Sick Kitties

This week both Kobie and Thurston decided to get sick on me. I noticed earlier this week that Thurston was visiting the kitty box frequently. When he took the opportunity to pee in front of me, I noticed that he was straining, and producing a very small amount. He normally pees a large volume with a good stream. He gets UTI's about once every 6 months like clockwork. I think this is going to be a chronic issue with him. For the first time this time his UA showed struvite crystals. He is on antibiotics and an anti inflammatory. Hopefully if we can get the infection cleared up, the crystals will go away on their own. I don't want to have to put him on a special (Read Hills) diet for crystals. On the advice of my natural cat forum peeps, I'm cutting the dry food out of his diet entirely and putting him on the fully wet grain free wellness, just like Sully. So now the only cat in the house eating dry food is Kobie....

Not that he's eating much of it. Kobie's not been eating well for about a week. He just won't finish his meals, leaving fully 1/3 to 1/2 of his food behind. He is also having intermittent diarrhea and vomiting. He had this same problem about a month ago. I took him in and ran a full panel of bloodwork and took two full cat x-rays. He was a little constipated, and his intestined looked mildly inflamed, but everything else came back normal. I'm worried about intestinal lymphosarcoma. I've had two cats, A.C. and Tyler, die of this particular cancer, and this was how it started too. Random vomiting, diarrhea, not eating well, losing weight, just generally looking puny. But for weeks and months we did tests and tests and found nothing. When the tumors became palpable or visible on x-ray they were already on deaths door. Kobie's blood calcium levels were high normal, but the calcium levels don't always elevate with lymphosarcoma. Its such a hard cancer to diagnose. I guess I'm just gunshy. He may just have developed IBD late in life, but somehow I doubt it. I have an IBD cat and his appetite and attitude are both in hyperdrive. Kobie just isn't right. I'm so worried about him. So I'm thinking of just putting him on all wet food diet too and eliminating dry food forever, but we will see. I don't want to do anything to make him eat even less than he is already eating. He at all of his dinner tonight for the first time in a week.

In an effort to improve everyones over all health and water consumption, I bought a premium drinkwell pet water fountain last summer. Its been sitting in a box in my room ever since. This latest bout of illnesses prompted me to put it together and plug it in. Not one cat has touched it. I put them all up there to see it, they sniffed it then hopped down. They don't care about the running water. Meanwhile, the only place I could put it was in my bedroom, so I get to listen to the sound of running water all night long, resulting in a few latenight trips to the bathroom. The fountain is sitting on my metal filing cabinet right now, and the motor makes the metal vibrate a little bit, so I'm wondering if thats not putting the cats off drinking from it. I'll move it to my desk when I get my desk cleared off....which would be sometime this century.

I got a visitor in the mail from the UK this week. The Ruffdogs forum mascot has come to see what my corner of Texas is all about. I'll have him with me all week and I'll take photos to document his stay here. So far, he has met Sully and Moxie (the others weren't feeling up to it) His run in with Sully perhaps a bit traumatizing for him, so I think I'll keep him clear of the cats for the rest of his stay.

Well I'm off to poke pills down cat throats. Joy!