So.. back story:
Kyul Rangi, or Kyul, is our cat. She turned 17 on Halloween. She has been my husband and my cat since we got married (she came to the house about 2 weeks after we said 'I do'). She has lived a pretty solid, healthy life. She started having trouble with her hips about 2 years ago - slowly getting weaker and weaker. She got around with an odd side shuffle of a walk - but she got around.
This morning I woke up to Kyul having a HUGE belly and it was hard as a rock. Obviously, she was constipated. I think her leg health has deteriorated to a point she couldn't get over to the water, so she just didn't... and then she had to go and getting into the litter box was just too much hassle.. so she didn't. In the end, by holding it, she got herself into quite the little pickle.
I do not believe in euthanasia as the answer to all ailments in old animals. Old is just old - not sick. Now, before people jump to conclusion, I believe euthanasia has a place in this world. I have had to make the decision to euthanize a horse when I was 16 and I watched my brother, at the same age, make a decision to euthanize his beloved hunting dog. I do feel that one "just knows" when its right and right now, I don't think its that time for Kyul. Outside of her hips and that problem making it difficult for her to get in and out of the litterbox, she's actually a pretty healthy ole gal.
So - this is where we are. Leaving the vet today she is moving to a soft cat food diet, we will use stool softeners, she will take a baby aspirin weekly, she gets a saline drip to help with hydration twice a week, we will express her bladder for her, help with her bowel movements, and we are going to build her a kitty wheelchair.
Is anyone else familiar with any of these treatments? What are your thoughts - does our plan seem good?
New... not sure where we stand.
Re: New... not sure where we stand.
It sounds like you are covering all areas. Are you doing the fluids at home? There are 2 ways to do them, with a drip bag or with big syringes. If you are interested, I have links and pictures.cfp76 wrote:Leaving the vet today she is moving to a soft cat food diet, we will use stool softeners, she will take a baby aspirin weekly, she gets a saline drip to help with hydration twice a week, we will express her bladder for her, help with her bowel movements, and we are going to build her a kitty wheelchair.
Is anyone else familiar with any of these treatments? What are your thoughts - does our plan seem good?
What stool softeners are you using? Is it lactulose syrup? Lactulose is non-habit forming and very easy to give. Did they get her cleaned out during her appointment or is she still constipated? Did they give her an enema or anything? She will be easier to express when she's not constipated.
But do you really need to express her, or would she possibly just use the box if it was
1) always clean and
2) big enough to lie in and
3) you put her in it?
A good place to find a litter box big enough for a kitty to lie in is the cement department of your home improvement store. They have great big black plastic boxes for under $10. A good kind of litter for the cat to lie in (that will not stick to her fur, even if it is wet) is Yesterday's News. They sell it at PetsMart. Clay or clumping litter will not work for a kitty that drags, but something like recycled paper pellets does work. Another good thing about Yesterday's News is it does not weigh as much as clay, which is important when you are filling a large box and know you will have to empty it. If you were really lucky, she might be willing to drag herself into it if it was big enough and always clean. A standard so-called "large" kitty litter box would not work because she would tip it trying to get in, but wouldn't if be great if you got a big box from Home Depot and found she could be independent? With Betsy (picture below) I kept puppytraining pads around the box. Betsy could walk, but she could not bend her legs and she had severe arthritis, and having pads under/around the box gave us a safety margin. It worked.
Do you need videos on expressing? We have some good cat expressing videos if that would help.
I'm curious about the aspirin once a week. Does she have a heart murmur maybe?
Some cats will use a wheelchair, but many cats like to just do things their own way. I guess the best way to find out if she would like one is to try it. Here is a video about a cat named Pookie, showing how well a cat can get around without a cart.
Betsy was very senior and had really bad arthritis, and she enjoyed having a heating pad set on low to lie on. We had an assortment of flannel covers to put on it. It helped her relax and stretch out, which also helped grooming. One bedroom had a futon mattress on the floor that she could get onto easily, and on top of that was the heating pad, and that became her favorite spot. I have her fluids twice a day for years.
