chriscleo
Member Since 2009
it's been a bad week for cleo. not sure what's going on but brought her to the ER on wednesday coz she collapsed. she seemed to slip about 2-3 inches off the bed onto the nightstand and just lay there crumpled, even when i moved her against the pillow. scared the crap outta me.
they were very nice and gave her a thorough physical exam. temp normal, weight unchanged (first time in 3 months she hadn't lost), heart okay but her typical slight murmur when in distress, full bladder, resident thought kidneys felt a little small. vet watched her walk in the room and be distressed she couldn't jump up onto the bench to hide in her carrier, and she noticed some pain near the tail, so vet brought her back to see the ortho vet. they decided cleo has a soft tissue injury mid-back so they just recommended increased pain meds and regular stuff i do. i wanted a urine test done because she's on a chemo that's tough on the bladder but her regular internal med vet said we could wait til her next scheduled visit (she goes monthly for an oncology recheck and she'd just been there 2.5 weeks earlier).
really good news is that they only charged me $42 for this, so they waived the emergency fee of $95 as well as all other costs including consult with ortho guy. i'd been a little scared about the bill coz each unexpected expense probably means one less chemo treatment because i'm broke. they know this, so they were so kind about it. i was in shock when they told me the charge.
yesterday she stopped eating altogether and collapsed again. force fed her a jar of baby food, via 4-5 fingerfuls every 2 hours, then got DH to pick up some deli chicken, which got her excited but she only ate 2 bites. then i had chicken tikka masala (TV dinner) and she wanted the chicken outta that so she got some. that jumpstarted her appetite and she ate some wet and dry at night in the bedroom.
today she collapsed again--just went down onto her side near the food bowl, and lay there for a while before she sat back up again. scares me to death but it's hard to tell whether it is from a soft tissue injury or from not eating enuf or what. she is managing to go up and downstairs and jump onto me when i'm sitting on the recliner, so that's better than she was on wednesday when i brought her to the vet. wasn't eating enuf so i just fed her baby food again and she enjoyed it. just trying to make sure she gets around 150 calories a day.
preshot values have been her highest in a long time. one 344 thursday night and one 390 yesterday morning but after fluids a couple nights she's been testing mostly in the 100s and one 216. i reduced her dose from 1.5 to 1.25 because she had a huge drop after the 390. (going off tilly for this because she is a cancer kitty and inappetance is a real problem. can't deal with hypo on top of her other health issues.)
yesterday i consulted with the resident intern (specialty training) on the phone who saw her on wednesday and we decided to bring her in on sunday morning if she's no better. had a choice of bringing her in right away, bringing her sunday when internal med vet is seeing patients, bringing her on tuesday when the new oncologist starts seeing clients, or waiting til the 25th for her regular onco recheck. i really hate to bring her in early between the cost and the additional stress to cleo, but i was just too scared she wouldn't be alive til the 25th if vet didn't see her.
if she hadn't eaten a decent amount yesterday (tho most was forced), she'd be in there now. just can't imagine that nausea and a sore back would cause a collapse, so i'm concerned it's something worse. it's a difficult call, because she actually looks pretty good. i just didn't think the weakness is from injury so i wish they had run the tests i wanted on wednesday instead of deciding to wait. now we have stress of yet another vet visit. gave her anzemet about 3 hrs ago so if it's chemo-related nausea i'm hoping that will help. gave it yesterday too. no litterbox problems--she's using it okay. extra water drinking, tho, but she needs to do that to counter the chemo (cytoxan).
anyway, sorry this is so long. gives me a chance to document what's going on. hoping for good thoughts for vet visit and for cleo in general. she's been fighting lymphoma for over a year now and it's been tough on the poor gal. she went from tight regulation on diabetes to looser regulation because she had so many meds and so much treatment to deal with that i just wanted her to feel a little more like a cat than a patient, then i had decided to tighten regulation again, and then this. just doing the best we can with a lot of health issues.
they were very nice and gave her a thorough physical exam. temp normal, weight unchanged (first time in 3 months she hadn't lost), heart okay but her typical slight murmur when in distress, full bladder, resident thought kidneys felt a little small. vet watched her walk in the room and be distressed she couldn't jump up onto the bench to hide in her carrier, and she noticed some pain near the tail, so vet brought her back to see the ortho vet. they decided cleo has a soft tissue injury mid-back so they just recommended increased pain meds and regular stuff i do. i wanted a urine test done because she's on a chemo that's tough on the bladder but her regular internal med vet said we could wait til her next scheduled visit (she goes monthly for an oncology recheck and she'd just been there 2.5 weeks earlier).
really good news is that they only charged me $42 for this, so they waived the emergency fee of $95 as well as all other costs including consult with ortho guy. i'd been a little scared about the bill coz each unexpected expense probably means one less chemo treatment because i'm broke. they know this, so they were so kind about it. i was in shock when they told me the charge.
yesterday she stopped eating altogether and collapsed again. force fed her a jar of baby food, via 4-5 fingerfuls every 2 hours, then got DH to pick up some deli chicken, which got her excited but she only ate 2 bites. then i had chicken tikka masala (TV dinner) and she wanted the chicken outta that so she got some. that jumpstarted her appetite and she ate some wet and dry at night in the bedroom.
today she collapsed again--just went down onto her side near the food bowl, and lay there for a while before she sat back up again. scares me to death but it's hard to tell whether it is from a soft tissue injury or from not eating enuf or what. she is managing to go up and downstairs and jump onto me when i'm sitting on the recliner, so that's better than she was on wednesday when i brought her to the vet. wasn't eating enuf so i just fed her baby food again and she enjoyed it. just trying to make sure she gets around 150 calories a day.
preshot values have been her highest in a long time. one 344 thursday night and one 390 yesterday morning but after fluids a couple nights she's been testing mostly in the 100s and one 216. i reduced her dose from 1.5 to 1.25 because she had a huge drop after the 390. (going off tilly for this because she is a cancer kitty and inappetance is a real problem. can't deal with hypo on top of her other health issues.)
yesterday i consulted with the resident intern (specialty training) on the phone who saw her on wednesday and we decided to bring her in on sunday morning if she's no better. had a choice of bringing her in right away, bringing her sunday when internal med vet is seeing patients, bringing her on tuesday when the new oncologist starts seeing clients, or waiting til the 25th for her regular onco recheck. i really hate to bring her in early between the cost and the additional stress to cleo, but i was just too scared she wouldn't be alive til the 25th if vet didn't see her.
if she hadn't eaten a decent amount yesterday (tho most was forced), she'd be in there now. just can't imagine that nausea and a sore back would cause a collapse, so i'm concerned it's something worse. it's a difficult call, because she actually looks pretty good. i just didn't think the weakness is from injury so i wish they had run the tests i wanted on wednesday instead of deciding to wait. now we have stress of yet another vet visit. gave her anzemet about 3 hrs ago so if it's chemo-related nausea i'm hoping that will help. gave it yesterday too. no litterbox problems--she's using it okay. extra water drinking, tho, but she needs to do that to counter the chemo (cytoxan).
anyway, sorry this is so long. gives me a chance to document what's going on. hoping for good thoughts for vet visit and for cleo in general. she's been fighting lymphoma for over a year now and it's been tough on the poor gal. she went from tight regulation on diabetes to looser regulation because she had so many meds and so much treatment to deal with that i just wanted her to feel a little more like a cat than a patient, then i had decided to tighten regulation again, and then this. just doing the best we can with a lot of health issues.
Sending good thoughts, and love. 
