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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Pet Owners Scare - twice in three weeks!

Ok I had such big planns for this summerholiday, blogwise and elsewise but worries about my cats had my panties in a twist and focus on other things. Where to start....

In July 2007 I moved to the home where I still reside today, and catlover I am I ofcourse had to take a few feline companions, so when someone I knew had a litter of tiny little kittens I went to have a looksee and found myself the new owner of two adorable alpha cats and named them Ash and Simi (for you booklovers of the PRN genre aha yea indeed named after two main characters in Ms. Kenyon's Dark Hunters). It was love at first sight with the both of them. See for yourself they were gorgeous!!!

2 WEEKS OLD


4 WEEKS OLD


You see aren't they just adorable! So you can imagine that now three years later, they are my heart, my soul and my life! In my childhood, we had plenty of cats, but most of them didn't make it past 4 years due to urinary diseases. When my holiday started, the first week was planned for doing my garden. My dad and brother were going to stay with me for a few days to put up a fence so finally my cats could go outside in the yard without me needing to worry for their safety. (we have a cat-hater in the area, leaving around meatballs with poison in them, 10 cats have died so far)

On Saturday July 31st I brushed Ash in the morning as he is still changing his coat and losing a lot of hair, I like to help them along nothing wrong. He was content and after his brushing session with lots of cuddles and love he fell asleep like a king in his kingdom. He slept for like 2 or 3 hours and when he got up his frontpaw was twice the size compared to normally so my eyes did the cartoon thing and my heart skipped a beat. Now the internet is great for seeking information and looking things up, but when you try to figure out what could be wrong you find the most cruesome stories so after five minutes of research I knew enough! I phoned the vet to see which one was on duty (they are not open in weekends normally). Thank God my own vet was on call so I have to say, it's that I didn't have any sirens and lights on my car to flash like an ambulance otherwise I would have rushed him over them at warpspeed, but now I had to drive up 20 minutes anxiously and worried out of my mind what was wrong. He was doing this sickly miauwing and OMG tears struck my eyes because I just cannot see a cat suffor in pain. Ýou just cannot explain to them, that you are on your way to help them. All they see and feel is that they are in pain and in a dreadful car and that their owner is not ok on top of all!

At the vet when I took him out of his transport-box his paw was nearly thrice the size and the look in his eyes was filled with pain. The vet checked him out, gave him a painkiller- and antibiotica shot and gave me a weeks course of antibiotica tablets three times a day one tablet. He had what they call a fighters-paw. Now I had never heard of it before but it's usually when cats fight and they get bitten in their paw, it get's inflamed and that spreads quickly in the rest of their immune system.

BUT MY CATS DON'T FIGHT AT ALL!!!! I was thinking about it and my mum came up with the idea that, because they only live inside, there probably was a sharp little stone in their litterbox where he stood in which got infected. The vet confirmed that that might do the trick as well. But with the two shots and heavy antibiotics his paw should go back to it's normal size within a day or two, if not I had to go back in. He said that it was a bad case, even with a broken leg it wouldn't be this swollen.

Thankfully after nearly two days the swelling was gone and all went back to normal, finished the course of antibiotics and he was perfectly ok. So that was one less worry, my fence was up in the yard and my holiday could finally begin...



However scare number two came around very quickly.....

Last Saturday (what is it with these Saturdays!!!!) August 14 I went to spent a day up at my parents place, brought my dog along, the cats where their happy selves, had enough food and drink to get them through at least a day, litterboxes were cleaned out so they were in heaven so to speak. However when I came at home in the evening neither Ash nor Simi was at the door. They recognise the sound of the car, and they are just like dogs, they come from wherever they are to greet me when I come home, but they were nowhere to be found.

