Pelagrin
Member
I just wanted to share about the craziness that we've had this week.
My wife and I have two cats that we've had almost as long as we have been married (close to seven years). They're both retired Devon Rex cats.
Anyway, last Saturday our boy cat, Dex, got sick and started throwing up all over the place. We thought maybe he had gotten a bug, so we didn't think much of it when he climbed into one of the cabinets and hid. We started to get a bit more concerned after he hadn't come out for about a day, especially after when he did come out he started throwing up bile (yuck). I was at work when that happened. My wife ended up calling to tell me about that and also that she noticed that he had a piece of thread protruding from.....well....the gross end of him.
Since she has done medical stuff for over ten years now, she knew that was serious. She told me that she was taking him immediately to the vet.
So she got to the vet and they did the x-rays and said that it was very serious. We later learned that the string went all the way from his stomach, through his intestines pulling and putting dangerous pressure on them, and out the other end. The vet said that the only option he had to save the cat's life was surgery and that was going to be over a thousand dollars. My wife relayed that to me and I had to make the difficult decision.
We've been working hard to eliminate debt for a few years now and the end is finally in sight. Our second car will be paid off in about a month and after that the rest will be easy. We've also had some recent medical expenses because my wife and I want to have children. We're still praying for our own, but we're also saving for adoption, which is easily going to be over $10,000. I explained that we had to prioritize things. We both love Dex, but ultimately he is just a cat and that there are more important things in life. It would be entirely different if it were a child that we were talking about, and in a way it would greatly affect our adoption plans. I told her to ask the doctor to do anything that he could, but surgery was out of our financial means.
She understoond and agreed, then relayed my message to the Doctor. He said that he understood, but my wife said that you could tell that he was upset by our decision. He said that he was going to sedate Dex and then try to see if he could work the string out.
So a few hours went by and we received a call. The vet said that he was able to remove about 2 more feet of the string, but it was still in the cat. At this point we were obvsiously upset because we thought the only option was to have Dex put to sleep. Then the vet mentioned that one of the girls in the office had a friend that was a weathly elderly lady. They called and had spoken with her about our situation and she volunteered to pay for our cat's surgery!!!
Of course we were thrilled because there was finally a bit of hope. The surgery went through and Dex came out fine. The vet even took our cat home with him that night so he could keep an eye on him through the night. Then we picked Dex up the next evening. The doctor explained that things were moving in the right direction, but we weren't out of the wood yet. The string had placed considerable tension on the intestines and he was worried that it might have killed the flesh along several parts of the intestines. If that happened, it would create holes in the intestine which would cause all kinds of nasty stuff to spill into parts of Dex's body where it isn't supposed to be. Ultimately that would mean that we'd have to have him put to sleep because there would be nothing left to do.
We took care of him for a day at home and noticed that he wasn't eating and his body was swollen. We took him back to the vet at their request. The checked him out and said that our cat was having some fluid buildup and he weren't sure what was causing it. However he had taken a sample and said that things didn't look bad. He gave us some more medicine (something that essentially works like fix-o-flag to plug holes that might be in the intestine), and some stuff to force feed our cat (which is a challenge in itself). He also told us that we really should start preparing ourselves for the worst.
We took care of him for another day and returned to the vet again because the vet wanted to see how things were progressing. This trip was very unpleasant because my wife and I were both expecting the worst due to the stuff the vet had told us on the previous visit. We really didn't expect to be coming home with our cat. Well, it turned out that things were starting to look very good! It was the first positive news that we had received since learning that the surgery was going to occur.
So now we're still taking care of him, but we're finally encouraged and have a good sense of hope that things are improving. We go back to the vet again tomorrow morning to see how things are progressing, but I can tell you for certain that Dex does appear to be improving. He is keeping his food down, and he was finally able to....um...expel the food the proper way last night (yuck again).
you can see pictures and read my wife's version on her blog. I'm linking straight to the cat section though because I doubt that you care about knitting.
