Musings on a Small Life

[ Note : I'd previously posted parts of this, but then the vet contacted me again and suggested the pancreatic-specific blood test using Friday's sample still at the lab, so I unpublished this post to wait for those results--negative.] Wednesday September 15th: I'd had Derry at the vet last Friday the 10th for an ultrasound (looked fine, but I'm now having the images sent to the radiologist just to be on the safe side) and further bloodwork. It was less expensive to just re-run a complete senior wellness panel with T4, sodium, B12 and folate than to do them separately, so even though he'd had the senior panel (minus the T4 and extras) in August, I told the vet to go ahead. Last Friday afternoon, back from the vet. Dr. P called me late Monday afternoon; Derry has the blood chemistry of "a five year old cat." Everything was fine, even his T4 and his glucose (he drinks a ton of water these days, I figured something was amiss). The sodium levels that were so h...

Ha, what in life does?  :-P   I was off last Thursday and Friday (July 29, 30) and had a fabulous day catching up with a friend at the mall. She loves to shop, I love to shop; it was great. LOL. I actually picked up six items (clothing) at Northern Reflections and had so many points dollars (didn't know it!) that the entire cost was 54 cents. Yep, 54 cents! Whoohoo! (I must have done more online shopping in the last year than I realized. Ha.) Friday, however, things took a turn. Derry started having acute diarrhea, which he's never had in his 14+ years, and though I picked up some plain Metamucil and some slippery elm bark powder (the latter from a natural foods store downtown), it wasn't helping much at all through Saturday and Sunday. Then he had a massive , tightly bound hairball on Saturday morning while I was out running errands, and I thought oh, that could be it. Sadly, not. By Monday, a holiday for much of Canada, I thought he might have a partial blockage, so off w...

[Update at 9:20 AM Saturday: No real change. He nibbled at some dry and canned late last night and this morning too, but otherwise hasn't shown any interest in eating. I just ground up a mirtazapine pill and mixed it with tuna water, syringed it in--the taste must be so bitter that it's caused him to drool profusely. He's hiding upstairs at the moment, not looking good. I wish I had something more positive to write.] Nicki was fine yesterday...until the evening. He's been sick, not keeping his supper down and looking miserable, so I had him to the emerg vet late last night. No diagnostics, because his vitals checked out fine and the vet said he didn't want me spending hundreds of dollars for nothing, but they gave him a shot to settle his stomach (antacid). He came home and threw up (bile), then did the same overnight. I haven't slept at all, didn't go to work, took Nicki in to our vet early this afternoon. Again, he checked out fine with a physical ex...

(With apologies to Bellen, as I'm doing a copy and paste here of part my email reply to him, in order to update folks on Nicki.) I ended up taking Nicki to the emerg clinic last night -- I had left work mid-afternoon and called my regular vet, had a 3:45PM Friday appt at his regular clinic for a check (for my own peace of mind), but could NOT get a cab to save my soul. The night taxi driver told me all the cab companies were swamped in the afternoon (we have 3) with the university and college students heading home for reading week. Duh. I knew that...but forgot they'd all be taking taxis. Heaven knows the bus I caught was filled with kids heading to the train station...guess the rest of them wanted cabs instead! Anyway, I took Nicki because he had a huge sneezing fit around 9:30PM and then seemed to have to breathe through his mouth a bit ( no panting or distress, just me being super -paranoid). Needless to say it was a waste of $200 plus $34 cab fare because he ...

She was making a terrible choking/retching noise that woke me somewhere between 11 and 11:30PM...didn't at first see that she had tried to eat and thrown up, just saw drool running down her chin, so grabbed her and stuffed her in a carrier, called a taxi. Then saw she'd tried to eat and been sick. Thought possibly an obstruction or problem with esophagus. Waited forever, it seemed, for a cab....Saturday night at the bars and all. Anyway, $411 later, plus the $30 for the cab fare (round trip)...Have an x-ray showing considerable intestinal gas plus poop in the colon...vet initially thought she might be constipated (gee, again), and need an enema, but said that the poop appeared to be soft enough to pass (wasn't bright white like bone is on an x-ray). No sign of obstruction in wind pipe, lungs are clear but definite severe URI causing the breathing noises (considerable more than is normal for her). She said to put a drop of Otrivin in each nostril once or twice a day, for t...