Lynee and Max
Member Since 2009
The Miracle Max pulls off yet another miracle . . . A few days late (due to bean being overworked and underpaid) we are celebrating one year OTJ. Max officially went OTJ on 2/4/10. I’ll start this celebration by giving everybody a walk down memory lane of what we went through and where this all started.
On February 14, 2010, I sat on the couch in my house bawling my eyes out when DH walked through the door after a long day of work. All day long I knew there was something very seriously wrong with Max. Leading up to this day, I had noticed weight loss, but it was a welcome sight because Max was overweight (weighing in at 28 lbs). Over a period of time though, certain things started to happen that I noticed but was too scared to take him to the vet. I have never had good experiences with vets as we lost two very precious pets of ours within 30 days apart from each other back in 2001. So a vet visit to me brought sorrow. But this particular day I knew that he needed immediate attention. He lay on my kitchen floor in a puddle of his own urine and was barely breathing.
DH and I rushed him to the ER vet and sat in the room in tears, holding each other for comfort, waiting for the bad news that was to come. The vet came in the room with Max and said that it’s not as bad as it could be . . . his kidneys were not failing, but he was diabetic with a BG reading of 599. We left him there for the night and they immediately put an IV in him and started fluids along with insulin.
We went to pick him up the next morning and took him to our regular vet. After a long consultation and our vet assuring us that he was equipped to treat this . . . we left Max for the day as he was critical and needed 24 hour supervised care. We knew that our vet closed at noon that day but he assured us that since he lived right next door, he would be in and out all day monitoring Max. The next day, he called us and told us to pick him up and bring him home. He had given him another bag of fluids and once that bag was emptied, Max needed to come home for us to care for him. No instructions were given other than to “try” to get him to eat. If he was no better by Monday (this was on a Thursday) to bring him back in and they will PTS.
After many attempts at syringe feeding, which by the way were completely unsuccessful, and all the pushes (and I am thankful for each and every one of them) from members of FDMB, we took him Friday morning to another vet.
We were told upon initial exam that this did not look good and his chances were very very slim. They had never seen a cat survive what he was going through. We found out then that every organ in his body was shutting down and he would be gone within 24 hours if we did not immediately operate to insert a feeding tube. And then there was still no guarantee of anything. They did not even know if he was strong enough for the surgery to pull through the anesthesia.
We were left in the room with Max to ‘say our goodbyes’ before taking him into surgery. We told Max how much we loved him and NEEDED him in our lives and if he could just give this life one more chance, I promised him he would not regret it. So out the door we went to go home and wait for the call if the surgery was successful. Within 20 minutes the phone rang and Max had pulled off a miracle and made it through surgery.
Max remained at the vet for three weeks with 24 hour care of feedings through the tube every three hours. During this time, we would go visit Max every day. He would be brought into a special room to sit with us that looked like a living room. We would try everything to get him to eat because he was not allowed to come home with us until he was eating on his own. He would not use the LB as he didn’t have the strength to stand up and get into it. So every morning he would have to be bathed and clean bedding put in his cage because it and he would be saturated with urine.
During his time at the vet, they got his BG levels down into the 200’s range, liver values were coming back up (I forgot to mention that Max was completely jaundice due to liver failure) and all other values were approaching normal levels.
Finally, after three weeks of being at the vet, he still wouldn’t eat on his own. They decided (or I guess I should say . . . we told them) let us take him home and see how he does. So we brought our boy home.
For a week I spent my time blending food in a blender, counting calories and syringing food through his tube every three hours (round the clock). He finally started sniffing the end of the syringe in interest of what I was pushing into his belly. Then became yet another miracle . . . Max began licking the liquefied food off a plate. What he didn’t finish, I would push through the tube.
One morning at his 2:00 am feeding, I went into the bedroom where he was sleeping, armed with the syringe of food and syringe of water only to find Max lying upside down on the bed with the feeding tube lying across his belly. He decided for himself that he no longer needed it and pulled it out. The next morning we took him back to the vet. All levels were checked and were completely back to normal. I could finally breathe a little.
We still weren’t out of the woods yet because if he didn’t continue to eat on his own, we had to start all over again. For a period of one week shy of a year, I continued feeding Max small meals every three hours round the clock. Continued with constant follow up visits to check levels. Then one day Max performed the ultimate miracle and went OTJ.
So here we are a year later . . . . a very happy boy who continuously does EVERYTHING in his power to get to the dry food in the house that the kittens eat (yes I know, bad bad bad . . . but when you are feeding 7 cats, you sometimes have to compromise and mix a little dry with the wet just to make food last when the money runs out). He gets himself into all sorts of troubles and is back to being a complete terror and ruling the house.
So for newbie’s out there . . . when you think this can’t be done and it’s just too much to handle, think about Max’s story. A kitty that was never expected by anybody to survive is now a year OTJ and living life to the fullest.
I owe this to so many people for their time and effort that they put in to being there for me when I was at a loss, crying thinking this was the end, and helping me to figure out how to treat this very special kitty. Give yourselves a pat on back because our boy has reached a great milestone. Happy Annifursary Max. Mommy and Daddy love you more than words can possibly say. You are our special boy and continue to bring a smile to our face every single day.
