Brave Little Kitty

Well, things are not going so well for my kitty.  She still won't eat much at all and I have tried almost everything I can think of.  She ate some cat food Monday PM, but nothing at all Tuesday or Wednesday.  Thursday AM I went and spoke to the vet and she gave me a couple of more suggestions.  One was to give me a syringe to try force feeding her some baby food. She also told me to try doubling the Valium. The other idea was chicken broth, since she is a least drinking water.  The vet felt that if I didn't get her to eat by Friday afternoon, I would have to make a decision.

She has refused the chicken broth.  My friend Deb asked me Thursday PM if she liked milk.  I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of that!  I poured her a tiny bowl of milk and she went for it, big time!  Well....I say big time....she probably drank about 3 Tablespoons, but we were excited!  Deb also told me about a product called Nutri-Cal.  It's a gel like substance that is concentrated nutrition and often reported to help stimulate a pet's appetite.  I picked some of that up yesterday  and she loved it!  Gave her the allotted amount about noon, but sadly she wouldn't take any more last evening.  Not that, or milk or any form of cat food or people food.  Tonight Chuck and I will try the force feeding with some chicken baby food.

If this doesn't work, then we have to decide if we want to take her in to the vet and have her put on IVs.  For nourishment as well as her Kidney failure.  At this point, having gone this long without eating and without starting the meds she is quickly deteriorating.  I hate to talk money in regards to something like this, but I have had a wretched week over this and am, at this moment, fairly 'stable' enough to talk about it.  It will cost approximately $100 a day to put her on IVs, with only minimal hope that it will help her and no way of knowing how long she will have to be on them.....IF it helps.  The vet very honestly told me that she has seen many instances of people spending 2 or 3 thousand dollars and sometimes it works and it helps their cats and sometimes (most times) it really doesn't.  And even if it does, we are only 'buying' a few months.  This disease can not be stopped or corrected.  The damage is done and all we can do is to slow the progression.

Chuck is willing to indulge me if I choose to go the IV route.  He loves her as much as I do.  I have decided I will not put her, or us through that.  But I also can't sit by and let her starve to death.  So far, she is still happy, but then I'm sure the Valium twice a day helps with that.  She still wants to go outside and wander the yard and sit in the sun watching me water my flowers.  She still comes for cuddles and her purr box is going non stop.  But every time I pick her up, it breaks my heart to feel her little boniness under all that hair, as she wastes away.

I don't want to euthanize her.  I wish for her to curl up and fall asleep in one of her favorite spots and simply not wake up.