Re: New... not sure where we stand.
Thank you so much for replying!
Right now Kyul is not even willing to drag herself around so we move her around to different spots and I am taking her to her litter box. She can still express on her own although she has some difficulty with the bowels. I think she may still be "in process" to transitioning from the harder poo that caused her constipation to a softer bowel.
For fluids, we have an IV bag and give it to her every 2-3 days (well, that's what we were instructed) - we've only had to do it once since Friday. I'm also giving her water via a syringe and adding water to her soft food. The med she has as a stool softener (luctosomethingorother) is green. She gets that twice a day right now. She isn't too excited about the taste but I guess if you have to give a nasty medicine to a cat, its probably best they don't have full mobility (yes, a joke.. hard to joke but right now it helps us).
The aspirin is just for pain and swelling. As far as we know, she has no heart issues, even at 17.
Right now we are getting a good schedule going and trying to make sure everyone in the house is trained up on helping her get to the litter box and prep food and medicine.
I figure we don't have much time left with her - but then again, maybe she'll prove us wrong Whatever is coming down the road, she will be comfortable.
Right now Kyul is not even willing to drag herself around so we move her around to different spots and I am taking her to her litter box. She can still express on her own although she has some difficulty with the bowels. I think she may still be "in process" to transitioning from the harder poo that caused her constipation to a softer bowel.
For fluids, we have an IV bag and give it to her every 2-3 days (well, that's what we were instructed) - we've only had to do it once since Friday. I'm also giving her water via a syringe and adding water to her soft food. The med she has as a stool softener (luctosomethingorother) is green. She gets that twice a day right now. She isn't too excited about the taste but I guess if you have to give a nasty medicine to a cat, its probably best they don't have full mobility (yes, a joke.. hard to joke but right now it helps us).
The aspirin is just for pain and swelling. As far as we know, she has no heart issues, even at 17.
Right now we are getting a good schedule going and trying to make sure everyone in the house is trained up on helping her get to the litter box and prep food and medicine.
I figure we don't have much time left with her - but then again, maybe she'll prove us wrong
Whatever is coming down the road, she will be comfortable.Re: New... not sure where we stand.
Yes, it sounds like she will be comfortable. 
Here is a very sweet webpage about giving fluids by the drip method.
http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/weird/s ... juice.html
I gave my cat Betsy fluids twice a day for 3 years. We did not use the drip bag and admin set, we used large syringes. The drip bag would take like 20 minutes, the syringes took like 30 seconds. You can get syringes in sizes like 35ml or 60ml. I learned to do it after seeing it done by a vet tech in the emergency room. She took a big syringe, put a needle on it, and filled it from the bag, took the needle off and set that syringe aside. She put the needle on a second big syringe, filled it from the bag, and using that one she inserted the needle under the cat's skin. She emptied it, held the needle in place in the skin, pulled the empty syringe off the needle, put the other syringe onto the needle, and emptied that. Done.
That is the general outline, I could give it to you in more detail. I loved it because you could squirt the fluids in much faster, rather than waiting for them to drip, and you are done. Worked great for giving fluids in a hurry on the lunch hour.
Two things helped me when I was doing it. One thing was, I was told kitty skin around the neck/shoulders is not that sensitive. You might feel afraid to poke because you think it will hurt, but that is the area where mother cats carry kittens, and male cats bit female cats when romantic, and it just isn't that sensitive. The other thing was, Betsy quickly realized they made her feel better, and she would rub me with her chin while getting her "squirt". I read somewhere that being dehydrated can cause something like a headache. Whatever the reason, she knew she felt better with her fluids and we were happy to do fluids together.
I found that using size 18 needles worked well for drawing the fluids out of the bag into the syringes quickly, whereas a size 20 or 21 was better for actually giving the fluids, because the smaller gauge was easier to insert in the skin and left a smaller hole.
In the photos below you can see we used a cheese grater to hold the fluid bag up in the warm water.
