Snickers Update #2

The past couple days, we noticed Snickers wasn't quite himself and wasn't pooping well. Yesterday, I decided that if he wasn't all emptied out by this morning, we'd take him back to the vet. I called this morning and made an appointment and described his symptoms. Just as we were getting ready to walk out the door, he went in the litter box, and he tried his best, but it just didn't work. So, off we went.

They weighed him, took his temp (104.5 = fever), and discussed options. Dr. P. wanted to keep him at the clinic to monitor him, start a different antibiotic (he has been on one for the past 2 weeks and still has a fever), give him fluids and an enema. Poor guy. Little Sis got teary, which made me get teary. We were sad as we left the clinic. Little Sis was saying, "I miss Snickers a whole, whole, whole, whole bunch" and sobbing. Oh, Man....I get teary eyed just typing this. Sounds like there is a possibility of mega colon. I haven't googled that yet, but sounds like if that's the problem, he could need daily meds on an ongoing basis.

I talked with the vet about our history of bad luck with persians. Our last one, Maggie, developed a seizure disorder and had her own account at Wal Mart for her phenobarb prescription. She also developed a stomach problem which required daily meds. With both those meds high enough to prevent seizures and control her tummy, she eventually became lethargic and sad and we made the very difficult decision to say good-bye. Not long after that, our old cat, Allie, age 15, wasn't doing well and we took her in to the vet to say good-bye. That just left us with Sparky (now age 9) who was rescued from a parking lot as a kitten.

Oh, and just a bit more cat background, since I'm going way back. In 1990, I got my first Persian. All was well with him for about 8 years and then he died following his second asthma attack.

I was hoping that when we got Snickers, we had done thorough research and had found a cat with healthy bloodlines. Now, I'm bummed and .... well, if this doesn't work out.... I don't think I'll be able to get another Persian. We've had the best luck with plain old boring short-haired cats that are free or dirt cheap.

Hopefully, I'm getting ahead of myself here. And we'll find out that he's going to be o.k.

Another issue that I'm concerned about is Snickers' food. I put a painstaking amount of research into his food. After the recalls a year ago, I learned a lot about cat food ingredients and decided to feed our cats Blue Buffalo dry and Wellness moist. Since it's not the vet's recommended Science Diet brand, I'm afraid they'll try and get me to switch. I'm very leery about switching foods at this point. It took forever to find a food that Snickers liked and would eat. He's a very picky cat. Well, that's enough for now. I thought this was going to be a very short post, and it's ending up being a long vent. Oh, well....I feel better now. Thanks for reading this if you made it all the way through.