Because this was so very odd, and they didn't respond when I called out their names I went on the look-out and noticed they hadn't touched their food and didn't drink a lot either. When I came upstairs they were both laying on the bed and appeared to be a bit flueish. Luckily I had some syringes in the house so I went to give them something to drink by hand and that got them going again for a bit. Repeated that a few times over the next 3 hours and they seemed to be coming around again so I thought maybe one of those one-day flues, we all have them sometimes, and cats and dogs as well, the next morning however I found they had diarrhoea. I phoned the vet and they told me to put them on rice and cooked chicken for a day, the day after should be fine, however they didn't eat it at all and control freak I am I wanted them to drink so I went to give them water through the syringe again every hour, hour and a half but they slept the whole time and didn't want to eat.

Monday morning Simi was nearly none-responsive and Ash appeared to be very ill as well I didn't doubt a moment, put them in the transportbox up to the vet again, whom  said they were really very ill. Cecked them out, took his time for it as well, gave them both two injections, one antibiotics and one to give them an appetite so they would get the impuls to eat. And again a set of antibiotica course. In that day and a half Simi almost lost 3 pounds of bodyweight and was worst off out of the both of them. They had major bowel infections and we have no idea where they got it from. On top of that, they were emanciated and if I hadn't given them the water by hand they would have to be hospitalized. The vet told me to give them two syringes of water each hour to both of them all day long untill they would drink by themselves. And give them the special food to get their bowel going again. I took them up to this morning to start drinking on their own and finally they took their first few bites of eating as well.

There is nothing as worse for pet-owners in my opinion, than when you pet is sick. I had three sleepless nights but as long as my pets are going to be ok again it's been well worth it!!! But by goodness I had such a fright.

Hopefully their back to their own playful selves again wreaking havoc and eating like tasmanian devils!

15 reacties:

Leontine said...

I'm so glad that they are responding well to the treatment!! This is indeed a horror story for me and unfortunately, been there and done the whole sleepless nights and nursing the pets back to health. I coming over next week to hug, pet and spoil them a bit hon!!

I hope the last days of your vacay are off relaxing a bit as you see Ash & Simi come back in to their own again!!

(((hugs)))

Pearl said...

Djeez hon, what a story!
Am glad your kitty-babies are getting well again. I can imagine this is not the way you wanted to spend your vacation.

hugs,
Pearl

Natascha said...

@Leontine I am so looking forward to it!!! I'm sure they'll love the extra attention and cuddles and such. And I can use a bit of R&R to be honest ;-) Just a fun weekend of chatting and don't forget the walking in the park with the dog who is absolutely stressed at the moment as well, not knowing why he can't play with the cats!

@Pearl Hey sweety, I don't care all that much about the holiday falling to pieces, it's more the fact that one of them nearly died on me that scared the bejeezus out of me! I mean they are just 3 years old. If it would have happened outside holiday time I would have taken holiday time off ;-). Thankfully I can report today that they are eating again and eating like no tomorrow in fact YAY, they still have some catching up to do, especially Simi. They just want to cuddle, eat, drink and sleep. I talked to the Vet today and he's very happy they are doing better. He adviced me to keep them on this special diet for about three weeks and after that to start feeding them their own food again.

Houston A.W. Knight said...

OMG, I know what you mean...I've had over a month now of worry with my little tike...Zeus is his name and he's a little Yorkie-poo. He's my hearts desire and he's had a very bad ear infection and as soon as I got him over that he had stomach problems...I finally got him better but it took some time and all that time I was worried sick....they are our hearts and the purity of love...God's best creation in my opinion!

Your kittens are adorable!

Hugs Honey!
Hawk

Marissa said...

Pfff what a way to spend your holiday... I am glad they will be okay, big hugs for all of you!

Hugs,

Marissa

Natascha said...

@Hawk Ahhh you have a Yorkie-poo, my Bodhi is a cross between a Yorkie, Shih-Tsu and Maltese, he's black and white but look a lot like a Yorkie. I know, when your pets are sick it's heartbreaking. You just cannot explain to them that they will be better, or that you are at leasts trying everything to get them up and running around again as quickly as you can.

