JIMMY CAME HOME BUT WEIRD THINGS HAPPENED

Jimmy was discharged! I’m glad he can be home to be with the rest of his siblings but it was not the same as before. Mama Jessica, Janice and Jayson thought they had seen a ghost cat! Everyone was avoiding getting too near to him after his 6 days of disappearance from the house. Jimmy a ghost? LOL! I guessed it could be due to the strong smell from the vet and the J family Kitties all had some bad experiences at the vet before. Unfortunately, I was advised not to bathe him for another week or so to avoid being brutally scratched as he could still be having some abdominal and stomach pain due to the plugged catheter earlier. Anyway, some antibiotics and pain killer pills were to be given to him for the next few days. Those medications might be the cause of him sleeping most of the time.

Jimmy is doing fine now. He has been recuperating quietly ever since he came back. The only problem I have now is on how to slow down his “tap”. LOL! Well, it was great to see him peeing at ease now but the frequencies were once too many times. I think he would need to take time to adjust to his normal peeing schedules. As for appetite, he has been gobbling down his food as if there would not be another tomorrow. Luckily, I did stock up lots of the wet food he took at the vet and also the Hill’s prescription diet pack. If not, he would not eat anything at all, not even his regular food. That would have given me a hard time mixing in his medication in the food. The other issue I have to settle now would be on the rest of the kitties. Was it the scent of the special food given to Jimmy having such a great influence that they refused to eat their own now or was it the stress of seeing a “ghostly” Jimmy? All of them are not consuming as much food as they should. Even the vet could not give me an answer to this issue. I’ll have to wait a few more days to monitor their appetite.

One very obvious habit that Jimmy had acquired during his stay at the vet’s was his sleeping habit. He won’t sleep next to my working table or fight over my sofa now. Surprisingly, he would rather sleep in a cage? Huh? What a weird behavior change compared to his previous fear for being caged. Anyway, I did not lock the door and would surely not stop him from roaming around the house freely.

It has been a long week of running around. I’m totally worn out. It’s time for a long rest to recuperate my own tired body. I truly need all the strength to support the pet community here. Thanks again for everything that you have done for the J Family Kitties.

Lastly, I would like to seek your help on something that would be beneficial for the pet community here. It would only take a minute or two of your time to help the Australian couple residing in Langkawi, Kedah, Malaysia to make their dreams come true. They are currently running the foundation with little to no outside assistance. They will only need your ONE VOTE to support them in winning the AUD$5,000 grant contest to set up LASSie (Langkawi Animal Shelter & Sanctuary Foundation). Deadline is less than 24 hours! That would be a whole load of money to help out those abandoned animal on the island. I’m not doing this for myself but for the animals that deserved the best in life.

Please vote at http://sunsuperdreams.com.au/dream/view/help-care-for-abandoned-dogs-and-cats-in-langkawi and do check your email to confirm the vote or it won’t be counted as a vote. I appreciate your help on this matter. Thanks~ :)

UNPLUGGED BUT STRANDED

Finally, Jimmy has the catheter unplugged but he was not allowed to go home yet. He has to go through another one or two days of close monitoring before he could be released with a clean bill of health. After two hours from the unplugging, he was still not peeing as he should. That got me worried. By right he should have urinate naturally but there was no sign of any urine at all. I hope he would do that fast as I would love to bring him back and give him a thorough bath. He smelled badly of antiseptic lotion.

As for appetite, I'm going to be slapped with a huge bill for extra cat food. Even the vet and her assistants were surprised with the amount of intake for this 3.8kg boy of mine. Jimmy has been gobbling down a whole big can of wet food 4-5 times a day and he was still asking for more. I can even hear the Ka-ching Ka-ching sound from the cash register right now. LOL! Anyway, I'm so happy that things are looking at a brighter side now. My only hope is to see him pee naturally so that I can bring him home. I missed that curly ball sleeping next to me nightly. Thank God for giving him another chance to live on...

THINGS ARE LOOKING BETTER FOR JIMMY EACH DAY

I’m sorry if this is going to be a short post as I’m still recovering from the exhaustion from my last dengue fever attack. It has been months and the post effect made me get tired easily. Running to and fro trying to coax Jimmy to eat and drink has never been an easy task. I guessed the change of environment and painful experience would have some influences over his usually big appetite. I could not believe how thin he looked now. Just 2 days plus at the vet by refusing to eat alone has caused him so much of weight loss. Is this my fluffy looking Jimmy now? Gosh! Big head small body~ Haiz~



He constantly needed a short rest after roaming a short distance at the vet’s. I think he’s still tired from all the bladder cleansing processes.



Well, he was still leaking. At least I did not see any blood in the urine this time. Thank goodness!



The good news was that he stated eating, not with the prescription diet at this moment but with some wet food. That was a good start. Let’s hope he would gather more energy for a speedy recovery.



His next action was a good sign too. He started drinking some water. I guessed he stopped worrying about leaking endless and got his butt washed frequently. Jimmy actually hated being washed. I could still remember vividly how he clung onto my chest once during his bathing session. Well, that would be part and parcel of owning sharp clawed kitties~ LOL!



Anyway, thanks everyone for the concern, care, assistance, wishes and prayers during these few days. I appreciate it a lot. Although still weak from the trauma, he’s getting better each day. Let’s hope he can be discharged real soon. I don’t think Jimmy would want to stay in a cage all the time when he can roam about within the house freely and in comfort. The rest of the J Family Kitties are missing him a lot too. His best time so far was having some freedom out of the cage in my presence.

