Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Stressed to the Max

Recently, my darling kitty Pagan was diagnosed with CRF-chronic renal failure. Basically, her kidneys are not filtering the way they should and more water is being sent out in her pee than should be. This can lead to dehydration. The vet thought that it was time to put Pagan on subcutaneous fluids. We had it done once at the vets. Then I tried to do it at the vets the next time. This was, ahem, less than successful. Pagan fought like a wildcat the whole time. She even peed. The vet gave me the equipment to do it at home saying that often the cat is much calmer at home away from strange sounds and smells etc.

So I tried it again a few days later at home. Just as big a disaster. She peed again. She fought, she howled. Trying to keep the needle in her and not wiggling around was a battle. . The IV bag didn't seem to have any air in it so it was impossible to tell how much fluid was getting in the cat. All in all, very discouraging. All those websites and people who say that it is easy to give sub-q fluids were obviously dealing with very ill cats or cats who are very laidback normally. There was 2 of us trying to do this to one kitty and it was awful.


So, in distress, I turned to a very common panacea. Chocolate! First, I made a big mess:

Then I tamed the mess into a pleasing shape:


And then...I ate it!

Didn't really solve the larger problem of getting Pagan her fluids, but it sure helped in the short term.