Man Cat Miracles

Hi everyone - this is Kismet's Person, taking over his blog to give you a Kismet update, which will probably anger him, which should tell you that so far, he is doing much better. :)

If you haven't been following the Kismet Situation, here are links to the posts that Skeezix made after I emailed him:
One: http://skeezixsscratchingpost.blogspot.com/2010/01/emerjensy-purrrayer-reqwest.html
Two: http://skeezixsscratchingpost.blogspot.com/2010/01/kismet-update.html

The background is basically this: I took Kismet to the vet on Monday because I noticed on Sunday that he was breathing a little quickly. Nothing labored or congested, just a little faster than normal. My vet took X-rays and found abnormalities on his lungs that she thought was asthma. She gave him a shot of antibiotics and a shot of steroids and sent him home.
Within a half hour of him being home, he started to crash. Severely. I don't want to go into detail about what it was like, because I don't want to think about it. It was awful, and terrifying, and painful, and when I put him in his carrier to take him to the emergency vet a half hour away, I wasn't very convinced he would make it through the drive. They put him in an oxygen tent, told me they thought he was having congestive heart failure and was close to dying, that I had to leave him overnight, and to come get him at 7 am. I called them at 6 before I left my house to see how he was doing and all the tech told me was that he was still on oxygen and still having trouble breathing, so I assumed I was going there to put him down.

But then I got there, and the ER vet came in and said, "Well, he's doing better."

I hate the emergency vet's office, by the way. It is scary and they are not very compassionate. They discharged him with the X-rays they took and we took him back to my regular vet, who's been treating him ever since. (This is a basic recap of what Skeezix posted. I would have come here to blog about it myself then but I was not in any condition to do so.)

My vet wasn't sure what was wrong with him. They thought it was a combination of pneumonia/asthma and possibly a heart condition; most likely hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I asked if they could try to treat the pneumonia first, and they agreed. They started him on the pneumonia medication that day and he started to improve pretty quickly. I went to visit him Tuesday afternoon to try to get him to eat, and I couldn't, but he was alert, up, walking around, and VERY growly. Which again, for Kismet, is a good sign; his rage toward all things veterinarian is well-documented and meant, to me, that he was feeling more like himself.

I left him there overnight and called yesterday morning to check on him. My vet said he was about the same, maybe a little better, and that they thought it would be a good idea for me to take him home for the night because he still wasn't eating. My vet and I both thought that the not-eating was probably more a product of being at the vet and being stressed out than of his illness (he was eating totally normally up through Monday morning, which is the day this all started). So I went to pick him up. When I got there the vet was busy so the techs told me to go back and see if I could get him to eat. When I got to his cage, Kismet was alert, VERY happy to see me, meowing, and he ate for me almost instantly! Not a lot, not like he normally would, but both some dry and wet food, which is GREAT!

I took him home, and he drank a bunch of water, ate some more dry food, fought with Sophie, tried to eat some flowers I had in a vase, and then spooned with me on the couch. I got him to eat a few bites of wet food, fed him a bunch of Temptations, and he slept with me and Sophie all night in my bed. This morning he ate a few more bites of wet food, I fed him cheese and Temptations and gave him his pneumonia meds, and now he's back at the vet for the day (mostly for my own peace of mind - if he was at home, I would be panicking every five seconds that he's crashing again). I'll pick him up and take him home again tonight.

We're not out of the woods yet, but my vet said his breathing is MUCH better and that he's eating at all is a positive sign. He doesn't seem 100 percent himself - he's a little wary, and obviously normal-Kismet would be eating all the food in sight - but he's getting there. I hope.

We're not sure why he crashed so badly on Monday night. Kismet hates the vet, so whenever we go there and he needs an exam, they usually sedate him. Normally he's okay with it (well, minus the rage, you know), but my sense is that the fluid in his lungs plus the antibiotics plus the sedation was too much for him to handle. My vet, for the record, feels terrible about this; mostly that I had to go to the ER vet and spend so much money there and go through all the stress. I don't blame them, really - I've learned a lot over the past few days, namely that pneumonia/asthma/heart conditions bleed together and are very difficult to diagnose - and I know that cats presenting symptoms can sometimes tank quickly. They feel badly, and he seems to be doing better, and they're not sedating him for anything anymore. They've been pretty great, actually.

I'm still going to get him the heart ultrasound to determine if he has a heart condition or if this really was just pneumonia that knocked him on his butt. But I'm hopeful, and that's a lot better than where we were at the beginning of the week.

I want you all to know how very much your purrs and prayers mean to me. I live in a small town and I have felt pretty alone going through all of this, but receiving your comments and encouragements has helped immeasurably. Skeezix's Food Lady told me that some of you were interested in donating to help pay for Kismet's bills. If this is something you are in a position to do and would like to, I've installed a paypal button on the side of the blog. Please know that I don't expect this at all, and that you've even offered touches me more than I can say. My man cat is so special to me and I love knowing that his silly and ridiculous and wonderful man cat life has touched so many people. If you are interested in donating and have questions or would like to see documentation of the vet bills, please let me know. And if you do donate, please leave a comment or email us your information so I can send you a thank-you note from the man cat.

Thank you all so, so much for your support and concern. If Kismet pulls through this, I think it might be enough to get him out of internet retirement for good!

xo,
Kismet's Person