JIMMY WANTS TO COME HOME BUT I WOULD NOT ALLOW HIM TO DO SO

Seriously, I won’t want him to be at home for the moment… It’s not that I don’t love him at all but surely not with the catheter still stuck at his penis. Moreover, it would be hard to stop the other J Family Kitties from not giving him any stress at all. Hospitalization and the daily miscellaneous add on medical fees would not be cheap but at least he’s in great hands to monitor his condition well. Anyway, Jimmy looked better than the day he got admitted but he has lost some weight and appeared to be not in his usual fluffy self.



No matter how he begged me by showing his deep affection towards me or giving out lots of purring with his pair of pathetic looking eyes, the answer was still a NO. The reason was HE LEAKS every few minutes!



Can you imagine him in this position every 10-15 minutes? At least, leaking is better than not able to urinate at all, resulting in toxic being accumulated within the body, thus shutting down the rest of his internal organs. In short... Bye Bye!



I don’t think any pet owner would be in a right state of mind to allow their pet to go home this way. I won’t mind cleaning up the mess he would leave behind but blood stained urine is not something I would want to handle. The experts would be a better party to mend him up. I would want him to stay back to recuperate well with the right medical attention.



Actually, I thought of not showing this photo. The sight of the catheter stuck there gave me a chill that drove pain right into my spines. The thought of having something pumped into his bladder and draining it out again sounded real scary. I can feel his pain right now.



Another major problem was that he has not been eating anything at all since being admitted. That got me worried when I called up the vet earlier. I had to convince him this evening that the new prescription diet would be the best for his diet from now onwards. He did nibble some but it was not enough for him. He was a big eater at home, forever asking for more food at odd hours of the day. If this were to go on, the vet has to put him on drip for another few days to make sure he won’t be weak. Another problem was detected and it could be the cause of him not eating at all. He has gingivitis, the inflammation of the gum tissues. That pondered me as he had no problem at all biting into the dry food pellets and some cooked meat all the time. Well, the vet should know what would be the best for him anyway. Just 2 days at the vet and more and more issues which required immediate medical attention and treatment have been added onto the bill. When I thought I had controlled the flea problem for all my cats and that was one of the other issue detected. Gosh! Let’s hope I won’t be slapped with a huge bill later with Jimmy having to stay on for another 5 days or more~ Haiz~

THE WORST CASE OF FLUTD IN THE HISTORY OF THE J FAMILY KITTIES

Latest update:
Emergency surgery successful. He's still under the influence of sedation.

I have a phobia on the “F” word until I feel like crying out loud now. FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease) is the word and it struck Jimmy real badly this time. The J Family Kitties are sure having a big bout of bad luck for the last 1.5 years. Firstly, it was Jeremy who had gone over the rainbow bridge due to a late detection. Then, it was Mama Jessica who was lucky being a female with a wider urethra to survive the bloody and painful ordeal. Jerry went across the fastest with the fatal FLUTD blow due to a cheap brand of dry cat food fed by his former owner. His brother, Jiro, suspected having it but luckily it was just a minor bacterial infection. The worst case affected Jimmy, exactly 3 years 9 months old today, who never had any bad medical record since birth. At a human age of 31 years old, it’s not such great news too.

It has been a tiring and stressful night for me since Jimmy suddenly went into a fit at 1.00am in the morning. His actions had all the symptoms of being down with FLUTD. Surprisingly, he was still playing with his sister, Janice, at midnight while not showing any pain at all. I have not been resting ever since. Wiping and sanitizing almost every single tile in my living room can be a huge task for an unhealthy person like me. Unlike Jerry who could not make it on time to my personal vet due to a later operation hours, I rushed Jimmy to the earliest vet available. He was admitted immediately.

Jimmy is now undergoing an emergency bladder dialysis to save his threatened life. I could not stand the thought of having an irrigating bladder dethrombulator being used to flush out the calcium crystal in his bladder. Can you imagine having a catheter or sometimes known as a conduit inserted through the penis hole right into the bladder in the process for the next few days? It would be real painful experience for him but it a must to unblock his narrow urethra for survival. Luckily, they will be putting him under sedative with pain killer injections to soothe the pain.

5 days or more is something that Jimmy had not done before away from me. He had to be admitted at the vet for 5 days or more (plus under observation in case of any complications) for bladder dialysis and with a micro tube hanging out of his penis for the next few days? Argh! I’m not going to like this sight. I won’t like the figures on the bills at a later stage too for the hospitalization, food, vitamins, injections and God knows what else they would add in it. Moreover, he has to be put under a strict pH balance c/d prescription diet, which is 5 times the cost of his present food, for the rest of his life. Gosh!

SPECIAL ATTENTION: Some of my friends had suggested that I put all the cats on wet diet (canned or home cooked without oil) and get rid of all the commercial dry cat foods labeled as being formulated for urinary tract health. Chances are these might be too acidic for your cat. Some even suggested a no fish flavored dry food which is believed to be one of the causes other than being too stressed for getting FLUTD. I spoke to this new vet of mine who’s an expert in pet diet. THERE IS NO STAND OR PROOF ON THESE ACCUSATIONS. The best solution to avoid FLUTD is a regular visit to check up on the alkaline or acid level in your pet’s urine to determine what prescription diet suits your pet best. These diets may be rather costly but it would save your pet’s life in a long run.