Sucks to Be Polly Day

[annathepiper]

Today was another round of Old Lady Kitty exams for my cat, much to her distress and consternation. She was hanging in there pretty well on the ride to the vet's, but once we got there, there was another cat there who was pitching an even louder fit than Polly's prone to pitch--which did not help my poor kitty's peace of mind any. I told the vet tech that Polly's old and doesn't have quite so much fight in her anymore.

But it turned out that Polly's got blood in her urine, and she's also lost another pound and change since the last time I had her looked at. Given that she was about eight pounds the last time I had her looked at, that's a lot. :( So the vet wanted to do some x-rays on her, especially once I mentioned her history of surgery for the stones in her bladder. I told them to go ahead and do the x-rays while I buggered off for about an hour and hung out in the U-Village shopping center, getting a smoothie and a pretzel, wandering around Barnes and Noble, and then getting soda at the QFC on my way back to the car. When I came back, Polly had worked her way up into some good strong hissy fits; she may be old, but she's still feisty!

The vet says that the x-rays don't show any sign of stones, except that she could only really see one kidney; the other was kind of obscured by Polly's innards. They're going to give the sheets to a radiologist and get back to me on Monday with more data. In the meantime I need to figure out what kind of food I can start giving her that might be easier on her Old Lady Kitty system. The doctor really wants her on canned food, except the problem I've been noticing lately is that Polly likes to lick all the moisture off the wet food and not actually eat the wet food. So I've got to experiment some more and see if I can find a brand of wet food that she'll really be happy to eat. The vet gave me a couple cans of this fancy sardine-and-tuna stuff, but Polly doesn't seem too enamored of that. I got some other free cans of stuff to try from Mud Bay, the pet store close to our house. We'll see if she eats any of that.

And I got her a couple new catnip toys on the way home, since she's had a really hard kitty day today! She's shunning them, though. It may be a bit before she forgives me for hauling her off to the Evil Place again.

Comments

[firni.livejournal.com]

Awwww... poor kitty!

I have a five pound bag of the Eukanuba renal diet stuff, but if she's not dealing with kidney problems then it's probably not any good... plus she'd probably hate it.

[annathepiper]

She's liking her dry food still, she's just eating it more slowly. Meh. We'll figure something out.

[firni.livejournal.com]

How old is Polly, anyway?

[annathepiper]

16, pushing 17. She's an old and creaky kitty!

[waysofseeing.livejournal.com]

My sympathies to both you and Polly.

Polly and our cat Sandy should form a support group. Getting Sandy anywhere near a vet is an occasion for howling like unto a pack of werewolves. Plus she loses about half her fur due to pure stress.

Awhile back we switched Sandy to a vet about five minutes from our house, just to make sure that the torture didn't last quite as long.

Cat food: bubblesutonium and I swear by a pet place called Great Dog in Northgate, 11333 Roosevelt Way. Despite its name, they have tons of cat stuff including many many varieties of cat food. If you can't find what Polly likes at Mud Bay, give Great Dog a try.

[annathepiper]

When I first got Polly, her vet was way out in Woodinville, which was quite a bit of a jaunt from the U-district; I moved to the much closer Ravenna Animal Hospital. Now that we're living in Kenmore, I'm seriously considering if I should change vets again, except that I like the Ravenna Animal Hospital. They've been giving me good service on a regular basis, and I'm reluctant to bail on them.

Polly's been a holy terror at the vet ever since she had surgery, courtesy of her prior vet (the one in Woodinville). They had to keep her overnight, and the experience was very traumatic for her. Afterwards she spent quite a bit of time trying to lick all the fur off her paws and belly, and we had to put her on kitty prozac! Now she's slowing down, but I think that's mostly because she's getting old. ;P

Thanks very much for the recommendation about Great Dog! Mud Bay's been a fairly regular stop for us for a while now since solarbird gets bird food and supplies from them, and since they've got a store down in Lake Forest Park now, I can easily walk down there. But it's good to know what options elsewhere are. :)

[firni.livejournal.com]

... I find it strange to discover someone else named their cat "Sandy".

People always gave me odd looks because my cats were named Randy and Sandy, like we're not supposed to give the cats "human" names.

[waysofseeing.livejournal.com]

Cat names, in my experience, tend to fall into categories: Normal, Erudite, Cute, and Weird. Some cats I have known:

Normal: Sandy, Grover
Erudite: Augustus, Einstein, Margaret Lord Lynn
Cute: Fluffy, Patches, Willow, Kit
Weird: Flump, Moo, Catastrophe, Nog, GodDammitNeo

We like normal pet names. They're not as creative, but who wants to yell "Catastrophe!" all the time?

I named Sandy because as an 8 week old kitten she looked like, well, a pile of sand with tiny eyes.

[firni.livejournal.com]

My Sandy looked like a fluffy pile of coral sand.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

HUGS to Polly.

[annathepiper]

Aww, thank you. :)

[grian-ruadh.livejournal.com]

Our Old Lady Kitties also lick all the sauce off most wet cat foods and leave the actual food, so we give them Iams pates instead. It's sort of all food and sauce together so they eat it without being fussy.

Hope Polly is feeling better soon!

[annathepiper]

I've noticed that Polly seems better inclined to eat more pate-like things, yeah. So I'll be trying to smoosh up the stuff that isn't close enough to a pate to improve its texture for her, and hopefully that'll help. And it's kind of reassuring to know that the "licking the food" thing isn't just my cat. Thanks, hon!

[peregrine-ek.livejournal.com]

Aww. Poor kitty. I hope she is going to be OK.

[annathepiper]

Thank you! She's been in a significantly better mood today--she found her new catnip toys finally, and I also got her to eat some of the new wet food. :)