West Michigan Rehomed

02/03/2024

We have been so busy these last few weeks! Everything has settled down after moving and Judy and the rest of the group are settling in ☺️

01/18/2024

We are all wishing him the best. Below is the latest update from the poster!

"Long update about Mr. Vader as I just got off of the phone with the veterinarian.

So, he did really well overnight and seems to be more comfortable. He still has his urinary catheter in and it was just mucus/sludge that was stuck causing the blockage vs stones. The urinalysis they did can't give them a truly accurate picture of what is going on as there is too much blood and it's too dark, but it did at least have crystals, high protein, and the obvious cells and blood. They were able to clear that initial plug out so he can urinate with the catheter in but his urine is extremely bloody and dark which is expected after they are blocked because there is just so much irritation and inflammation. He is still on IV fluids to help his kidneys since being blocked damages them which is called an acute kidney injury. The extra fluids will keep urine production high to help flush his bladder as well and help his kidneys filter out the toxins that built up in his blood when he was not able to urinate.
She is concerned because he does have a slight fever at the moment, so they will be monitoring that to see if additional interventions are needed such as IV antibiotics and medication to bring the temperature down as it could be that he is starting to show the effects of a kidney/bladder infection from the whole ordeal. They will be rechecking his bloodwork in a few hours which will tell them if his kidney values have went down and headed in the right direction. If the bloodwork looks better, then they don't necessarily need to repeat it later on because the attempt to remove the catheter.
They can't remove the urinary catheter until a few hours after his urine is coming out clear and there is no more blood which typically happens around 48 hours after it was placed and the absolute minimum she would be comfortable removing it at is around 48 hours. Ideally, you want them hospitalized/catheterized for 72 hours to give them a better chance of not reobstructing. The game plan is to do the bare minimum of supportive care for the next 24 hours and then pull the catheter unless it'd be irresponsible to do so because that would mean that he would just need to be recatheterized and we'd essentially have to pay for everything over again. It is way more cost effective to keep him hospitalized with fluids and the catheter in place at around $180 for another 24 hours with medications of $50-100.
The big test is whether or not he can urinate on his own once they remove the catheter tomorrow afternoon. Once removed, they will closely monitor him for around 4-6 hours to make sure that he can urinate. If he cannot, then we might have to consider humane euthanasia as his prognosis is worse and the cost will be huge with additional days of hospitalization. If he is able to urinate on his own though, then I can potentially take him home for financial reasons even though it is not really advised but that's a bridge we will cross when we get there. The other big determining factor is if his bloodwork/kidney values look better when rechecked in a few hours and if his fever does not rise.

The current total is $1525 and the bloodwork that will be run this afternoon will be $67.25. Hospitalization is approximately $180 and continued medications $50-100 for the next 24 hours. If we choose to intervene because of his fever, that would be more but was not discussed because we hope we don't have to get to that point. The veterinarian said she'd expect $450 more ontop of the current $1525 for the next 24 hours of care but with the other prices she gave me, the cost would be another $350, so not sure if the $450 was a rough estimate but I approved the bloodwork for $67.25, hospitalization for $180 and medications for $50-100. She said that cats can recover successfully from being blocked but the challenge is just how long it takes for them to recover and how hospitalization for 3+ days just is not possible for way too many owners. I won't be able to do this for his family without your help and I am so grateful to everyone who has already donated ❤️ Keep Vader in your thoughts!

Donations can also be made directly to Family Friends Veterinary Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI at 616-575-6520 for Vader under my name (Christine Haynes). An amazing local rescue Fig and Friends Pet Rescue also saw my post and agreed to help cover some of the cost to save his life so he can make it back home."