On February 14, 2010, I sat on the couch in my house bawling my eyes out when DH walked through the door after a long day of work. All day long I knew there was something very seriously wrong with Max. Leading up to this day, I had noticed weight loss, but it was a welcome sight because Max was overweight (weighing in at 28 lbs). Over a period of time though, certain things started to happen that I noticed but was too scared to take him to the vet. I have never had good experiences with vets as we lost two very precious pets of ours within 30 days apart from each other back in 2001. So a vet visit to me brought sorrow. But this particular day I knew that he needed immediate attention. He lay on my kitchen floor in a puddle of his own urine and was barely breathing.
DH and I rushed him to the ER vet and sat in the room in tears, holding each other for comfort, waiting for the bad news that was to come. The vet came in the room with Max and said that it’s not as bad as it could be . . . his kidneys were not failing, but he was diabetic with a BG reading of 599. We left him there for the night and they immediately put an IV in him and started fluids along with insulin.
We went to pick him up the next morning and took him to our regular vet. After a long consultation and our vet assuring us that he was equipped to treat this . . . we left Max for the day as he was critical and needed 24 hour supervised care. We knew that our vet closed at noon that day but he assured us that since he lived right next door, he would be in and out all day monitoring Max. The next day, he called us and told us to pick him up and bring him home. He had given him another bag of fluids and once that bag was emptied, Max needed to come home for us to care for him. No instructions were given other than to “try” to get him to eat. If he was no better by Monday (this was on a Thursday) to bring him back in and they will PTS.
After many attempts at syringe feeding, which by the way were completely unsuccessful, and all the pushes (and I am thankful for each and every one of them) from members of FDMB, we took him Friday morning to another vet.
We were told upon initial exam that this did not look good and his chances were very very slim. They had never seen a cat survive what he was going through. We found out then that every organ in his body was shutting down and he would be gone within 24 hours if we did not immediately operate to insert a feeding tube. And then there was still no guarantee of anything. They did not even know if he was strong enough for the surgery to pull through the anesthesia.
We were left in the room with Max to ‘say our goodbyes’ before taking him into surgery. We told Max how much we loved him and NEEDED him in our lives and if he could just give this life one more chance, I promised him he would not regret it. So out the door we went to go home and wait for the call if the surgery was successful. Within 20 minutes the phone rang and Max had pulled off a miracle and made it through surgery.
Max remained at the vet for three weeks with 24 hour care of feedings through the tube every three hours. During this time, we would go visit Max every day. He would be brought into a special room to sit with us that looked like a living room. We would try everything to get him to eat because he was not allowed to come home with us until he was eating on his own. He would not use the LB as he didn’t have the strength to stand up and get into it. So every morning he would have to be bathed and clean bedding put in his cage because it and he would be saturated with urine.
During his time at the vet, they got his BG levels down into the 200’s range, liver values were coming back up (I forgot to mention that Max was completely jaundice due to liver failure) and all other values were approaching normal levels.
Finally, after three weeks of being at the vet, he still wouldn’t eat on his own. They decided (or I guess I should say . . . we told them) let us take him home and see how he does. So we brought our boy home.
For a week I spent my time blending food in a blender, counting calories and syringing food through his tube every three hours (round the clock). He finally started sniffing the end of the syringe in interest of what I was pushing into his belly. Then became yet another miracle . . . Max began licking the liquefied food off a plate. What he didn’t finish, I would push through the tube.
One morning at his 2:00 am feeding, I went into the bedroom where he was sleeping, armed with the syringe of food and syringe of water only to find Max lying upside down on the bed with the feeding tube lying across his belly. He decided for himself that he no longer needed it and pulled it out. The next morning we took him back to the vet. All levels were checked and were completely back to normal. I could finally breathe a little.
We still weren’t out of the woods yet because if he didn’t continue to eat on his own, we had to start all over again. For a period of one week shy of a year, I continued feeding Max small meals every three hours round the clock. Continued with constant follow up visits to check levels. Then one day Max performed the ultimate miracle and went OTJ.
So here we are a year later . . . . a very happy boy who continuously does EVERYTHING in his power to get to the dry food in the house that the kittens eat (yes I know, bad bad bad . . . but when you are feeding 7 cats, you sometimes have to compromise and mix a little dry with the wet just to make food last when the money runs out). He gets himself into all sorts of troubles and is back to being a complete terror and ruling the house.
So for newbie’s out there . . . when you think this can’t be done and it’s just too much to handle, think about Max’s story. A kitty that was never expected by anybody to survive is now a year OTJ and living life to the fullest.
I owe this to so many people for their time and effort that they put in to being there for me when I was at a loss, crying thinking this was the end, and helping me to figure out how to treat this very special kitty. Give yourselves a pat on back because our boy has reached a great milestone. Happy Annifursary Max. Mommy and Daddy love you more than words can possibly say. You are our special boy and continue to bring a smile to our face every single day.