The 3 pictures of Betsy show 1) giving the first squirt, 2) grasping the needle in the skin in preparation to pull the empty syringe off the needle (actually not quite empty in the photo, but about to be), and 3) the needle that is in her skin ready to put the second syringe onto it.
You can see, even with me holding the syringe with one hand and trying to take photos with the other, she remained still and was OK. She was lying on her favorite spot, on the heating pad on the bed. I loved the fact that I could bring the fluids to her, I did not have to disturb her by taking her to the fluids.
If you are only giving fluids once or twice a week, you may not use up the bag. I recommend checking with your vet on how long you can use one bag, assuming you are keeping everything clean, swabbing the port every time and using fresh needles every time. You may end up having to discard part of a bag before it is used up, but sometimes that's just the way it is. With Betsy, we used up the bags, but with my other kitty, Chrissie, she was getting less fluids, and we did not finish the bags before having to discard them.
Here is a very sweet webpage about giving fluids by the drip method.
http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/weird/s ... juice.html
I gave my cat Betsy fluids twice a day for 3 years. We did not use the drip bag and admin set, we used large syringes. The drip bag would take like 20 minutes, the syringes took like 30 seconds. You can get syringes in sizes like 35ml or 60ml. I learned to do it after seeing it done by a vet tech in the emergency room. She took a big syringe, put a needle on it, and filled it from the bag, took the needle off and set that syringe aside. She put the needle on a second big syringe, filled it from the bag, and using that one she inserted the needle under the cat's skin. She emptied it, held the needle in place in the skin, pulled the empty syringe off the needle, put the other syringe onto the needle, and emptied that. Done.
That is the general outline, I could give it to you in more detail. I loved it because you could squirt the fluids in much faster, rather than waiting for them to drip, and you are done. Worked great for giving fluids in a hurry on the lunch hour.
Two things helped me when I was doing it. One thing was, I was told kitty skin around the neck/shoulders is not that sensitive. You might feel afraid to poke because you think it will hurt, but that is the area where mother cats carry kittens, and male cats bit female cats when romantic, and it just isn't that sensitive. The other thing was, Betsy quickly realized they made her feel better, and she would rub me with her chin while getting her "squirt". I read somewhere that being dehydrated can cause something like a headache. Whatever the reason, she knew she felt better with her fluids and we were happy to do fluids together.
I found that using size 18 needles worked well for drawing the fluids out of the bag into the syringes quickly, whereas a size 20 or 21 was better for actually giving the fluids, because the smaller gauge was easier to insert in the skin and left a smaller hole.
In the photos below you can see we used a cheese grater to hold the fluid bag up in the warm water.
The 3 pictures of Betsy show 1) giving the first squirt, 2) grasping the needle in the skin in preparation to pull the empty syringe off the needle (actually not quite empty in the photo, but about to be), and 3) the needle that is in her skin ready to put the second syringe onto it.
You can see, even with me holding the syringe with one hand and trying to take photos with the other, she remained still and was OK. She was lying on her favorite spot, on the heating pad on the bed. I loved the fact that I could bring the fluids to her, I did not have to disturb her by taking her to the fluids.
If you are only giving fluids once or twice a week, you may not use up the bag. I recommend checking with your vet on how long you can use one bag, assuming you are keeping everything clean, swabbing the port every time and using fresh needles every time. You may end up having to discard part of a bag before it is used up, but sometimes that's just the way it is. With Betsy, we used up the bags, but with my other kitty, Chrissie, she was getting less fluids, and we did not finish the bags before having to discard them.
Re: New... not sure where we stand.
Your "squirt" trick makes a lot of sense, but I've always done it the old fashioned way. I've been known to hurry it along, though, by squashing on the bag.
Personally, I'd consider swapping the aspirin for prednisone or even one of the new NSAIDS that are safe for cats; aspirin scares me with them.
Personally, I'd consider swapping the aspirin for prednisone or even one of the new NSAIDS that are safe for cats; aspirin scares me with them.