Category: Cat blogging

Our first feeding at 11 last night was near-disastrous. The feeding tube had stopped up solid as concrete, and it took several tries to clear it before we could get the food in. Tiggr got so agitated that we had to stop for 15 minutes and let him down (one of us has to hold him during the process; the other has both hands engaged). Finally we got the tube clear and about half the food into him.
We were dreading the next feeding at 5AM, but this time the tube was clear and our procedure was a bit more scientific. I’d filled the food syringe ahead of time at 11, but with the trouble we had, the water syringe had to be filled three or four times and we hadn’t had extra water handy on the table. Nor had I thought to fill the cimetidine (Tagamet) syringe ahead of time, so 11PM was just a disaster all the way around; we nearly took him back to the vet to have them feed him.
5AM took 5 minutes and minimal trauma to Tiggr and ourselves.
11AM was very smooth, very quick. We came to the conclusion that the tech who showed us how to feed him hadn’t cleared the tube after feeding him. Our procedure is now

• 5cc water into the tube to clear if necessary
• 1cc cimetidine
• 30cc of Eukanuba high-calorie food (prescription)
• 10cc water

This seems to keep the tube clear enough that it hasn’t been clogged either at 11AM or at 7PM when we fed him again. We waited till 7 because he had been eating some solid food! Not enough, though, so we’re still feeding by tube, but hopefully the pump has been primed.
He’s also getting antibiotic and a histamine pill (for appettite stimulation) twice a day.
What a workout. I don’t envy veterinary techs their jobs.

but I thought I should mention that Tiggr will be coming home tonight. He’s still being tube-fed but hopefully he’ll decide to eat real food once he’s home. So we get to go learn how to tube-feed him tonight.
We went in last night and he was quite perky. He head-butted me several times, and being head-butted by Tiggr, even in a post-surgery weakened state, is not something you just brush off. He damn near knocked me over the first time…

Sorry for anyone who comes here regularly (yeah right:) but we’ve had a kitty crisis here at the Curmudgeon manse. Tiggr, the 3-year-old monster cat (20 pounds when the crisis began) apparently decided it would be fun last Friday night to pull all of the bobbin thread out of Mommy’s sewing machine and ingest it. This led to the thread getting wound up in his small intestine to the point where he couldn’t eliminate anything and was vomiting about once an hour. So we took him to the emergency vet on Saturday afternoon once it was clear he wasn’t trying to barf up a hairball (both cats are shedding like mad right now in preparation for growing their winter coats) and after a day and a half of observation (and Tiggr not using the litter box) they decided to give him a kitty enema. Once they did that, they discovered the thread. They couldn’t pull it out, so they had to remove it surgically. He got through that OK but now he’s running a fever, so they’re going to do some blood work to make sure it isn’t infection (it could just be due to inflammation).

Total cost at this point is running about $3600 if he has to stay another couple of nights. I actually don’t give a damn how much it costs — I want the cat to get better and come home, and if this is what it costs, so be it — but it is beginning to make me wince when I think about it. My advice to those who own cats: Get pet insurance. We didn’t, and we’re regretting it. And we damn well intend to buy it after this episode.

[Further thought: And put the sewing machine out of kitty’s reach. We would never have thought he would have pulled the bobbin thread out. But you know what they say about curiosity.]

[BTW, here are our “kids”. Tiggr is the tiger cat. Snoopy is the Turkish Van. And if those two sites aren’t enough, here’s another, and another…oh, just go Google it.]

[UPDATE 08:28 Thursday: Tiggr has been taken off the narcotic pain reliever and is on a “regular” pain reliever. The doctor says that he’s “spunky” this morning.]