Well over the past week Five has been more and more cat like outside. His hunting skills are improving enough that this morning he actually caught something. You know those large bugs that look like mosquitoes but are about two inches in size? Well he caught one today, then promptly ate it. This is a vast improvement on just sitting there and staring at the world going by.
He hasn't clued in about defending his territory against squirrels though. I saw three of them in the yard and wondered where Five was. When I looked down I got my answer.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
After the specialist
Well we visited the cancer specialist and the short version is he has two months to live if we do nothing. If we put him on prednisone it will add two more months and if we give him chemotherapy that will give him an extra four months. All of that is considering if he fell in the average. Prednisone is only a couple of hundred dollars and mostly covered by insurance while we don't think that chemotherapy is covered at all and is ~$5 100.
Needless to say that sometime between Christmas and my birthday Five will pass away and there isn't much that can be done about that. In the mean time I will be keeping everyone up to date about what is going on with him and posting pictures when I have a chance so we can all remember the crazy beast.
Needless to say that sometime between Christmas and my birthday Five will pass away and there isn't much that can be done about that. In the mean time I will be keeping everyone up to date about what is going on with him and posting pictures when I have a chance so we can all remember the crazy beast.
Health update
Well we are off to see the specialist tonight at 19:00 to see what, if anything, can be done for Five.
The good news is currently he doesn't seem to be in chronic pain. He has been outside recently, off leash, hunting, poorly, the local wild life. The best he has managed to do is be half the yard away when his intended pray flees. The only painful part for him from what I can tell is going up and down stairs. This isn't too surprising right now as his kidneys keep getting in the way when he climbs.
Five is eating less these days and having a few issues going to the bathroom. His bladder isn't suffering any at least.
Aside from that he is still acting Five-ish and all is going well for now.
The good news is currently he doesn't seem to be in chronic pain. He has been outside recently, off leash, hunting, poorly, the local wild life. The best he has managed to do is be half the yard away when his intended pray flees. The only painful part for him from what I can tell is going up and down stairs. This isn't too surprising right now as his kidneys keep getting in the way when he climbs.
Five is eating less these days and having a few issues going to the bathroom. His bladder isn't suffering any at least.
Aside from that he is still acting Five-ish and all is going well for now.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sick definied
To say that I'm sad about this seems unfair to Five as he doesn't know what is happening.
As I noted we went to a vet yesterday to see why Five was loosing so much weight so suddenly. Initially it was though that he had more room to run around in and that he wasn't eating as much so a little weight loss was expected. After a little time the weight loss didn't stop and became an issue.
The vet felt around and noticed something odd about his kidneys which needed a specialist to look into. An appointment was made today for 12:00 which I arrived at 11:45 for.
Initial view from the specialist's assistant was that the kidneys were definitely enlarged and needed to have a closer look. The specialist came in and commented that the best go would be an ultrasound to see what was wrong and a quick "thin needle biopsy" to see what was going on. Luckily the all the resources were available and they could get it all done in 20 minutes.
When they came back they said that Five's kidneys were between two and three times the size they should be, should be 3.2cm were 9.0cm. This was being caused by cancer that had developed. They weren't sure how serious it is but a new specialist would be showing up on Saturday to take a look at the results and get a better idea of what can be done for Five.
Right now the given options were a) steroids which would delay the inevitable or b) chemotherapy which would delay the inevitable or even possible remission. They didn't say it but the chance that Five will see Baby E's first birthday is close to zero.
So right now I'm sad that I'll be loosing a friend but also sad because that friend will never know why this is happening.
As I noted we went to a vet yesterday to see why Five was loosing so much weight so suddenly. Initially it was though that he had more room to run around in and that he wasn't eating as much so a little weight loss was expected. After a little time the weight loss didn't stop and became an issue.
The vet felt around and noticed something odd about his kidneys which needed a specialist to look into. An appointment was made today for 12:00 which I arrived at 11:45 for.
Initial view from the specialist's assistant was that the kidneys were definitely enlarged and needed to have a closer look. The specialist came in and commented that the best go would be an ultrasound to see what was wrong and a quick "thin needle biopsy" to see what was going on. Luckily the all the resources were available and they could get it all done in 20 minutes.
When they came back they said that Five's kidneys were between two and three times the size they should be, should be 3.2cm were 9.0cm. This was being caused by cancer that had developed. They weren't sure how serious it is but a new specialist would be showing up on Saturday to take a look at the results and get a better idea of what can be done for Five.
Right now the given options were a) steroids which would delay the inevitable or b) chemotherapy which would delay the inevitable or even possible remission. They didn't say it but the chance that Five will see Baby E's first birthday is close to zero.
So right now I'm sad that I'll be loosing a friend but also sad because that friend will never know why this is happening.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Sick cat
Well Five has taken ill but we aren't too sure how ill. We went off to the vet today to see if we could find out. The result was that Five's kidneys are "wrong" and need more help than what a simple vet can provide. We will be off to see a specialist tomorrow to see what they can see.
I'm not looking forward to the long drive into the City.
I'm not looking forward to the long drive into the City.
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