Vader is a 2 year old cat who still has so much love to give. My friend contacte… Christine Haynes needs your support for Emergency Veterinary Care for Vader

01/17/2024

Jaycee is resting up after having surgery yesterday. She is without a doubt feeling much better without that painful eye!! 🙌

01/11/2024

We have GREAT (and slightly frustrating) news about miss Judy Bloom 🥳🥳🥳🥳

In true cat fashion... we had an appointment with a veterinarian yesterday who is skilled diagnostic ultrasounds and her bladder is completely NORMAL. The veterinarian suspects that we were seeing sludge (cats can have urine that has a lot of debris) or just artifacts which are just misleading images due to the ultrasound waves reflecting off tissues incorrectly amongst other factors (think of a taking a photo in the dark with a flash and the flash causes random streaks/orbs after reflecting off objects). This is why it was absolutely necessary that she went to a veterinarian trained in ultrasounds to fully assess her bladder.

So, after chasing down the multiple red herrings Judy threw at us resulting in blood tests, multiple urinalyses and specialized urine tests, blood pressure measurements, a preliminary ultrasound, and a diagnostic ultrasound... we are back to behavioral causes and will be trying anti-anxiety medications 😆 She does need one more blood test just to recheck organ function, but after that, she will be happy not having to go to the veterinarian every week. Oooooooh Judy how I love you so.

01/08/2024

Eye update on miss Jaycee because what is cat rescue if you do not have multiple major medical cases at once 🫠

Jaycee was returned on 12/30 and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Two days later on 1/1, I noticed an ulcer on her left eye and also other changes that were concerning. The next day, her eye continued to become more cloudy but I was not able to get her into the vet until the 3rd. When she was seen on the 3rd, the veterinarian was particularly concerned with the white material that was in the front chamber of her eye. She also noted a small ulcer but we think it may have been self inflicted after the other issues caused her eye to become painful. The veterinarian tested her intraocular pressure and it was elevated in her left eye meaning she has glaucoma. Secondary glaucoma in cats is usually a result of uveitis (inflammation inside of the eye) which then prevents fluid from circulating causing pressure to build up. Uveitis can cause white blood cells and fibrin to accumulate in the anterior chamber of the eye which is all the white material that can be seen.

Unfortunately, uveitis and glaucoma can progress incredibly fast and glaucoma causes permanant damage by the time symptoms are noticed. Looking back at the photos from the 1st day she was back in my care, I can now see that her left eye does look dull and cloudy but I didn't notice at the time as there can be weird glares in photos. 2 days later, the symptoms were obvious and it was already too far gone. I asked the family that returned her if they noticed anything and she said she didn't but her son had noticed her eye slightly changing colors the few days before she was returned. Even if the glaucoma was caught when her eye started to change colors, it's likely it was already too late and management of glaucoma can be extremely tricky and requires seeing an ophthalmologist. At this point, all we can do is remove the eye which will resolve any and all issues especially since she has no vision in the eye. She will be perfectly happy and healthy with only one eye. She is on medications to keep her as pain free as possible until her surgery on the 15th. We will likely need to see it off for histopathology to make sure it's nothing more serious such as cancer.

Moral of the story: Cats never fail to amaze me with new medical conditions and can go from their eye being perfectly fine to needing to be removed from unknown definitive reasons in only a few days. Jaycee's keeping things interesting!

01/05/2024

Jaycee and Finnick were adopted a year ago from us and due to unforseen family circumstances, they had to be returned last week. It's so crazy seeing these little ones after so long.
Jaycee also surprised us when her eye suddenly started showing changes 2 days after we got her back and then quickly deteriorated over the weekend. She will need to have her left eye removed due to damage caused by acute glaucoma and we will explain more about it in another post. Her surgery is scheduled for the 15th, so wish her a smooth surgery and quick recovery🙏

12/31/2023

As 2023 comes to a close, we are so thankful for everyone who has supported us throughout the year. In total, we cared for 85 cats!! 🥳

This year included 56 spay/neuter appointments and 86 veterinary office visits. Of the 85 total cats, 40 of them came from one mobile home park that we have been working on since May of 2022. Here's to a great year!

