Felix the Cat Update

[katekat]

Well, after a bundle of money, a stay in two different Animal Emergency Hospitals, an X-Ray and a saline drip, Felix is doing much better. They still have no idea what it is - mostly all of the measures ruled things out - but her steps are more coordinated and she can jump onto and off of things with only a little difficulty. They diagnosed it as some kind of unspecified neuralgia that could have come from a blood clot, a tumor that affected her nerves abnormally, or something else they can't see with x-rays.

Neil asked a good question: if we can tell so much about how animals react in animal testing, why can't Vet. Science give us anything but a completely unspecified answer? I've got no response.

But we've got our little kitten back, and even though in the picture she's got her bandage on, she's managed to take that off (with some help from her parents). She seems happy, and reasonably healthy, and still has an unhealthy penchant for peperoni.



It freaked us out a lot, not knowing and not being able to do anything about it. Plus it's just so expensive to have animals treated. If she hadn't gotten better on her own we were facing another gamut of tests that were more dangerous to her and far more expensive for us. It's hard to know when to stop and when not - talking with a girlfriend she said that her mom would've mortgaged her house if her cat needed treatment. And I just don't know what I'd do when faced with something like that. I have a sneaking suspicion what Neil'd do, because she is his baby. Profoundly grateful that we don't have to face those questions today.

Thanks everybody who commented with hugs - every comment meant a whole lot to me. You all rock.

Comments

[katekat]

You're totally right - you kind of have to go with what you can do and what your gut tells you to do. Thankfully, this time, it wasn't too much. But we are totally babying the baby right now - she's getting more attention from us in the last couple of days and she keeps looking at us with a question in her eyes like "why are you sitting on the floor staring at me? The floor is my space. Go sit on the couch and I'll be there in a minute." Or, since we've also been petting her to reassure ourselves, she looks up with the put upon "hey, I was sleeping, did you have to pet me now" look. It's great.