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Sep. 24th, 2005 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickTen days of antibiotics have not made the less-preferred cat feel very much better.
He's still not eating though he does appear to be drinking water, some. He's not throwing up anything, which I'd expect him to do in the event of some kind of intestinal blockage. He does not appear to be in any sort of pain. He's just getting skinnier, if such a thing is possible. I can now feel all the joints in his tail. His shoulders are like knife blades, his spine a line of hard little beads under the skin, his ribs impossibly frail and palpable. I wonder nothing's poking through the skin yet.
Shouldn't there be more to a cat than this? Yes. There should.
He's wobbly on his legs and falls over if he tries to sit or lie down. His muscle tone (what muscles he still has) is pretty sorry -- he's like a dishrag when I pick him up.
I've tried canned cat food, to see if he might eat that. He won't look at it. I can shove about three fingertips of it in his mouth and he'll swallow those. If I try to feed him more than that, he'll start spitting it out. I can syringe him about a quarter-cup of chicken broth at a time, most of which he will actually swallow, but that's all he will sit still for. More than that, and he starts to fight. He's weak enough that his attempts to fight are pretty fucking pathetic but I let him win anyway after the first or second fairly major objection because if I don't, he just lets the broth run out of his mouth. I do not think that he's getting enough food to keep a cat alive for a day. I tried not-force-feeding-him for two days to see if he'd actually eat food on his own. He did not. He's not getting better. He's getting worse.
How long does it take a cat to starve to death? I expect we'll find out here directly, damn it.
He still purrs when I pet him, damn his eyes.
He wants to go outside, staggers towards the door when I let the other cat out so that I can try to entice him with some yummy thing I think he might eat without her hovering and yowling (she feels fine) to have some. I won't let him out because I rather suspect he's looking to go off and die. I don't want to have to look for his dead body in my yard, in the woods near my yard, or under my house. I'd rather that he died in the house so that I could find him afterward and bury him. Because he wants so badly to be outside, I open the big glass door where the porch isn't so that he can sit by the screen and pretend that he's outside.
Damn it, Tine, why won't you eat?
He's still not eating though he does appear to be drinking water, some. He's not throwing up anything, which I'd expect him to do in the event of some kind of intestinal blockage. He does not appear to be in any sort of pain. He's just getting skinnier, if such a thing is possible. I can now feel all the joints in his tail. His shoulders are like knife blades, his spine a line of hard little beads under the skin, his ribs impossibly frail and palpable. I wonder nothing's poking through the skin yet.
Shouldn't there be more to a cat than this? Yes. There should.
He's wobbly on his legs and falls over if he tries to sit or lie down. His muscle tone (what muscles he still has) is pretty sorry -- he's like a dishrag when I pick him up.
I've tried canned cat food, to see if he might eat that. He won't look at it. I can shove about three fingertips of it in his mouth and he'll swallow those. If I try to feed him more than that, he'll start spitting it out. I can syringe him about a quarter-cup of chicken broth at a time, most of which he will actually swallow, but that's all he will sit still for. More than that, and he starts to fight. He's weak enough that his attempts to fight are pretty fucking pathetic but I let him win anyway after the first or second fairly major objection because if I don't, he just lets the broth run out of his mouth. I do not think that he's getting enough food to keep a cat alive for a day. I tried not-force-feeding-him for two days to see if he'd actually eat food on his own. He did not. He's not getting better. He's getting worse.
How long does it take a cat to starve to death? I expect we'll find out here directly, damn it.
He still purrs when I pet him, damn his eyes.
He wants to go outside, staggers towards the door when I let the other cat out so that I can try to entice him with some yummy thing I think he might eat without her hovering and yowling (she feels fine) to have some. I won't let him out because I rather suspect he's looking to go off and die. I don't want to have to look for his dead body in my yard, in the woods near my yard, or under my house. I'd rather that he died in the house so that I could find him afterward and bury him. Because he wants so badly to be outside, I open the big glass door where the porch isn't so that he can sit by the screen and pretend that he's outside.
Damn it, Tine, why won't you eat?
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Date: 2005-09-24 06:08 am (UTC)I have not taken him to the vet. I have not taken him to the vet because he's not suffering any obvious trauma and because he's not worth the money.
If he were in pain (broken leg, huge cuts, whatever), he'd be taken to the vet to get an estimate on treating him vs. putting him down. Depending on the cost of treating what ailed him, he'd be treated or put down. (The line for fixing a cat in pain per incident is about two hundred dollars, depending on my mood and the cat in question. Autumn is worth more than Tine because I like her better.)
Other than obvious trauma injuries or routine stuff (spay/neuter & shots), cats do not go to the vet because they very quickly run up bills in excess of what they're worth. (The horses get more than 'routine maintenance' medical care because they're worth more than cats, but there are also limits to what I'll pay for on the horses.)
Ten days ago as of Monday, I did talk to the vet to get antibiotics suitable for cats (it's cheaper to talk to the vet and get drugs than it is to take the actual cat in to be looked at) and I shoved them down the cat as per instructions for the indicated timeframe. Those did not make a hell of a lot of difference, so I expect that whatever ails him, it's not particularly bacterial in origin.
Looking at him to see if he's got a snotty nose is not helpful. He's had a snotty nose his entire life, from when he was a kitten. Whatever that is, he's lived with it for about seven or eight years and the way it is now is not worse or better than it's ever been.
He's not throwing up anything I manage to shove down his throat and he's still peeing normally, so I don't think he has an intestinal blockage. He's not passing much, if any, stool because he's not eaten solid food in about three weeks. (I have two cats and one litterbox, which is why I'm kind of hazy on this stuff.)
I have fed the cat dewormer and that didn't appear to make a difference, either.
Internet research indicate that about 60 cc's of diluted semi-liquid food is sufficient to maintain an ill, refusing-to-eat cat -- I'm getting 100 cc's of broth down him every day and I guess I'll try mixing some of the wet cat food with enough chicken broth to make it runny... see if I can't get some of that down him on a daily basis until he either gets better enough to eat real food or dies.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 11:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 12:15 pm (UTC)Or it could be any number of other diseases.
You might want to take the preferred cat in for testing and vaccination. Because it is extremely contagious and can become latent, waiting for years before coming back full blown. I couldn't find symptoms listed anywhere, but they were big on what to do (go to the vet).
Or it could be some kind of parasite.
I'm so sorry. Not very helpful.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 01:25 pm (UTC)