person for me to have met in case Tuck has regular medical needs when I have to be out of town, increased thirst can be the 1st sign of kidney failure. Not what I needed to hear, but they did say that with regular hydration you can give such cats another 5 years. I had to hydrate (with cat saline solution under the skin) my cat Dipper, who we were treating for stomach cancer. I only had to do that until she got her appetite back & started drinking on her own, though. With Dipper, hydration was a piece of cake. I don't know that it will be with Tucker, but if I have to, I will. I hope its not that. Tuck is drinking on his own, lots; its what made me worry about him in the 1st place, but maybe not enough for whatever his new hydration needs are. That's one theory. I hope its not the case, though.

[tlynn78]

Glad Tuck is back home, at least, and the news is somewhat good-ish. Poor baby. I feel for you if you have to hydrate his cranky self.

[ghostjmf]

I talked to the vet's assistant today & they say that kidney failure was not one of the things suggested by their original set of tests. I'd really like the results of those tests, much like my doctors send me for tests on me.


We're still working on how to get Tuck to eat the stone-dissolving food. I really don't want to starve him into having to eat it, in his current condition. The assistant is going to see if there's another stone-dissolving food out there. I thought Tucker would like this one, because its made by Hill(s), as is his regular food, which he likes.


He perked up a little last night. And was trying to comfort me about some stuff. He picks up on vibes; if only he would pick up on the "you need to eat this; it will be good for you; you don't want surgery" vibe.


Vet's assistant says that from the sound of how down he was until recently, I should have brought him back in, but they didn't say what they would do to perk him up. I am hoping just not being at the vet's will perk him up.

[ghostjmf]

Rereading my own posts, I see, as I feared, it looks like I didn't want to spend $2,000.00 more $$ on Tuck. That wasn't it; I know bladder stone surgery can be done with no ill effects, because my sister's Lhasa Apso, with the longest urethra in the dog world, had to have urethra stone surgery when one of about 30 bladder stones blocked his urethra. So they went after all 30 of course. They were actually all positioned in the urethra. The vet had never seen so many in one dog. He survived wonderfully (& died 3 months later of some horrible probable brain tumor, but that's another story).


But I know stuff can go wrong in surgery. And if the surgery caused him any pain at all, if they had to cut into him rather than just snake up the tube nature provided (for some reason, I believe, they did have to cut into Facto) I knew he wasn't going to take it well. He's not taking the ordeal so well right now even without having had the surgery.


I can speak as a recovering "surgery on internal stuff" patient myself; it can hurt a lot. Doesn't have to, but can.


Now I gotta get home to the patient.

[ghostjmf]

I just looked up the subject & they do do lithotripsy on cats for bladder stones. Hmm. Gotta ask vet about that. I know even that doesn't always work; didn't work so well on a human I used to work for who had it done for one of their kidney stones. "Well. they tell me kidney stone is now smaller."

[a1mamacat]

no way did I read anything into your post about the $2000 being the major factor.

Yes, if you can pay the money and be assured he will recover fully and such, well why not. If, however, there is some doubt as to the success of the surgery, or that it will actually worsen the problem, then I, personally, would not think it a reasonable expense. If $2000 would be an burden to your life, and I admit I would not be able to swing it, then it would not be a good decision.

I think you are being logical and level-headed. It is obvious how much you care for him, and would not hesitate to get the surgery if that was the best thing for him.

[ghostjmf]

I didn't think anyone had said I was a cat cheapskate, its just the way I read it myself. Its a big bunch of money, but I have it. Its money I won't have later, & right now every bit out counts, but I would swing it if the surgery were essential & if Tuck wasn't such a tough customer. I & the vet, though the vet was being a tough cookie about it, thought he was stressed to the max the 1st visit.


I don't know how stressed he was on the 2nd visit because they wouldn't let me accompany him when they tried to sedate him for his tests, but that 3 levels of sedative didn't work, & they had to put him under general anaesthesia, had me really scared. He finally perked up yesterday enough to keep leading me over to the food dishes to put in his request for better food; he hasn't eaten much of the dissolution diet food. I'm not gonna keep starving him to get him to eat it; to be discussed with vet's assistant today, I hope.

[a1mamacat]

I didn't think anyone had said I was a cat cheapskate, its just the way I read it myself. Its a big bunch of money, but I have it. Its money I won't have later, & right now every bit out counts, but I would swing it if the surgery were essential & if Tuck wasn't such a tough customer. I & the vet, though the vet was being a tough cookie about it, thought he was stressed to the max the 1st visit.


I don't know how stressed he was on the 2nd visit because they wouldn't let me accompany him when they tried to sedate him for his tests, but that 3 levels of sedative didn't work, & they had to put him under general anaesthesia, had me really scared. He finally perked up yesterday enough to keep leading me over to the food dishes to put in his request for better food; he hasn't eaten much of the dissolution diet food. I'm not gonna keep starving him to get him to eat it; to be discussed with vet's assistant today, I hope.

