Running Chick

I brought Spencer to the vet yesterday afternoon.  Since he was diagnosed with renal disease about two years ago, I bring him in every six months to get blood work done and see how his kidneys are doing.

He’s been doing really well these past few months. He had a little episode in July that had nothing to do with his kidneys but otherwise, he’s been doing just great. About a week ago, he started throwing up – not uncommon for him or for his disease – once or twice per day but he was still eating & drinking & acting just fine, so I wasn’t really too concerned about it.  I also knew I had his checkup coming up, so I figured I’d mention it and maybe they’d give him an anti-nausea shot and it’d be no big deal. On Sunday, he was still eating & drinking normally, but the throwing up doubled. By Monday, he couldn’t keep anything down and was off his food. Bad signs.

When I picked up to go to the vet’s, he was obviously showing the signs that he was an unhappy kitty, he was hunched over and hiding in the darkest, quietest place in the house. Still, though, I figured that this was due to his kidneys being worse and the dehydration from all the vomiting. The blood test results came back and, good news, his kidneys were stable. His BUN was slightly elevated from July, a normal amount for his disease, and his creatinine was unchanged, a really good sign. I’ve been giving him a probiotic called Azodyl since the end of November, and the vet thinks that’s really been helping to slow his kidney disease down.

The bad news – his liver levels were through the roof. Not just slightly elevated, not high, alarmingly high. So high that they thought the tests were incorrect, so they ran them again.  Vets conferring with one another to see if the results make sense, kind of high. Vets going “Wow.” kind of high. When vets do that, you know you’re in trouble.

Just for reference, there are two enzymes in the liver that indicate it’s health, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). 

Normal feline levels of this enzyme:

Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT): 30-100 IU/L
Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST): 14-38 IU/L

Spencer’s levels:

There’s a couple of things that could be going on, pancreatitis or maybe liver cancer, but in general, his liver is failing.

The most important thing is that he keeps eating, so they gave me a topical anti-nausea medicine called Metoclopramide that I rub on his inner ear twice daily. He’s had two doses so far, and it doesn’t seem to be helping. He’s still throwing up and he’s still not eating. He is drinking, which is good, but eating is the key factor here.

If he continues to not eat there’s really only one medical option. Feeding tube. When the vet told me that, I made the decision that that wasn’t going to be an option. I will not put him through that. Maybe if he were significantly younger, but doing that at his age just seems cruel. And selfish.

So, I’m home from work for the next few days trying to nurse him back to health. We’re taking things hour by hour now and hoping that this nausea medicine will kick in and he’ll eat something.

It’s not like going through this at any other time would be better, but this is a particularly trying time for me because I’m in charge of a big project to relocate my department to another building and we’re moving next Thursday. There’s still a lot of logistics to be worked out and it’s all on me. Thankfully, I have a very understanding boss and I can easily work from home.

Also, this happening almost exactly two months after Simon is particularly crushing. I don’t even feel like I’m at peace with him being gone and now this is happening with Spencer. It’s hard, so very, very hard and I am an emotional wreck.

Right now, though, my priority is Spencer and everything else is a much distant second.