merlinofchaos | (no subject)

Elwood's still a pee bucket. He hasn't peed on anything in the last 3 days or so, but right before that he hit some strategic places. These are all pretty big pees, indicating behavioral.
Word ate 4 hours worth of Physics homework last night.
esmerel's car battery died last night. I had to run down to mtn view in rain & traffic to go retrieve her, and then we ended up using Kallen's AAA, who gave her a jump start. The battery won't hold a charge tho, so she's got the Jeep today and I'm going to take a bus to school. After class I'll call AAA (we signed up last night) and get them to come replace the battery.
I've done my film final -- when I asked the prof when he'd have our papers graded he said January. I boggled--but it turns out his wife is having a baby within the next week or two. So that excuses him, in my mind.
My drama class is effectively over--we've handed in everything we're going to and there's no final in that class, just the paper.
Physics and Calc finals are on the same day. Go figure.
We're giving Elwood special 'seniors' food. The kittens seem to have decided that that is the one they want. I let them in this morning and they both went straight for it. Elwood just kind of sniffed at them and hovered protectively over his food, but didn't actually try to shoo them away.
I've got most of my Xmas shopping done, but there's a couple of people for whom gift ideas elude me. As usual.
I'm feeling particularly bitter toward the rampant consumerism that Christmas represents this year. I'm not sure why but it often makes me sick to my stomach (literally not metaphorically) when I hear asinine ads that basically say "Our crap makes great gifts!" because gifts are the only reason anybody would buy that crap at all.
My Altaia game is going well. It has its own community, though anybody not involved will probably have trouble making sense of it. But if you want to pop by and see, village_people is it. We had a really fun 3rd session and I look forward to the next few games. I have some plans and my frenzy of idea gathering gave me a few, at least.

Time to run off and catch a bus.

These are all pretty big pees, indicating behavioral.

Um...sorry to be a nag, but are you *sure* that's what it means? I thought that small pees were more likely to be behavioral (spraying), and big pees are the "I can't hold it any more" things. Keaton peed a LOT around, and he was ill. The answer is probably yes, but I just wanted to pressure you more to make sure your vet has done a kidney function & thyroid function screen. Does he still have blood in his urine?

And yes, the Altaia game is fun.

He talked to the vet about it. She seemed to think that small pees (in Elwood's case) were 'I am in pain' and it just sort of.. leaked or something I guess. The one time I caught Jake, it was small and definitely behavioural. The vet seems to think that Elwood was exhibiting a medical condition that also moved over into the behavioural realm, and now is more likely to be almost entirely behavioural. The places he is going aren't places he hangs out. It's like he goes there deliberately and pees. I don't know if he's still got blood, but we 'get' to give him subcutaneous fluid once a week for the next month and a half or so. So, if there *is* something still wrong, that really ought to flush him out. :)

This, this all works if he's a "blocked cat" (UTI kind of thing), but not if he has an underlying kidney or thyroid problem. Cats who have kidney or thyroid problems aren't straining to pee, see. How old is Elwood?

Old enough to be having issues. He was estimated at 3 years when I got him, and that was in 96. So, figure around 10, almost 11. We had a full culture done on him when he started having problems, but there wasn't anything. :/ The last urinalysis indicated some bacteria in his urine, so we gave him antibiotics. Whee. :/

Ok, but a culture for an infection isn't the same as a kidney or thyroid screen. The vet *probably* did those tests, but it might give you peace of mind (or me, even) if you knew that he had normal kidney & thyroid function. And if she didn't do a screen, then you need to know if that stuff is normal and you can discount it as the reason, or that he has problems so you can treat them.

When Keaton was on subcutaneous fluids for his kidney problems, it wasn't because it'd cure him. It was because he was constantly dehydrated, even with drinking a lot. Has Elwood lost weight?

I'm not trying to alarm you, but I really wish I'd known that Keaton had kidney problems before I discovered it and he had to be hospitalized. It was expensive and he never really recovered.

Elwood's still well above the weight he was when he moved in. I think he's a little bit below his top weight but he's still about 8.5 pounds--and his top weight was estimated at 9 (and who knows how much error our scale had; 8.5 lb is the what the vet got).

Ok, I called the vet--when the blood work was done the first time, a kidney and thyroid screening was done and it came out normal.

Good, ok.

Oh, and Elwood isn't actually dehydrated; the extra fluid is because they're concerned there may be crystal buildup and the idea is to keep him superhydrated to flush stuff out. There's no certainty that it's the problem but it's very common in male cats his age.

I figured - I just wanted to correct any misunderstanding about the role of giving fluids.

(no subject)

poor kitty

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