Sunday, August 28, 2011

Dangerously ill

Our "little mister" had his surgery early Monday morning. We picked him up late in the afternoon that same day, with instructions that he not climb, jump, or run for 14 days. (How the heck do you stop that??!!) Anyhow, he brought him home, and the three of us took turns watching over him in his new "house"--a dog/cat kennel large enough to accommodate a feeding dish, water dish, litter box, and bed. 

Perhaps it's time to talk about the elephant in the room--why don't we just bring him into our house? We have a female tabby named Kyla. Kyla is almost 11 years old and has been living with us for about 10 1/2 years. We have tried to introduce other kitties into our household, but Kyla has always exerted herself as the "Alpha Cat". So our plan is to take care of all of our stray kitty's medical needs, and then find a good home for him. 

"Mr. Kitty" rested comfortably after his surgery day. The next day he ate and drank a bit. The third day he was lethargic and didn't want to play. On Thursday it was apparent that he had stopped urinating and had not produced any stool. So we took him back to the vet who had performed the surgery.

The vet merely said "he's a bit impacted, we'll just clean him out and he'll be fine". 

But he wasn't "fine". Friday and Saturday he continued to cry, and Sunday his rectum was actually jutting out. He was obviously in great pain, so we took him to the emergency hospital. 

There we finally found a doctor who took the time to not only attend to the immediate problem, but also looked for a reason for the problem. Her diagnosis was that our kitty's digestive system was not accustomed to the dry kibble we had been giving him. She recommended that we add brown rice and pureed pumpkin to his diet, and to use canned food, not dry kibble.

We took our heavily sedated but much happier little guy home. We were happy to have a diagnosis, but truly skeptical that we could actually get him to eat such odd foods.

The next day I prepared a small dish of food for him, and he devoured it hungrily, with little chirps and mews in-between bites. In the days that followed, he yelled for his dinner, always searching out the pumpkin--apparently that was his favorite thing. And that is how he came to be named "Pumpkin".

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