Sick kitty
It’s really tough when a beloved animal gets sick.
Nina has been with me for 12 years and she’s a faithful companion and I love her to pieces. In the last few years she’s had asthma and it’s been managed by a topical steroid. Lately, nothing works and late last Saturday I took her to Evergreen Animal Hospital in Evergreen.
Nina couldn’t breathe.
Now Nina isn’t a fan of cat carriers. Just place her on the back seat or the floor with a blanket and she’ll stay without any fuss. Carriers are for wimps in her opinion.
The animal hospital is located in a quiet building in a commercial complex. When I arrived the inside was dark and no cars in the parking lot. Frantic, I called their number and someone answered right away. They let us in and took us straight to an exam room. Nina was struggling to breathe and the technician checked her vitals, weighed her and listened to her lungs. A few minutes later the vet came in and despite the late hour spent an hour with us, offering options to help her breathe and resources for best pet foods to help reduce asthma episodes.
You know that sound a cat makes when they’re about to present you with a hairball? I’ve had some nasty specimens offered by my four cats and Nina’s been a champion hair-baller what with her extra-fine coat. A cat with an asthma attack sounds just like a hair ball but without something gross on your carpet. Nina obliged the vet and demonstrated her asthma-ack-ack right on cue.
Here’s where it gets funny. Nina needs pulmonary medication and steroids. The steroids are easy enough, just a jab with a needle. Getting an inhalant such as Simbicort and Albuterol into a cat is another matter. The vet recommended getting an empty toilet paper tube, placing it over Nina’s snout, place the Simbicort inhaler on the other end and “poof.”
Needless to say Nina wasn’t happy with this procedure.
Two days after our visit the technician called to see how Nina was doing. I told him about the lack of success with the toilet paper roll and he recommended getting a Sterlite container, cut a hole in the top and put a nebulizer into the container, put cat in the container and secure the lid.
Nina wasn’t having that either.
Our latest strategy is to wrap her up in a blanket and try to avoid getting scratched. I hold her with one arm and the nebulizer with my other hand. It’s pure comedy. She puts up a fight, breathes harder and hey, presto, she gets her inhalant treatment.
Nina’s a fairly good-sized cat and usually weighs around 13 pounds which is small for an American Ragdoll. That night she weighed 9 pounds. She’s been losing weight from the struggle to breathe.
This has been hard to watch her struggle with this. She’s not interested is playing or catnip and her appetite has dwindled. She still wants to be loved and wants petted more than usual. She’s clingy despite the Albuterol treatment debacle.
I have no idea why she’s having breathing problems. I don’t know what I can do to make it better and I feel powerless. The other cats are leaving her alone just like they know she’s not well. Instead they’re picking on each other and I’ve had to break up fights that leave tufts of hair all over the floor.
I hope she gets better soon. It’s no fun when a beloved animal is sick.