We've been giving him fluids through an I/V every day....twice a day for the first few days, now down to once a day. We're monitoring his progress and are supposed to wean him down to less frequent instances soon.
He seems to be doing quite well for the most part. He's back to his old self in many ways, and most of the time has quite a bit of energy. If we didn't know he was sick, we wouldn't know he was sick; except for one small detail. He's not eating or drinking much, if at all.
We aren't panicking about the drinking too much yet; we know he is getting the fluids he needs through our injections, and he's been drinking a little on his own. It's the eating that is the big problem. He's called "the belly" for a reason; eating has never been much of a problem for him. Now he is eating a little bit on his own some days, and some days not at all. We even went to the store and bought him some crappy food (any time "meat by products" is high on the list of ingredients, you know you shouldn't be giving it to your pet), in the hopes that would entice him to eat. Usually the crappier a food is for a cat, the better it tastes, and he's more likely to eat it (just like humans, actually). He gobbled it up the first time we gave it to him, but only that once, and nothing since.
So to get some nutrition into him, we've been feeding him through a syringe as much as we can. As you can imagine, this is not a pleasant experience for him, so we are loathe to do it more than we need to; but he has to eat.
He makes it so easy on us; he is the most amazing patient. We are so fortunate. Even through all the trials and tribulations, the syringe feedings, having water shot into his mouth, and having an I/V needle inserted into him once or twice a day, he never complains. He has not scratched us once, not ONCE. He takes it like a champ; in fact during the I/V, he barely stops purring. What a special, special cat this is.
Of course if things don't change and he doesn't start eating and drinking on his own, we are going to have a tough decision to make. We can't go on like this forever, and it's certainly not fair to him to go to these extreme lengths for an extended period of time. It's so difficult though, because unless he regresses badly, how do we know when it's time? What's a reasonable length of time to keep doing this for him if he doesn't improve?
Since Tracey and I have been together, we've had to put down three cats. All heartbreaking and tragic in their own way, but none of them were difficult decisions.
First there was Kramer, who we only had for about four months. He was obviously very ill when we adopted him and just went downhill from there, to the point where he lacked the strength to climb into his litter box. The vet didn't know for sure what was wrong with him, but suspected it was leukemia. It was a pretty easy call to put him down, he was suffering badly and was not going to recover. It was sad, but we were glad he had spent the last four months of his young life with parents who loved and cared for him.
Four years ago, our baby girl Cleo had to go down. A heartbreaking day that took a long time to recover from..... but she was 18 years old, blind, deaf, and was starting to lose her bearings. She had taken to sleeping in her litter box. Her quality of life was starting to slip, she was never going to get any better, and it was time for her to go. A horrible day, but the right decision, and we never had any doubts.
And then there was Pepe, Tracey's companion of 17 years. This was the toughest decision of my lovely wife's life, no question about it, but there were still no doubts. Pepe had cancer, and the tumour on his head had grown to the size of a golf ball. Again there was no helping him; no chance his life was going to get any better, and he was going to suffer, if he wasn't already. No doubts.
It's going to be tough to know when the right time is for Newman, I suspect. Hopefully he'll find a way to let us know it's time, when his kidneys fail to the point that he's suffering or in pain. Hopefully that's not anytime soon, but if it is, we'll be ready.
It's the most important thing anyone can do for their pets. The ups and downs of pet ownership.
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