It’s been quite a season for Simcoe. I mentioned back in September that the scabbing around her eyes had healed up, but unfortunately it keeps coming back. The other day we also noticed a sore and chunk of missing fur at the base of the underside of her tail. She has a dermatologist appointment in the beginning of January, so hopefully we can get to the bottom of it. It would be very nice to know what’s going on, when we need to worry and what to do about it when it happens. Poor kitty!
This December marks four years with the renal failure diagnosis. With her BUN and CRE levels creeping up and weight dropping a bit, we decided to go in for a consultation with the hospital doctor (rather than her great regular vet). The hospital vet has been really helpful with his industry contacts and experience with renal failure cats, and we trust his opinion. The bad news is that renal transplants for cats haven’t improved much since her diagnosis. It’s still risky, traumatic and expensive. Worst of all, median survival rate still lands at only about three years.
Fortunately she’s still acting normal and eating on her own, so we have a lot of options. One of them is supplementing her diet with wet food. We also had the option of switching her subcutaneous fluid injections from 150ml every other day to 100ml daily. Another is giving her pills to stimulate appetite so her weight doesn’t drop too low. We’re starting off with the food and fluid schedule adjustments, which we began this month. We bought a small pet scale for here at home so we can keep a closer eye on her weight and will likely start weekly weigh-ins next week.
During the checkup in November, they also ran her blood work which is showing the trend continuing for the most part. Her BUN levels went up a lot, but the doctor was more focused on and concerned about CRE increases and weight decreases (though she did put on a few ounces).
CRE dropped a little, from 4.8 to 4.4.
BUN spiked, going from 54 to 75.
She’s still under 9lbs, but drifting in a healthy area in the high 8s, going from 8.8lbs to 8.9lbs.
We’re thankful that we’ve had so much time with her post-diagnosis, she’s been doing very well all things considered and she’s still a happy and active cat. She just turned nine years old and we’re aiming for several more years with her.
