Friday, February 18, 2011

This is a hard time.

So Stamford (the kitten with a vast array of health problems) has been defecating and urinating outside his box for a couple of weeks now. His vet just said it was probably a stress reaction to having a new cat in a very confined area (when I moved, I brought my cat to join the two kittens, who'd already had to live with him for considerable periods of time, but with more rooms and opportunities to separate themselves in my apartment). So, after he continued to get worse and worse about it, we got him cat prozac -- which is, apparently, human prozac, but it's mixed to supposedly taste like salmon.

Well, last night, I found out it was likely all in vain. I took him to the ER at an all-night veterinary hospital because he's having issues with his back legs. He doesn't look balanced, he has had increasing difficulty jumping, and the one time I saw him go to the bathroom in the living room (not in his box), he was just walking along, and all of a sudden, it was like his back end just twisted.  I didn't even realize he'd pooped, but my wife could smell it immediately. It was like he didn't even know what he was doing.

The bad news is that it seems that he doesn't. He has no idea.  Given his feline coronavirus and the wildly varying symptoms of FIP, the veterinarian thinks that he's experiencing primary FIP infection and it's causing neurological symptoms, which have explained the progression in his loss of ability to use his back legs.  In short, she thinks he's going to die in the very near future.

I've spent thousands trying to keep him alive.  It has really been more than $2,000 at this point with all the vet bills. Most people would be glad to have it end, no more wiping up urine every time I need to use the bathroom, no more trying to squeeze in trips to the vet in between 14 hour work days. Not me. I just want my friend. And that, apparently, is what I can't have.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh Tim, I'm so sorry to hear that. Dealing with this kind of thing is devastating, to say the least.

MTK said...

I'm sorry, Tim. Stamford is a good cat.