Friday, August 6, 2010

Sheba Aging

Sheba's doctor called.  Thyroid normal, creatinine higher.  He wants us to give her subcutaneous therapy for a couple of weeks, I think he said once a week, and continue the antibiotic, then make an appointment later this month so he can sedate her and look at her mouth.  Maybe there's an abcess there, or a badly decayed tooth.  Poor kitty.

Maybe I can learn to do the subcu, motivated by the knowledge that to have a technician do it costs $20.  That's on top of a bag of the liquid that costs, did the girl on the phone say $27? Can that be?  That would be once a week.  84 problems?  85?  I need to drop a couple off the other end.

Sheba looks very fine today, not afraid of us, sitting here beside me on her chair accepting frequent petting. Above is a picture of her sleeping there, trustful and relaxed, at home.  With work, we humans can understand sickness and old age, and learn to accept them as inevitable - accepting death is harder - but animals are only confused and afraid of losing their abilities.  That makes us especially want to comfort Sheba and care for her.
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5 comments:

  1. LeviAugust 6, 2010 at 2:41 PM

    How do we know that animals are confused and afraid of losing their abilities? Isn't that what we are? Afraid of losing our abilities? Or is that just me?
    She is a pretty girl in that photo up there. Vets cost a lot of money and sometimes they seem to deliberately cost more.

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  2. Melanie, Austin Zen Center practionerAugust 6, 2010 at 2:43 PM

    I hope you get better results when Sheba goes to the vet at the end of the month. We've given quite a few cats subcutaneous fluids over the years, some for quite awhile. You can bring a prescription from your veterinarian to Costco and save a *ton* of money on bags of fluid. Best of luck. Thank you for your wonderful blog.

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  3. Jeanne DesyAugust 6, 2010 at 5:11 PM

    Melanie, thanks for the tip. We need to work out a less expensive way of doing this.

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  4. ZenDotStudioAugust 8, 2010 at 11:57 AM

    she's a beauty! and there is something so sad in watching our animals in this state, the helplessness it engenders, and something dignified (human read in?) about how the animals manage it.

    when our cat got sick and died I remember the great well of sadness that came up for me. I was surprised and unprepared for it.

    good luck with your journey with Sheba.

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  5. AnonymousAugust 19, 2010 at 5:29 PM

    what a sweet cat. . aren't they all? Almost one year since our Sammy (a yellow lab) succumbed to an oral melanoma. Many acupuncture and holistic meds from a great vet helped give her a few extra months. The loss still hurts very much.

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