12/24/2023

Miss Judy Bloom:

❗️Latest update❗️During her last exam this past week, her veterinarian felt that her bladder was firm which was very concerning. They did a preliminary ultrasound of her bladder and found what is highly suspicious of a tumor. She needs an ultrasound performed by a veterinarian who is trained in advanced ultrasounds/diagnostic ultrasounds to fully determine the extent and location of the tumor, other bladder/kidney changes, and even potentially to take a sample of the tumor. One of the top differentials for bladder tumors in cats are transitional cell carcinomas (TCC), so we do not know exactly what this fully means for her going forward.

We are hoping for the best and really want her to be able to live out many more happy years as she is only 7 years old. Keep Judy in your thoughts 🙏

More background on her journey: This sweetheart came to us at the end of September after she was having litter box issues. Her family had her for 5 years, but unfortunately were no longer able to address her issues as it was taking a toll on the family. They believed they were at a dead end, but I know there were still so many options left to be explored as I have gone through this with my personal cat for the past 9 years dealing with his feline idiopathic cystitis. It is definitely a never ending battle when it comes to cats urinating outside of the litterbox and even if they cannot control it due to behavioral or medical conditions, it still is incredibly frustrating.

As Judy had no diagnostics done to address her urinary issues prior to coming to us, we were hopeful it would be something as simple as a UTI, litterbox setup, or behavioral that could be managed with medication and lifestyle changes. The first day she came into our care, she got a full work-up with bloodwork (no signs of kidney disease thankfully!) and a urinalysis. The results were normal minus the protein in her urine was high which is not necessarily something to jump at right off the bat as we had not explored thing such as litterbox setup yet.

We thought we were making progress and this would be a simple fix, but a month later she started having frequent urination in small quantities outside of the litterbox. We were suspicious of a UTI given the new symptoms so she had another urinalysis with a culture/sensitivity of the bacteria to help properly diagnosis and determine what antibiotic was needed. To our surprise, the lab was not able to culture any pathogens so a UTI was not the issue, but her urine protein was still elevated. The protein value can be falsely high due to many types of protein affecting the results, so a further test, urine protein to creatinine ratio, is needed to determine if the protein is truly elevated and if so, by how much. If was truly high, this could mean her kidneys were not working as they and properly filtering out the protein. Since her bloodwork and other urine values were normal, one possibility was that her kidneys were under a lot of strain due to high blood pressure. She had this more sensitive protein urine test performed and her blood pressure taken which was high. The more specific urine protein came back completely normal which means she doesn't have an issue with her kidneys causing extra protein and thus her symptoms which is good news but left us still on the hunt for answers.

12/19/2023

Tongue out Tuesday 😍

12/16/2023

Afternoon naps 😴😴😴

12/16/2023

She takes her biscuit making very seriously!

12/08/2023

After having Sawyer for almost a year, her forever family knew they needed to pick a day to be her birthday and December 7th was the winner. Happy Birthday, Sawyer!! 🥰

12/02/2023

We're still working through Judy's urinary issues, but it's okay because we're taking it one step at a time and will figure out what this girl needs to be healthy for years to come. 💕

11/30/2023

It's a hard life having a fluffy tail when there are foster kittens around 🤷‍♀️

11/23/2023

We personally recommend trying to be slightly less messy when eating dinner than this little one is, but to each their own. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! 🦃🦃🦃

11/18/2023

Sycamore is our longest resident. We've had him since he was 5 weeks old and now he is 7 months old. He has chronic nasal discharge which unfortunately is just how he is and will always be. He was adopted out once but was returned a week later because, as with long-long feline viruses such as herpesvirus, stress will worsen symptoms so he had a flare-up. His snuffley little nose was not what the adopter expected or wanted even though we are always very straightforward with our cats' medical histories. For now, this handsome boy will be calling us his home until he finds the right family 🤞

11/15/2023

Judy has the right idea 🥱😴