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lisaviolet
Friday, 02/27/2004 - 11:05 AM PDT
The topic: Fingers and toes crossed...


Friday, February 27, 2004 Well, I've got all of my fingers and toes crossed. I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel concerning Ciara's problem. Her poo (everytime I type that I think of a little bear and the scrunchy I got at Disneyland one year because my hair was extremely annoying and the jokes my friends made "you've got Pooh in your hair!" they told me, repeatedly), while far from normal, is much better than it was three days ago.

Wednesday morning, she still wasn't eating and she was still dripping. I've got a couple of analogies here that are gonna sound pretty gross, but they are the only universal type of things I could come up with, in the way of describing what she's going through. You know when you're menstruating and you have absolutely no control over what your body does, you can only plug it? Well, that's what it was like with her and her stool. Except that plugging it was not an option. And what she was dripping? Well, have you ever cooked spinach and noticed that green, watery spinach juice that you drain off? That juice is what her stool looked like. There was no odor what-so-ever, and I thought that odd. And it was eating up her little butt.

I was still giving her the fluids and I was a little more assured that she was getting her needed meds, using those gel caps (by the way, if you're interested in them, I ordered some (a thousand, should last years) here, the size 3; I read on one website where the cats liked the taste of the ones made with beef more than the vegetarian kind). Concerned that she still wasn't eating, I checked my pet pharmacy (stuff I've gotten in the past that wasn't used up and still hadn't reached the expiration date) for some periactin, an appetite stimulant. I had some, but wasn't going to administer it until I got the vet's approval. I called a little after eight to see if they could check when he got in if it would be okay. He was already in and said that it would be fine to give to her. And I might also think about getting her some Hill's A/D, which is pretty darned tasty and pretty darned digestible. Since the gel caps hadn't arrived yet, I'm still dumping out the milk thistle caps. I dumped one and put the half periactin tab in it (it fit!) and gave that to her. A few hours later, I went to the vet's office and used my Christmas money to buy a case of A/D. I also got a catheter syringe, in case I had to start force feeding her. I wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

Well, when I got home, I opened up a can of A/D and put some on a paper plate. Boy, was she interested in this. She started lapping. I was thrilled! She ate a little bit, then started covering the plate. I left it there for her and let her rest. As the day wore on, her drippings looked less and less like spinach juice and more like A/D. Yeah, it looked like it wasn't stopping much through her system, but it wasn't as runny and nasty. Because her backside was so dirty, I gave her a little bath, just to get her tail, back legs and butt, and it really stressed her out. We were both in the tub, the enclosure door shut and I could tell she wasn't taking it well. And I could see what a toll this was taking on her. Her back heels were just red and raw. It just broke my heart.

When I tried drying her off, the stool just started dripping out of her again, but, like I said, it didn't look so bad. She went into the carrier and I just let her be. As the day wore on, I tried combing her out. She wasn't at all interested in grooming herself. I turned on the heater and just hoped she'd be okay. The good thing was there wasn't all that much fur back there, what with me trimming it, and both vets trimming even more. Later, I gave her fluids and, once again, poo spilled from her. Would this ever end? I started thinking that maybe we'll be living with this for a long time, after all, the vet said it could be at least three weeks to see any improvement, and even then, there was a possibility it would be a lifetime thing for her.

Wednesday night and yesterday morning were pretty much the same. She still was dripping, although now it looked exactly like the A/D. I pulled the little water bowl out of the bathroom and put the big one in, the old crockpot, the one that I've had in there for years. And I decided not to give her fluids, to see if that might have been one of the problems. I gave her a little bath in the sink, which was more open and not nearly as traumatic for her. And I could just get the parts of her that were bad, her back legs, tail and butt. A lot of feces and old fur went down the drain. I ended up combing out quite a bit more from her tail. And last night, she finally started purring for me again. She purred a lot.

Something else I did was I gave her some dry food. I gave her Purina One last night and could tell she'd eaten a little this morning. And this morning, I gave her Sensible Choice. She ate some of that. I gave her her pills and about an hour later, dished up some fresh A/D. She ate some of that. What really was a wonderful thing to see was her going over to the water bowl and drinking. What a great sign that she was feeling better. Around 8:30 this morning, she made it to the litter box, no drips. The stool was looking more like normal loose cat stool, not like A/D or spinach juice. I think the dry food was helping.

I opened the door and let her out of the bathroom. She went into the garage and used the litterbox. Then she got on top of one of the condos. She moved from there and went into one of the tubes. Within an hour, she was back in the house, at the big free feeder, eating Sensible Choice kibble. She went back to it a couple of times. Then she went into the family room, crawled into one of the short condos and she's been there for a couple of hours now, resting more comfortably than I've seen her in close to two weeks. It's so adorable, she puts one of her paws over her face.

I made the appointment for her recheck for next Monday at 9:15. The vet will take more blood and see what progress, if any, we're making. From the looks of it, we're making lots of progress. Knock on wood.

So, what else? Lots and lots of rain. I don't know that I've ever experienced the rain here as hard as it was coming down last night. I worried for the ferals, but looking outside, I saw both Little Bit and KittyMeeze cuddled up on one of the blankets in the entry way. They were on the one that's over the feeding station, one with one of those self heating pads. All of the little beds are up off of the ground. The rain was hammering down and from the looks of it, the entry way was flooded, but the cats stayed dry.

The air is so fresh and clear now, I think I'd love to dress in warm clothes and go for a ride in our local mountains. We haven't done that in a while and I think now that Ciara is feeling better, I could do it without spending so much time worrying about her. Brian is taking most of the day off, helping his brother get ready for a big swap meet. When he's done with that, we're going to go shopping. And then we're going to dinner. I told him I'd like to hit happy hour. I'd like to be happy. :lol

That's about it for now. I cleaned the house Wednesday, since I didn't do it last Friday. Don't have much laundry either, since the machine has been going about non-stop since Ciara got sick. I do have a bed to make, though. Guess I'll sign off and go take care of that.

Oh, and I'm going to go watch Ciara sleep.

Replies: 4 comments


:) (((Ciara and Lisa))) Oh, I so pray that you are on the upswing of this. It's so hard to watch one your your babies go through such a hard time. Have a toast tonight to have (hopefully) a quiet, event free weekend with Ciara eating well. :)

Posted by Terry @ 02/27/2004 01:06 PM PDT


I'm so happy for you. I've been so worried about Ciara, checking the site offen for updates and it's sounds like she is feeling so much better. What a great way to start the weekend! Yea!! :)

Posted by Melanee @ 02/27/2004 01:50 PM PDT


Lisa, you and Ciara are on my heart this weekend. I hope she is still recovering.

Posted by Terry @ 02/29/2004 04:20 PM PDT


Bless your hearts! Awwww, sweet little Ciara, what a horrible mess she's been through. I hope this upswing is permanent. And I would so like to watch her sleeping too. My Chewie sleeps with his huge paw over his face. Looking forward to update.

Posted by Nancy @ 03/01/2004 09:34 AM PDT



lisaviolet is fifty something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

February 2004
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