Read it from the bottom up
http://www.knitorknot.net/?cat=11
My wife and I have two cats that we've had almost as long as we have been married (close to seven years). They're both retired Devon Rex cats.
Anyway, last Saturday our boy cat, Dex, got sick and started throwing up all over the place. We thought maybe he had gotten a bug, so we didn't think much of it when he climbed into one of the cabinets and hid. We started to get a bit more concerned after he hadn't come out for about a day, especially after when he did come out he started throwing up bile (yuck). I was at work when that happened. My wife ended up calling to tell me about that and also that she noticed that he had a piece of thread protruding from.....well....the gross end of him.
Since she has done medical stuff for over ten years now, she knew that was serious. She told me that she was taking him immediately to the vet.
So she got to the vet and they did the x-rays and said that it was very serious. We later learned that the string went all the way from his stomach, through his intestines pulling and putting dangerous pressure on them, and out the other end. The vet said that the only option he had to save the cat's life was surgery and that was going to be over a thousand dollars. My wife relayed that to me and I had to make the difficult decision.
We've been working hard to eliminate debt for a few years now and the end is finally in sight. Our second car will be paid off in about a month and after that the rest will be easy. We've also had some recent medical expenses because my wife and I want to have children. We're still praying for our own, but we're also saving for adoption, which is easily going to be over $10,000. I explained that we had to prioritize things. We both love Dex, but ultimately he is just a cat and that there are more important things in life. It would be entirely different if it were a child that we were talking about, and in a way it would greatly affect our adoption plans. I told her to ask the doctor to do anything that he could, but surgery was out of our financial means.
She understoond and agreed, then relayed my message to the Doctor. He said that he understood, but my wife said that you could tell that he was upset by our decision. He said that he was going to sedate Dex and then try to see if he could work the string out.
So a few hours went by and we received a call. The vet said that he was able to remove about 2 more feet of the string, but it was still in the cat. At this point we were obvsiously upset because we thought the only option was to have Dex put to sleep. Then the vet mentioned that one of the girls in the office had a friend that was a weathly elderly lady. They called and had spoken with her about our situation and she volunteered to pay for our cat's surgery!!!
Of course we were thrilled because there was finally a bit of hope. The surgery went through and Dex came out fine. The vet even took our cat home with him that night so he could keep an eye on him through the night. Then we picked Dex up the next evening. The doctor explained that things were moving in the right direction, but we weren't out of the wood yet. The string had placed considerable tension on the intestines and he was worried that it might have killed the flesh along several parts of the intestines. If that happened, it would create holes in the intestine which would cause all kinds of nasty stuff to spill into parts of Dex's body where it isn't supposed to be. Ultimately that would mean that we'd have to have him put to sleep because there would be nothing left to do.
We took care of him for a day at home and noticed that he wasn't eating and his body was swollen. We took him back to the vet at their request. The checked him out and said that our cat was having some fluid buildup and he weren't sure what was causing it. However he had taken a sample and said that things didn't look bad. He gave us some more medicine (something that essentially works like fix-o-flag to plug holes that might be in the intestine), and some stuff to force feed our cat (which is a challenge in itself). He also told us that we really should start preparing ourselves for the worst.
We took care of him for another day and returned to the vet again because the vet wanted to see how things were progressing. This trip was very unpleasant because my wife and I were both expecting the worst due to the stuff the vet had told us on the previous visit. We really didn't expect to be coming home with our cat. Well, it turned out that things were starting to look very good! It was the first positive news that we had received since learning that the surgery was going to occur.
So now we're still taking care of him, but we're finally encouraged and have a good sense of hope that things are improving. We go back to the vet again tomorrow morning to see how things are progressing, but I can tell you for certain that Dex does appear to be improving. He is keeping his food down, and he was finally able to....um...expel the food the proper way last night (yuck again).
you can see pictures and read my wife's version on her blog. I'm linking straight to the cat section though because I doubt that you care about knitting.
Read it from the bottom up
http://www.knitorknot.net/?cat=11
