Kevin is getting back to his antics🫤. Monkey's gonna kick his butt if he doesn't cut it out 🤣
I brought Monkey home for the weekend so she could get more attention instead of being alone at the clinic😃. She took Kevin's place in my bathroom; he's at the clinic with his buddies Mandrake and Gru, yay!!
Monkey says good morning!
So the same day that my greyhound had a stroke, this little girl was brought in to be euthanized. Her mom was dying, her dad was in a nursing home with dementia and the P.O.A didn't know what to do with her because she howls a lot at night and wasn't eating much and even though she loved her, she couldn't take her. Her name is Monkey and she will be 22 years old August 1st. Usually when someone brings a pet in to euthanize that is over 15 years of age, usually they are in bad shape. Before going in the room, I asked my technician Britney Nichole Contini if this cat looks like crap and she said not at all and she's very alert, exploring the room and she didn't want to euthanize her. I walked into the exam room and Monkey was jumping from the floor to the chair to the exam table back to the chair onto the countertop etc. She was very thin and I was highly suspicious that she had hyperthyroidism and possibly kidney failure but I didn't have the heart to euthanize her either. So I talked to the POA about signing her over and we would examine her, do blood work and if it looked good we would take care of her and let her live out her life. If it didn't look good, then we would go ahead with the original plan of euthanasia. The POA was ecstatic. She was so stressed out dealing with everything and this was now one less thing she had to worry about. So it turns out Monkey is hyperthyroid and has some early kidney failure just so had thought. I put her on a special diet for her kidneys and started her on thyroid medicine. She is living at the clinic, mostly hanging out in my office and she is pretty much ruling the roost, telling Kevin, Mandrake and Gru who's the queen B lol. And she has jumped through the reception window into the waiting room and took on a couple of dogs, screaming and swatting at them so she's only allowed out of my office around lunch time when there's minimal patients in and out of the lobby or after hours. She's a little badass. After the first day and
Ugh, it's like a toddler. As soon as they start to walk, they're getting into trouble😄
Last week Kevin tried to get up here and couldn't. Now he can 😃.
Here's Kevin 😃 5 days after my last post. He's eating like a champ and he's walking better, still a little wobbly in the rear and it appears the nerves in his tail took a hit so when he's back to his full strength, if his tail still shows no signs of movement and sensitivity, then I'll have to amputate. He'll make a cute manx kitty😊.
Kevin has eaten about 30 Temptation treats 😃. Cats can be such messy eaters but at this point, he can make all the mess he wants 😄. I think he has turned the corner ❤️
So Kevin is getting his strength back and is drinking some water but has stopped eating. Those Temptation treats are his favorite and he hasn't touched them in about 4 days. Not sure why he's lost his appetite cuz he was starting to get it back. He's on multiple medications for pain, nausea and appetite stimulation and he gets subcutaneous fluids administered twice a day to keep him hydrated and provide electrolytes which were low on his blood test. I took him off the nausea medication at the beginning of the week thinking he was on the mend but that's when his appetite dropped off so he's been back on it 3 days and there's been no increase in his appetite yet. Based on the ultrasound report his heart is fine and none of his other organs appeared damaged but his kidneys and he might need a special kidney support diet the rest of his life (Special K diet for the Special K cat lol), to be determined at a later date. His blood work initially showed damage to the liver but that has almost corrected itself, thankfully. Thank you for keeping him in your thoughts and prayers❤️.
On Thursday we were able to share Fred's special day, his 16th birthday. Fred is lucky to be here being that 11/2020 he suffered from acute congestive heart failure due to a tiny tendon rupture inside his heart. He spent all weekend at UF Veterinary School on oxygen in critical condition. He survived something that most don't. He's truly a miracle and so lucky his mom adopted him many years ago. Thank you Mrs Sovereign for bringing Fred by for a visit and some ice cream cake. We are all blessed to know him❤️.
So Kevin is doing better today. His blood work showed that his kidney values have improved to normal levels although permanent damage is likely. He is able to sit upright on his own and he's more interested in things that are going on around him. Despite these improvements there was still a little doubt in my mind about the cause of his injury. There is a disease where young cats have a heart problem and they can throw a blood clot to a vessel that feeds the legs and the back half of their body. Those cats present similarly to Kevin with the inability to use their rear legs, but they usually come in in a lot of pain, they're crying and their legs are freezing cold. Sadly, since the underlying cause of these cats' misery is heart disease, euthanasia is the best course of action. Well Kevin didn't really fit this scenario because I didn't hear a heart murmur or an arrhythmia, but if he did have heart disease and I missed it, I didn't want to keep treating him and he be suffering if there was minimal to no hope with a 99% chance of relapse. So today we had an ultrasound tech come out and ultrasound his heart, his abdomen and some of his blood vessels. She did not see anything wrong with his heart, she saw some damage to his kidneys (expected) and saw blood flow to the back half of his body. This is great news although we still have to wait for the final report from the cardiologist and radiologist but this gives me hope that he can heal and it won't happen again, provided he doesn't fall or get wedged somewhere again🥴. There are still a few possible other causes out there like a couple of infectious diseases but they are not very likely given that he has been an indoor cat since he was born, unless he got something from his mother. So we will continue to treat him supportively with fluids, cold laser, medications and nutritional supplementation. We're taking it day by day and so far we're seeing a little bit of progress each day. We've taken his IV catheter out sinc
Larry the lobster decided to get a bite to eat at the krusty krab😃
Kevin loves plastic, doesn't matter the shape or size😃
PUPDATE: This past Saturday Tiny was adopted. The man that adopted him feeds several stray cats, and even though Tiny has lived with cats most of his life, in his mind, yard kitties are a different species. His new dad has him on a trial basis and is willing to work with him so prayers and fingers crossed that he can learn to not chase the cats and leave them alone 🙏🤞
As for his brother Bubba, he will be staying with my family 🥰. As long as we can get Bubba and our young Jack Russell Finn (lying down in the background of the pic) to live in harmony, we will officially be foster failures😄. If not, then we will do what's best for all the dogs involved and put Bubba back on the available list. Stay tuned for pupdates😃.
This post is an update for all the Barb fans to let them know she is no longer with us. She was very ill when she came to us 3 years ago and after I fixed up her emergency illness, I realized she had other issues, like chronic upper respiratory disease, not being 100% house trained and she had other behavior issues that made not a good candidate to adopt out. So I did my job as a veterinarian and a human being and have Barb a home and took care of her, allowing her to live out her life because that was the right thing to do. She brought some humor to our lives with her zoomies and crying like a baby when she wanted something but the advancement of her bad behaviors likely due to senility and the worsening of her respiratory symptoms made it time to lay Barb to rest. She was just over 15 and 1/2 years old, spending her last 3 with us. She never suffered and that was the most important thing. She enjoyed roast beef, Italian salami, provolone cheese, hot dogs and we shared a chocolate ice cream with hot fudge, peanut butter sauce and chocolate cake pieces- the benefits of having a Culver's next door😃; she ate until she was stuffed, something she wanted to do all the time but wasn't allowed to for good reason, and then she drifted off to sleep as she crossed the rainbow bridge. We should all be so lucky. RIP Barb. We'll miss her old lady barking and look forward to the many Facebook memories that will pop up in the future.
Since when did artificial turf become a thing for dogs? Now Bubba is writhing all over it😲🤔
Apparently Tiny has a thing for artificial turf 😄
I've created a monster😄. I'm sitting on the dead duck 😆😜