WCF and Meowzi
Member Since 2009
Previous post: 6/12
Heh. Looks like we've gone to monthly updates. The update prior to that one was 5/22.
WCR: Still content, affectionate, bright-eyed and perky-eared. She seems to have turned very needy, and has been following me around like a puppy dog, from room to room. She used to do that when she was younger, but not so much in recent years, and I've missed it. Anyway, I walk into LR, she walks into LR. I sit down on floor to sort papers, she hurries over to sit with me. I get up to walk to bookcase at other end of LR to file stuff, and she gets up and follows me. It's very cute, but also makes me a little sad because her joints must be at least a little achey with all that sitting and getting up, in spite of all her supps. I have to keep telling myself that exercise is good for her.
She enjoys her outside time, and I try to take her out in the evening whenever it's not blazing hot. We usually just sit very very still and try to wait for a breeze. She enjoys taking cat naps outdoors
Food-wise, syringe-feeding has been going well. DH is a pro at syringe-feeding; I suck at it - more details to follow below. We've discovered that she will quite reliably eat junky Friskies pouch foods for lunch, so we've been leaving out 1/2 oz lunch for her daily, and she's been eating most of it. A couple of weekends ago, I started trying to get her to eat better-quality NV canned food for lunch, and she will eat it in one or two sittings (it's only 1/2 oz portion for lunch) as long as I sit and coax and handfeed her We still continue syringe-feeding the 2 oz of Wellness, b/c that's where I can make sure she'll get all her supps.
While she couldn't care less about food, she's always eager for a treat, no matter the time of day. In the last month or two, she's been trotting into the kitchen every now and then in the hopes that we'll give her a treat (and we have). Oh, w.r.t. treats, we're very excited about a new compounded chew treat that she'll be getting soon. We got the hospital to order some blank (unmedicated) sample chew treats from VPA to see if she'll eat them, and, to our delight, she loves them. So Dr S will call in to the compounding pharmacy next week to order amlodipine compounded in chew treats.
Speaking of meds, she really really likes her denamarin supplement (or the treat it comes in!) :razz: The following video is of a typical evening right after we get home from work. DH or I will walk over to the dining table to 'wrap' her denamarin tablet in a treat, and she'll hurry over and sit and wait impatiently for it ...
We did her quarterly bloodwork last month, and results came back much better than we'd expected:
In reverse chronological order: 6/29/10 ... 3/30/10 ... 3/2/10 (ref range)
BUN ... 67 ... 71 ... 87 (14 - 36)
Creatinine ... 3.5 ... 4.5 ... 4.6 (0.6 - 2.4)
Calcium ... 11.5 ... 10.5 ... 10.6 (8.2 - 10.8)
Phosphorus ... 5.1 ... 4.4 ... 5.3 (2.4 - 8.2)
HCT ... 38.2 ... 38 ... 37.4 (29 - 48)
PTH ... 0.5 (new ref range 0.4 - 2.5) ... 3.2 ... 13.5 (0 - 4)
iCa ... 1.39 ... 1.35 ... 1.31 (1 - 1.4)
Dr S was just as surprised as I was - he said he was "flabbergasted" at the improvement in her creatinine. I'm not sure what to make of it, and while we're very pleased, we're also acutely aware that it could deteriorate rapidly at any time. I tweaked her calcitriol dose a little (with his blessing) right after we got her results, to see if we could take down her iCa a little, and also to see if that'll lower her phosphorus somewhat.
We also had her blood gases tested at the back-up vet, Dr G, yesterday, and this time, both vets are flabbergasted in a different way over her results. All three of us had all expected her to be mildly acidotic, given her FD and CKD, but the results suggest that she may have mild alkalosis instead. Dr G doesn't have an explanation for it, and will be calling Idexx for a consult:
pH(Ven) ... 7.45 (7.24 - 7.40) HIGH
HCO3(ven) ... 25.9 (22.0 - 24.0) HIGH
PCO2(ven) ... 41.0 (34.0 - 38.0) HIGH
AnGap ... 23.3
tCO2(ven) ... 27.2 (27.0 - 31.0)
Na ... 165.0 (150.0 - 165.0)
K ... 4.4 (3.5 - 5.8)
Cl ... 120.0 (112.0 - 129.0)
Specimen Type = Blood
Specimen Source = Venous
SamType = Ven
Temp = 37.0 C
OT: Civie Cali had her first ever dental cleaning this past Monday, and they found a broken tooth. I didn't want it extracted at our hospital, as they don't have dental rads, so Cali and daddy and I have an appointment to meet with a veterinary dental specialist this coming Tuesday to discuss our options - probably root canal or extraction. We will be meeting with the same specialst who did Hillary's Maui and Sydney's dental cleanings/extractions.
WBR: Been stressing over DH's trip next week. Daddybean will be off to Toronto for a week starting next Friday, which means the needle-phobic mommybean will be responsible for all shots, feeding and SQuids nailbite_smile I've been practising all week (did I mention I HATE needles? and harpoons!) And syringe-feeding ... that good little kitty who sits quietly and opens her mouth at regular intervals for daddybean to syringe-feed, thinks it's a lot of fun to wriggle like an eel, clamp mouth tightly shut - and I mean tightly! - and hop away when mommybean tries to feed ohmygod_smile This morning's breakfast ended up not only in her mouth, but also on her chest, her nose, her head, between her eyes, on the freezer, carpet, ... :roll: I think I am in for a challenging week come next Friday nailbite_smile
Heh. Looks like we've gone to monthly updates. The update prior to that one was 5/22.
