May Missy be well, happy and peaceful. May Missy's days be filled with love and positive imprints that blossom in the future to lead her to perfect Enlightenment.

Kirt

Kitty is fairly well but has lost a lot of weight. She is eating a little now. I wish I knew why her appetite is so poor. It is becoming clear that all I can do is offer affection and food and medicine.

She's pretty mobile and can do all the things she used to, just not so fast or gracefully. She does pretty well for a cat with about three and a half working legs.

I'm holding up fairly well, though the expense is a worry.

A loss of appetite is common in ill beings. Perhaps because digesting is extra work, and the body is weak.

Likewise, appetite and sleep will get better when we are healing.

Are you worried about vet costs?

I wish I could help.

Missy does seem to be healing. She eats every day now and has almost recovered use of her weak leg. This means sometimes I have to chase her around the apartment at pill time! The vet costs are something of a worry. I have paid about half the bill and am working on reducing expenses enough to pay the other half before the bill goes to collection.

Missy seems to be stabilizing. I think she is eating enough to prevent further weight loss, but I am unsure. Most of the time she has a pretty functional leg, although it comes and goes a bit. She seems pretty content and has the happy cat look much of the time. She can still purr up a storm for a good brushing session.

Vet expenses seem under control. The vet can apparently live with a $50 a month payment which I can manage. There is even a chance I will be able to get ahead of the payments. So now it's just day to day. Today I got a lesson in cat care. I learned that before sitting on the bed one absolutely must check to see if there is a cat snoozing under the covers. It was a near miss. Whew. If cats could swear....

Thanks so much to those who have helped me through this difficult time. It was thanks to people on this board that I was willing to take a chance and see if Missy might recover against the odds, which she has pretty much done. My old friend will be with me for a while yet. We have robbed Death blind.

Greetings Catmoon,

I am pleased for you and your feline friend.

Mudita,
Retro.

Catmoon, I'm so glad for this news. It sounds like the situation is really improving.

Much metta to you and Kitty,
Laura

I am happy for you and for Missy!

Om mani padme hum
Keith

I'm happy to hear that, Catmoon!

I may have missed the preliminaries to this thread-did she have an operation, and why did she have a weak leg?

Btw, when my cat was nearing labor, she snuck into my bed as well.

Could be they feel close to us and safer when they have issues with their health.-

A sign of great trust in you, Catmoon.

Best wishes for her and you. Your love and caring are making her very happy.

To Retro, Laura and Keith: thank you for your kind wishes. The effect is felt. May it return to you many times.




The initial issue was a thrombosis. Somewhere a blood clot broke loose and lodged near the base of her spine, cutting off circulation to her legs. Normally cats do not recover from this, eventually infections and gangrene set in, and you are looking at amputation or euthanasia. She is at high risk for a recurrance of this problem.

In her current state, Missy can get where she wants be, but she limps visibly. She can get up on the sofa and the bed and can climb in and out of her litter box. Sometimes she has strange attacks; every few days she will simply collapse. When this happens I just keep her calm and she recovers in fifteen minutes or so. Her personality is normal for her - regal, imperious, and occaisionally affectionate.

She is off the painkillers. These were powerful drugs that left here stoned, constipated and turned her into a stranger. She fought taking them most energetically and was very unhappy when I gave them to her. For now she gets a special mini aspirin every 2 days to fight clots and provide some pain relief, though she does not often appear to be uncomfortable. She accepts these pills with no fuss.

In the process of treatment for the thrombosis, the vet discovered that Missy also has advanced mammary tumours. These do not seem to have changed much over the last few weeks.

I realize that Missy is not a permanent entity, and must leave me one day. But I feel like I have won a great gift of time, against all reasonable expectations. And if I may say so again, were it not for the discussions of euthanasia I read here, I would surely have taken the vets' advice to put Missy down immediately. Dharma has an impact.

Catmoon, mammary tumors can be benign, are you sure it is cancer?

Tumor just means growth, but says nothing about it's character.

When you have blod clogs, in humans it is often due to the diet or a lack of fluids.

Cats drink very little.

When they get old, it is better to get them a canfood or dry food that is specially prepared for the needs of old cats, whose metabolism slows down. So they collect more garb in the body.

You could make her drink more, if you simply give her milk, or cream.

My cats would refuse to drink water, but drank saucers full of milk.

So perhaps try that.

And I doubt she will get another clog under aspirin. This is an effective blood thinner.

And what did the doc say about the attacks?

Hope I'm not annoying you with my questions.

Oh no I like getting mail.

On the topic of milk, Missy has a high tolerance for lactose and usually has whole milk set out for her.

Now the attacks might be two things, additional clots breaking loose, or dizziness due to undereating. The vet did not have much to say about them and it would be costly to find the exact answers.

It had not occurred to me the tumours might be benign. Well we shall see I guess, but Missy fits the profile of a cat where cancer has broken loose and invaded her entire system. I believe it is normal, in such a case, for appetite to fail and for there to be rapid weight loss then death.

Every time I give her a scratch behind the ears, she gets extra scritchy time, because I know any one of these sessions could be the last.

Be in comfort little friend Missy.

I think she heard you. As I walked by the bedroom just now, I noticed a very familiar fluffy tail sticking out from under the quilt.

Today's update: Missy seems pretty well, though underweight. Her coat is regaining it's luster and fluffiness. I bought her a little pot of cat grass to nibble at, since there are no plants in the apartment. There is suggestive evidence that someone has indeed been nibbling.

One of the problems is that cats will hide their illness. As their companions we have to be esp. sharp in observing even subtle oddities.

I'm pretty sure catnip can stimulate appetite. I'll double check in the books I have.

May Missy be well, happy and peaceful.

Kirt

I also read in one of my cat books, written by a vet, that when ill, they tend to give themselves up quickly, and therefore are very susceptible to encouraging loving kindness and caring.

M cat once came home badly bruised, and she was too sore to get up for a whole day, just whined when I tried to pick her up, so I let her recover on the couch, lying on her side, and just came over to her when she woke up.

I held a saucer with water or milk to her mouth, from which she thankfully drank and afterwards licked my hands, and in the same way I fed her. The toilet was nearby.

The next morning she already tried to be up a little, and stiffly walked to her toilet.

Btw, catmoon, my cat was the one who convinced me of how effective Bach flower remedies are.

She was in panic after waking up during an open belly surgery, and couldn't recognize me anymore, was just nuts. It was impossible to try and calm her down, she constantly wanted to jump out of the window.

After I gave her Rescue Remedy, she made eye contact with me for the first time and recognized me....she sat down, surprised, recognized her home and relaxed....after a few minutes she began to panic again, but another application brought the same effect, and after a while she finally stayed calm and slept a bit.

Cats are not susceptible to placebo effects, and never again have I seen a remedy work as fast, except for some allopathic bummers.

(On humans also, later on, btw. )

I think you can order it on line, it's not expensive and really works for trauma and stress of all sorts.

Rescue Remedy, Original Bach Flower Remedies, by Dr. Edward Bach. (MHD)

Give it a try.

My cat Clinton's vet was a homeopathic vet (she basically has a kind of holistic teaching vet hospital in Bethesda, Maryland). She cared for Clinton until his final illness and was quite successful. Bach Remedies was one of the treatments that they used. I was unable to take his brother Bat out there because he would consistently get extremely car sick.

Kirt