Just a quick hello. We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving Day in Newtopia. Hope that if you were celebrating, your day was as peaceful and joyful as was ours.
Not much to report. I took advantage of the perfect weather, and took the tiny spinning wheel outside with The Dog to do a bit of spinning of the never-ending Pink Silk of Doom. Newt enjoyed a variety of snackies and morsels throughout the day. He particularly enjoyed the grilled roast. (I was a mean mummy and did not share my Klöße with him!)
As with every day, we gave thanks that our darling little Schnookerdoodle was hale and hearty. And since I was a slug and didn’t say it on Thanksgiving Day, please permit me to say it now:
I’m thankful for you – each of our, and Newt’s, friends who has been so kind, so gracious, and, so helpful and encouraging. Our journey with Newt and his liver shunt has been enriched by you.
Thank you.
Oh I wish my darling daughter had not decided she needed something to “cuddle” with. At 20 she needed her “own” pet, not that we didn’t have 4 Shelties and a cat out in the outside kennel. So much to our “we don’t need another animal” she went to the shelter and adopted “Jasper”. Yellow tiger with yellow eyes and very thin, but with a sweet personality. She kittied up on all the stuff he needed. Protected him in her room while at work. Toted him all over – sisters’, boyfriends’, vets office. He started to get “sick” a week after she got him, but we attributed it to being cage free and maybe too many flea-get-rid-of-shelter-dirt baths. Sneezing, coughing but still eating like crazy. She took him to the vet, got kitty shots and some immune therapy vitamins, vet suggested some canned pumpkin to help with some diarrhea. He got a flea collar and flea drops so as not to bathe him so much. Each week he seemed to have some other “little” problem. Another trip to the vet and some antibiotics. He’d already been neutered and micro chipped before she got him. Would a simple, standard blood test have indicated he had the liver shunt?????? Almost the whole time she’d had him until this last week, he’d been playful and snuggly. Not until his last 3 days did he get lethargic. Only after he died did they diagnose his problem. Sweet little Jasper pasted away alone at the vets office under pain medicine and and IV probably Monday night or early Tuesday. Sad, Sad Sarah terribly misses her beloved kitty she only had for just under 3 months. So does Sarah’s mother and father and Adam the sheltie that had just gotten used to him trying to play…… RIP Jasper 12-17-2012
First, am so very sorry for your loss of Jasper. He was so lucky to have had your daughter and your family to care for him.
Second, please accept my apology for the delay in seeing, and responding to, your comment.
As far as a “simple blood test” to check for a liver shunt in cats, my thoughts are “sort of, but not exactly”.
In my non-vet opinion, if kitty is demonstrating some of the typical signs associated with a liver shunt, then checking blood ammonia levels can be an excellent place to start – at least that was our case with Newt. Finding that his ammonia levels were significantly elevated, combined with his Hepatic Encephalopathy (HE) symptoms and copper eyes, led the ER vet to believe that Newt may have an underlying liver shunt, and suggest his initial treatment protocols.
So, in a sense, it was a “simple blood test.” However, the sequence of events that landed Newt in the ER, with strong HE signs, and, having the on-call vet recognize that those signs were indicative of a possible underlying shunt, then suggest checking the blood ammonia levels, was not exactly what one would experience with a normal, but not-quite healthy, cat.
Hope this answers your question, and once again, please accept my condolences on Jasper’s passing. Thank you for sharing his story.