WCR: Still content, affectionate, bright-eyed and perky-eared. She seems to have turned very needy, and has been following me around like a puppy dog, from room to room. She used to do that when she was younger, but not so much in recent years, and I've missed it. Anyway, I walk into LR, she walks into LR. I sit down on floor to sort papers, she hurries over to sit with me. I get up to walk to bookcase at other end of LR to file stuff, and she gets up and follows me. It's very cute, but also makes me a little sad because her joints must be at least a little achey with all that sitting and getting up, in spite of all her supps. I have to keep telling myself that exercise is good for her.
She enjoys her outside time, and I try to take her out in the evening whenever it's not blazing hot. We usually just sit very very still and try to wait for a breeze. She enjoys taking cat naps outdoors
Food-wise, syringe-feeding has been going well. DH is a pro at syringe-feeding; I suck at it - more details to follow below. We've discovered that she will quite reliably eat junky Friskies pouch foods for lunch, so we've been leaving out 1/2 oz lunch for her daily, and she's been eating most of it. A couple of weekends ago, I started trying to get her to eat better-quality NV canned food for lunch, and she will eat it in one or two sittings (it's only 1/2 oz portion for lunch) as long as I sit and coax and handfeed her
We still continue syringe-feeding the 2 oz of Wellness, b/c that's where I can make sure she'll get all her supps.While she couldn't care less about food, she's always eager for a treat, no matter the time of day. In the last month or two, she's been trotting into the kitchen every now and then in the hopes that we'll give her a treat (and we have). Oh, w.r.t. treats, we're very excited about a new compounded chew treat that she'll be getting soon. We got the hospital to order some blank (unmedicated) sample chew treats from VPA to see if she'll eat them, and, to our delight, she loves them. So Dr S will call in to the compounding pharmacy next week to order amlodipine compounded in chew treats.
Speaking of meds, she really really likes her denamarin supplement (or the treat it comes in!) :razz: The following video is of a typical evening right after we get home from work. DH or I will walk over to the dining table to 'wrap' her denamarin tablet in a treat, and she'll hurry over and sit and wait impatiently for it ...
We did her quarterly bloodwork last month, and results came back much better than we'd expected:
In reverse chronological order: 6/29/10 ... 3/30/10 ... 3/2/10 (ref range)
BUN ... 67 ... 71 ... 87 (14 - 36)
Creatinine ... 3.5 ... 4.5 ... 4.6 (0.6 - 2.4)
Calcium ... 11.5 ... 10.5 ... 10.6 (8.2 - 10.8)
Phosphorus ... 5.1 ... 4.4 ... 5.3 (2.4 - 8.2)
HCT ... 38.2 ... 38 ... 37.4 (29 - 48)
PTH ... 0.5 (new ref range 0.4 - 2.5) ... 3.2 ... 13.5 (0 - 4)
iCa ... 1.39 ... 1.35 ... 1.31 (1 - 1.4)
Dr S was just as surprised as I was - he said he was "flabbergasted" at the improvement in her creatinine. I'm not sure what to make of it, and while we're very pleased, we're also acutely aware that it could deteriorate rapidly at any time. I tweaked her calcitriol dose a little (with his blessing) right after we got her results, to see if we could take down her iCa a little, and also to see if that'll lower her phosphorus somewhat.
We also had her blood gases tested at the back-up vet, Dr G, yesterday, and this time, both vets are flabbergasted in a different way over her results. All three of us had all expected her to be mildly acidotic, given her FD and CKD, but the results suggest that she may have mild alkalosis instead. Dr G doesn't have an explanation for it, and will be calling Idexx for a consult:
pH(Ven) ... 7.45 (7.24 - 7.40) HIGH
HCO3(ven) ... 25.9 (22.0 - 24.0) HIGH
PCO2(ven) ... 41.0 (34.0 - 38.0) HIGH
AnGap ... 23.3
tCO2(ven) ... 27.2 (27.0 - 31.0)
Na ... 165.0 (150.0 - 165.0)
K ... 4.4 (3.5 - 5.8)
Cl ... 120.0 (112.0 - 129.0)
Specimen Type = Blood
Specimen Source = Venous
SamType = Ven
Temp = 37.0 C
OT: Civie Cali had her first ever dental cleaning this past Monday, and they found a broken tooth. I didn't want it extracted at our hospital, as they don't have dental rads, so Cali and daddy and I have an appointment to meet with a veterinary dental specialist this coming Tuesday to discuss our options - probably root canal or extraction. We will be meeting with the same specialst who did Hillary's Maui and Sydney's dental cleanings/extractions.
WBR: Been stressing over DH's trip next week. Daddybean will be off to Toronto for a week starting next Friday, which means the needle-phobic mommybean will be responsible for all shots, feeding and SQuids nailbite_smile I've been practising all week (did I mention I HATE needles? and harpoons!) And syringe-feeding ... that good little kitty who sits quietly and opens her mouth at regular intervals for daddybean to syringe-feed, thinks it's a lot of fun to wriggle like an eel, clamp mouth tightly shut - and I mean tightly! - and hop away when mommybean tries to feed ohmygod_smile This morning's breakfast ended up not only in her mouth, but also on her chest, her nose, her head, between her eyes, on the freezer, carpet, ... :roll: I think I am in for a challenging week come next Friday nailbite_smile
