Here We Go Again

We'd noticed that Sophie was acting a little strange--she was sleeping a lot and she was really drinking a lot of water--so we took her to the vet and had her bloodwork done.

The bad news is that her creatinine was 2.5, which is just above the top of the normal range. Back in January, her creatinine was 1.6. So that is a big change in 7 months.

I'm really upset about this, but there just isn't a damn thing I can do other than try to feed her the best food and make sure she drinks lots of water. At least we had some practice with Farley...

I heart cats

It is still a challenge to get through the day without thinking of Farley... but the other cats are all doing well. Fred has taken to propping his head up on things like Farley used to do. Sophie is a little less irritating to me, because she isn't always stealing Farley's food. And Jezebel seems to be doing pretty well with her insulin.

We are back to doing 2.5 units in the morning but just 2 units in the evening. We have tested her blood sugar a few times, and about 6 hours after a dose, her levels are around 150 to 250.

Some things we've noticed recently, though, are that Jezebel seems to have an increased thirst and she isn't eating as much as we want her to eat. But, she is eating some food every day and she is getting around fine, so maybe we're just nervous.

On February 25, I took Jezebel in to see Dr. Phillips, and he said she seemed to be doing well. Her weight was holding steady from a month earlier, but he did notice a thickening of her intestinal tissue. He said that might be nothing, or it might be a type of lymphoma. We obviously don't want it to be lymphoma, so I'm hoping he doesn't feel anything there when she goes back in a few days.

Our three cats

So now we just have Jezebel, Fred, and Sophie here in the house. And apart from Jezebel's diabetes, they are all healthy. Sophie tends to have some weird limping from time to time, but that is most likely from how she was declawed in a bad way. (not by me.)

Anyway, we are happy to know that so far, everyone is good. We have a new vet that seems to understand how we want to care for our pets, and I am trying to be more patient with Sophie and Fred--the orange cats--even though they drive me nuts.

Sophie is Limping

We don't know why, but Sophie started limping yesterday, so we took her in to see the vet today. They had to sedate her and do an x-ray. She's been favoring her front left paw. The vet says that the toes seem to be curled up a bit on that foot. I told them that she had to be redeclawed after I got her because whoever had her first did a bad job. They said that could do it. They also said that if she jumps down from a high spot, it could be really hard on her feet since she's missing her front toes.

We forgot to update the blog a few weeks ago, but the vet also says Sophie is heading into thyroid disease territory. I'm still in denial about that one.

Poor cat.

Food Review: Sensible Choice

The cats don't care much for sensible choice. Sophie was the only one who paid much attention to it, but everyone else wandered off pretty quickly.

We won't bother with this one again.

3 days of KD

So for the last 3 days, I've managed to get Farley to eat dry KD food. I'm hopeful that by getting him to eat some of the special diet, along with some high quality foods for variety, that he will gain weight and his kidneys will stabilize, if not improve. He never eats much KD, though. This morning, he might have eaten about 1/8 cup. But some is better than none.

By the way, Farley voted for Obama, but Jezebel voted for Palin. She really loved that line about pitbulls and lipstick.

Fred is too young to vote and Sophie is a communist.

Food Review: Evanger's Seafood Dinner for Cats

I was really hopeful about Evanger's Seafood Dinner for cats. It is premium quality stuff. Unfortunately, it makes Sophie VOMIT. We tried it twice, and both times, she VOMITED.

The other cats were mildly interested in it, but not enough to deal with the hassle of separating everyone at meal time or cleaning up VOMIT.

Normally, Sophie only VOMITS when she eats beef. This didn't have any beef in it, but she VOMITED all the same.

Food Review: ZiwiPeak 'Daily-Cat' Cuisine - Venison

ZiwiPeak 'Daily-Cat' Cuisine - Venison didn't smell too bad. Jezebel turned her nose up at it, but everyone else seemed to like it. No vomit yet.

Update at 11:54 AM: sophie vomit all over the entry rug. time for a new rug.

Food Review: Evanger's Organic Turkey & Butternut Squash Dinner

Evanger's Organic Turkey & Butternut Squash Dinner smelled like Thanksgiving. All cats liked it ok. Had to get up twice in the middle of night to clean up Sophie vomit.

Food Review: Grammy's Pot Pie

Merrick's Grammy's Pot Pie looked great and smelled almost good enough for me to eat.

Fred gives it his seal of approval.
Sophie eats anything.
Jezebel acts scared of it.
Farley gives it the stare of ambivalence.

I think we should try it again sometime. The consistency is very moist--almost like a gravy. The pieces of turkey and chicken are very small, but not completely ground up into a mush. You can see tiny bits of potato in it. I'm not sure that cats give a damn about potato.

Overall, the cats seemed only mildly curious about it, but maybe they're not used to eating at 7am on a Saturday.

eyebrows

occasionally sophie has a black eyebrow
Originally uploaded by farlykat

occasionally sophie has a black eyebrow and it always freaks me out a little. i think she has had a couple of black whiskers too.

Morning Feeding

Last night, Farley wasn't eating much of anything--not even fancy feast--so we put all the food up before we went to bed. I was hoping that if they weren't able to snack at night, the cats would all wake up hungry.

I forgot to add this last night, but about 30 minutes after we gave Farley his amoxil drops, he threw up. I think it might be because he hadn't eaten, but I don't know. He definitely threw up the medicine, though, because it was pink.

Anyway, this morning, when I got out of bed, Farley ran ahead of me into the kitchen. I put some dry KD food in the bowl, and he ate about 5 or 6 pieces of it. (not much) Then, he lost interest and walked over to look out the window at some birds. We're going to try giving him some more fancy feast in a few minutes.

Jezebel is eating fine. Fred ate a little of Jezebel's food. Sophie might not have noticed that the food is out at the moment.

Morning Feeding

Farley ate about 1/4 can of beef flavor fancy feast. He wasn't interested in anything healthy. We gave him some fish oil at about 9:30am.

Jezebel ate some dry "wilderness" food.

Sophie and Fred ate anything they could find.