A vet visit for Kate-cat
Sep. 29th, 2020 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI don't have a Kate icon. I should fix that.
For the last couple/few weeks, Kate has been off her food and loosing weight. It took a while for me to realise that it was a consistent thing (which I'm feeling guilty about right now), because Annie was cheerfully hoovering up whatever Kate didn't eat and Kate has always been a bit here and there with eating when the weather is fluctuating a lot.
But at the weekend, I had Mum over for lunch and she confirmed that Kate is definitely looking thin so yesterday we went off to the vet.
I was hoping it would be a bad tooth that could be extracted. Not that a bad tooth has stopped her eating before - she was still eating happily right up to the incident where she required three teeth out and a week of antibiotics! But her teeth are fine.
Her tummy doesn't seem to be hurting and she isn't in any discomfort. She's drinking and using the litter box and her heart sounds okay.
The vet weighed her and she's lost a lot of weight, a scary amount as far as I'm concerned. My round cat is a thin cat!
(And unfortunately my thin cat is currently a round cat 😂)
The vet thinks it's either hyperthyroidism or chronic kidney disease, but with the appetite issue, it's more likely the latter. She's dehydrated and losing weight, but not showing signs of lethargy and she's still got the agility of a kitten.
Next week, the vet is going to do some blood tests and hopefully confirm what is going on. I regret googling the CKD, so I'm going to try not to think about it.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to get her to eat more.
I'd already noticed she was happier eating wet food than dry food and changed her usual feeding plan a few days ago. Now I'm experimenting with giving her three small wet meals a day, to see if I can encourage her to eat a bit more that way. I'm going to try her on a higher calorie food, too. And there's some food that's largely gravy/broth that I'm going to try adding to her food, because she's much more interested in the gravy on her food than the actual chunks. So that will at least get something into her and it will help with the dehydration.
I'm also now having to give Annie her own meals separately and defend Kate's food from Annie, because Annie does not need to put on any more weight. Also, Kate is letting Annie eat her food without protest, which isn't a good sign for my cat who usually steals half her sister's food.
So this household is now a worried one and kitty mealtimes have become a slightly fraught experience for me. I'm trying not to panic and just wait until we have the test results before I totally freak out about the long-term implications of this.
I know they're twelve and they won't live forever, but I'm not ready to concede that they're old yet. I'm not sure they are, either, judging by their behaviour!
For the last couple/few weeks, Kate has been off her food and loosing weight. It took a while for me to realise that it was a consistent thing (which I'm feeling guilty about right now), because Annie was cheerfully hoovering up whatever Kate didn't eat and Kate has always been a bit here and there with eating when the weather is fluctuating a lot.
But at the weekend, I had Mum over for lunch and she confirmed that Kate is definitely looking thin so yesterday we went off to the vet.
I was hoping it would be a bad tooth that could be extracted. Not that a bad tooth has stopped her eating before - she was still eating happily right up to the incident where she required three teeth out and a week of antibiotics! But her teeth are fine.
Her tummy doesn't seem to be hurting and she isn't in any discomfort. She's drinking and using the litter box and her heart sounds okay.
The vet weighed her and she's lost a lot of weight, a scary amount as far as I'm concerned. My round cat is a thin cat!
(And unfortunately my thin cat is currently a round cat 😂)
The vet thinks it's either hyperthyroidism or chronic kidney disease, but with the appetite issue, it's more likely the latter. She's dehydrated and losing weight, but not showing signs of lethargy and she's still got the agility of a kitten.
Next week, the vet is going to do some blood tests and hopefully confirm what is going on. I regret googling the CKD, so I'm going to try not to think about it.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to get her to eat more.
I'd already noticed she was happier eating wet food than dry food and changed her usual feeding plan a few days ago. Now I'm experimenting with giving her three small wet meals a day, to see if I can encourage her to eat a bit more that way. I'm going to try her on a higher calorie food, too. And there's some food that's largely gravy/broth that I'm going to try adding to her food, because she's much more interested in the gravy on her food than the actual chunks. So that will at least get something into her and it will help with the dehydration.
I'm also now having to give Annie her own meals separately and defend Kate's food from Annie, because Annie does not need to put on any more weight. Also, Kate is letting Annie eat her food without protest, which isn't a good sign for my cat who usually steals half her sister's food.
So this household is now a worried one and kitty mealtimes have become a slightly fraught experience for me. I'm trying not to panic and just wait until we have the test results before I totally freak out about the long-term implications of this.
I know they're twelve and they won't live forever, but I'm not ready to concede that they're old yet. I'm not sure they are, either, judging by their behaviour!
