Complete Care for Your Aging Cat - Amy Shojai [24]
Lynn and Barb scoured all the labels on the cats’ wet and dry food. “The stuff that came back on the allergy panel was not even in the food,” says Lynn. The list of acceptable foods the veterinarian provided showed that the food Tweety was already eating was just fine.
Over the next year, treatments to manage Tweety’s sore skin became less and less effective, until “normal” times between episodes were almost nonexistent—the shots Dr. Johnson gave her lasted two or three days at most. “She would break out in what I call barnacles,” says Lynn. “They looked like raised black peppercorns. Barb and Tom brought her in to the vet almost every week at this point.”
Because Tweety and Taz were introduced to each other at 12 weeks of age, they’d been together for most of their lives. “He was fairly sensitive to what’s going on with her,” says Barb. They’d never cuddled together, but Taz stayed in the general area to watch over Tweety as though he wanted to protect her.
“She got so bad in April she was hiding under the bed and wouldn’t come out. She’d dropped two pounds to about seven pounds,” says Barb. The family agreed that Tweety was miserable.
“She was an emaciated little bald cat with black stuff all over her,” says Lynn. “She had lost all her facial hair, her ears were so crusted and tender you couldn’t blow on them from six feet away or it would hurt.” Tweety wasn’t moving, had no interest in people at all. Lynn says, “It was almost as if the look in her eye was, I’m dying…kill me now.”
At that Saturday appointment Dr. Johnson told them he’d tried everything and had nothing else to offer. “We think there’s some form of an autoimmune scenario with Tweety,” he said, and such conditions often are nearly impossible to resolve. “We’ve talked to a few specialists and done the recommended protocol, but Tweety has just been a challenge.”
After returning home to discuss the situation with their children, Barb and Tom made the hard decision to end Tweety’s suffering. “Everybody had seen it coming,” says Lynn. “It was living with death.”
The next day—Sunday—Tom, Barb, and Lynn drove to Home Depot to buy a pick ax. “We’re on a mountain, and the backyard here is rock with permafrost underneath,” says Lynn. “Tom was going to have to dig a grave for Tweety.”
On Monday, Barb and Lynn were both upset as they tried to come to terms with taking Tweety back to the veterinarian to be euthanized. “We’re both wailing and bawling, when little Tweety came out from the closet where she had been hiding,” says Lynn. It was the first time they’d seen her even try to walk in days. The two women looked at each other, and Barb said, “Maybe today’s not the day.”
Over the next two or three days, Tweety stopped hiding, started eating, and even jumped on top of the billiard table. “I’d never seen her have any burst of activity before,” says Lynn. “She was on the bookshelf reading Moby Dick—I think she liked the fish!” They continued to hold on to hope, day by day—and then week by week. “I’ve never met anything that’s been so sick with such a drive to survive,” says Lynn. “I think the turning point was when she saw the pickax, and thought uh-oh!”
They finally figured out that Vetalog injections gave her the most relief. The injection keeps Tweety comfortable for about two weeks, and sometimes three. “It’s almost night and day,” says Barb. Within 24 to 48 hours of the injection most of the crusty debris sloughs off and the cat is fine for a while.
She can relapse literally overnight. “You go to bed and wake up the next morning and there’s Tweety with peppercorns,” says Lynn. But Tweety willingly hops in the kennel, and hunkers down inside for the trip to the vet. “I know that she knows what’s coming,” says Barb, “but she also knows within the day she’s feeling a whole lot better. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t hiss at the doctor.”
After she receives the shots, life goes on for Tweety. She regained the two pounds she lost, her fur has grown back in, and she looks almost chubby. “My son calls her the Poppin’ Fresh Dough