@Marissa In the end I ended up thankful for having my holiday, as I otherwise had to take some days off of work. Simi is still a bit thin but Ash is back to his healthy self. They had a bit of rough playing time over the weekend as they finally were energetic enough to play, so they went a bit balistic but all is peace and playfull in house again! Can't wait for them to set their first steps outside now that the fences in the yard are cat-proof ;-)

Houston A.W. Knight said...

Nice to hear the tikes are up and about...ah, me Zeus is black and white too! Yap, he's 2/3 yorkie, the only thing he didn't get were the ears. He got the poodle ears, but his hair is silky and beautiful just like a Yorkie...and his face...people fall in love with my boy...you wouldn't believe how many people offer to dog sit...they love him that much.

He is a cutie! AND he knows how to "work" his fans of course! He runs up to everyone as if they are his best friend and that right there melts their hearts and then they see his face and fall in love.

He is a great dog...but aren't they all? ;-)

Hugs
Hawk

Anonymous said...

Hello Natascha. Just noticed you've not been around for a while. Hope all's well.

Natascha said...

@A man called Valance It has not been my year so far and as the year only holds a few more months I'd say 2010 is wasted on my, but it's what they say, for good to surface you have to surpass the bad right? In that case 2011 will rock!!!!!

Had a bad case of the flue and got me bedbound for over a week *sigh* and as blog-land/digi-world is moving by so fast, you're falling behind very easy.

I'm at the moment doing some redesigning for my blog and hope i't will be up and ready in a few weeks. But between work, friends, pets and such pctime is limited at the moment. It will pick up though, once the fall keeps us inside bound again ;-)

Haw've you been?

Houston A.W. Knight said...

Hey,

Sorry to hear this year's been a bad one...but you're right you can only look ahead and know it'll be better than the last.

Nice to know you're feeling better. xoxo

Inside bound...I can only wish...I think we'll be having a very warm winter here. Yesterday, we were 91 in temp...very hot and muggy...spent time in the pool.
I'm ready for some cooler weather but I don't think we're going to get it over here. :-(

Hugs
Hawk

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm just glad you haven't fallen off the edge of the world. The sun will shine for you again, just you wait and see.

As for me, I'm fine thanks. Just rolling along being my usual happy go lucky self.

Keep smiling, Natascha.

Natascha said...

@A man called Valance sending you a big smile ;-) Went looking to see if the edge of the world was near my place but you know what? I noticed the world was round, how bout that! Is our little safetynet I heard, keeps us from falling off, that and ofcourse cravity....

Natascha said...

@Hawk I like my seasons to be really seasonal, you know leaves falling and rain in fall, snow and icy cold in winter, then a watery sun withsome rain in spring and warm summers (not piping hot though ;-) ) so hearing you say it'll be a warm winter makes me feel for you, nothing is more sweet than opening your curtains in winter to a sight of the world covered in a thick layer of snow. I was probably one of the few in the Netherlands last winter that actually was a bit sad to see the snow disappear after two months. It had been so long since we last had a winter like that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that next winter will be just the same!!!

Sunside up though I love swimming so an afternoon in the pool doesn't sound bad either *dillema all over* SIGH

Houston A.W. Knight said...

LOL, you and I are so alike...I love the 4 seasons as well...I miss that. Where I live now, I get super hot and muggy weather and then suddenly very cold...freezing weather. It's not fun at all. :-(

I hope one day to move from here.

Big Hugs
Hawk

Anonymous said...

Smiling right back at you, Natascha.

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Natascha
Winschoten, Groningen, Netherlands

With everything new, I ofcourse, had to get used to the idea of making, owning and maintaining a blog but I have to say, now that I’ve got the hang of it, it’s quite fun to do. Let me introduce myself, I’m Natascha, in my early 30’s and from a little place called Winschoten in the Netherlands, I’ll be your host on this blog.

As an avid reader you’ll find that most of my blogs will maintain reviews, books, topics about books, writing and such, but as I am a diverse person myself, it will include many other topics on things that I find interesting in life. So welcome to my world, and happy blogging!
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