LOL you were the only one who said it, so I was making sure you knew that it wasn't true

[littlebeast13]

I just looked up the subject & they do do lithotripsy on cats for bladder stones. Hmm. Gotta ask vet about that. I know even that doesn't always work; didn't work so well on a human I used to work for who had it done for one of their kidney stones. "Well. they tell me kidney stone is now smaller."

I've had three lithotripsy procedures, and they've all been successful. The second one did just what it did for your co-worker, it only made the stone smaller... but that's all that was expected because the stone was so large. I knew going in I was going to need a second round. They can only deliver so many shocks to the kidney in one procedure. But it was either that or cut it out, and that didn't sound too tempting...

lb13

[Bob Juch]

I just looked up the subject & they do do lithotripsy on cats for bladder stones. Hmm. Gotta ask vet about that. I know even that doesn't always work; didn't work so well on a human I used to work for who had it done for one of their kidney stones. "Well. they tell me kidney stone is now smaller."

I've had three lithotripsy procedures, and they've all been successful. The second one did just what it did for your co-worker, it only made the stone smaller... but that's all that was expected because the stone was so large. I knew going in I was going to need a second round. They can only deliver so many shocks to the kidney in one procedure. But it was either that or cut it out, and that didn't sound too tempting...

lb13

So you got poor grades in calculus?

[ghostjmf]

More "too little information" I was given last week:


Surgery would have indeed required cutting into Tucker & has about a month recovery rate. I can predict this cat would not have been a happy one. Angell Animal Hospital (formerly Angell Memorial; Angell, whom it is named after, was a person, not a pet, as everyone thinks) does not do lithotripsy. Which is why my not-friendly vet recommended surgery "because he's already anaesthetized", gave me 30 seconds to decide, then agreed that a stone-dissolution diet was the route to go 1st.


Vet called me back today because apparently I'm bothering their assistant too much. Their nice assistant had been leaving me daily messages asking for Tuck's progress, but apparently I'm bothering them by answering them, according to their boss. Vet spilled out a lot of medical terms which even with my background I did not understand, & I was not in position to take notes & they were not slowing down. They did recommend their colleague at Tufts Veterinary School's Small Animal Hospital, which is 2 hours away, where they do do lithotripsy. I'd certainly want to try that before surgery, even though it would mean a 2 hour drive in a car with a wailing Tucker.


A procedure the assistant had told me about that is done at Angell is one I can't remember the official term for, but the description is that they push water up the urethra into the bladder in hopes to dislodge the stones that way. The reason it was not recommended by vet in that speedy conversation where vet talked about surgery is that Tucker's stones are too large for that to work. Assistant didn't know that, had had to check on that in Tucker's case when I asked them if this was a possibility for Tuck, which was one of the reasons vet called me back directly.


I would definitely have OK'd that water-pressure procedure had Tucker been offered it.


I'd been told by someone else at Angell who called me that a bile sludge test I thought I'd already paid for was awaiting payment, & "did I want to OK it". Vet says that in their opinion it's not necessary. They also offered, then told me it was probably not necessary, to test the blood samples they were holding for something I cannot remember the name of. If I or vet changes mind, hospital only holds these blood samples 1 more week. In vet's opinion we need to give dissolution diet a month, maybe 2. They did cough up an alternate formula that Tuck might like better but which works more slowly. I'm picking up a few cans today; at least they are not making me buy the whole crate, as they did with the original formula diet.


The "joke" on all of this is that the only way you can tell if stones are really gone is if you do another ultrasound, which is expensive ($355.00) & has other charges attached, like going through the whole rigmarole with trying to sedate, then anaesthetizing Tucker again. Or I can see if he stops drinking water & peeing up a storm, which is one of the reasons brought him in in the 1st place. They other was an alarming lethargy, which he's currently bounced back from.


One piece of good news, if I haven't already reported it, is that Tuck's urine culture came back negative for bacteria, so that he's not currently having a urinary tract infection.


Vet thinks the high gamma globulin levels that originally alarmed them (& basically had us scanning & X-raying for cancer) are due to immune response to irritation of the bladder by the stones. At least that's what I was able to extract from what they were telling me. They alternate "stop wasting our valuable time" with what is an overload of information & terminology even for me.


For instance, 4-legged animals usually are not bothered by their bladder stones because the stones collect at the bottom of the bladder, which is horizontal when the 4-legged animals are. Unlike 2-legged us & our stones, which wind up blocking our vertical urethras. Well, duh! Vet can be enormously informative when they're not being insulting.


If Tuck shows distress peeing, it would mean he's got an obstruction due to one of these stones, & I'll rush him in for surgery. Otherwise I'm taking the "wait & see" approach. Which we had actually agreed to when I took him home, before all these "more tests pending" calls started coming.


And I have learned from the board's new spelling robot police that "rigamarole" does not have the 1st "a", though it sure looks right to me with it.


Oh yeah; we are giving the dissolution diet on the theory that the stones are struvite. Diet won't work on other forms of stones. Only way to know for sure is actually capturing a stone, via surgery. Unlike people, you can't have cats pee into a strainer in an attempt to catch a stone. Well, you could try, I guess.