Complete Care for Your Aging Cat - Amy Shojai [59]
“It took a long time to get an appointment, so we put him on Tapazole,” says Marc. Tapazole is an oral medication to counter the effects of the hyperactive thyroid gland. “The doctor said there might also be a kidney issue, but we’ll deal with it after taking care of his thyroid.”
When specialists reviewed Zepp’s symptoms and tests prior to his I-131 treatment, they told Marc the cat was in advanced chronic renal failure. “Then Zepp essentially crashed. I knew immediately this poor cat was dying,” says Marc.
Zepp was hospitalized and given fluid therapy. Marc was dispensed a couple different kidney diets, and instructed how to give subcutaneous (subQ, or beneath the skin) fluids at home. “But he didn’t improve at all. He wasn’t eating, his weight was dropping like a stone, down to about 13 pounds,” says Marc. “My family urged me to get a second opinion, so I made an appointment at University of California-Davis.”
Zepp weighed only 12 pounds by the time he was seen at Davis, and had suffered a lot of muscle wasting. Marc brought copies of the previous lab work, and they ran additional tests as well. All his kidney values had climbed. To counter his weight loss, they placed an esophagostomy tube to get some food inside the cat.
Dr. Ellen Mcdonald, a resident and internist at the teaching hospital, told Marc there wasn’t much they could do. They’d try and stabilize Zepp and perhaps improve his quality of life for the time he had left. “I was beside myself, and in tears through most of this,” says Marc. “They said short of transplant there’s really nothing can be done.”
Marc was given instructions how to feed Zepp a slurry of food through the tube. “It was real easy to medicate him, but he needed to be fed three times a day.” He found a local vet tech willing to come during the day, and Marc handled the morning and evening food and medication.
Despite intensive care, Zepp continued to decline, to the point he was unable to get out of the litter box once he climbed inside. He was rushed back to the Davis hospital on a Friday. “I thought it was his last trip. I was trying to be realistic about it,” says Marc. “He had lost quality of life. This was no way for him to live.”
At the hospital, Dr. Mcdonald asked if a transplant was a consideration. They could run the tests to see if Zepp passed the criteria. Marc asked surgical resident Dr. Ian Holsworth to look at Zepp and his tests. Only a couple minor tests were lacking to qualify him for the procedure. “And they had a slot open,” says Marc, still very emotional remembering the events. If the last tests were okay, Zepp had a chance to get a new kidney. Marc knew it was the one, final chance to save Zepp’s life.
He took the sick cat home to wait for the phone call that would mean life or death—and Zepp got his miracle. Three donor cats were good matches. Zepp was admitted on Saturday morning, and surgery was performed by Dr. Holsworth and Dr. Clare Gregory the following Wednesday. “They called to tell me everything was fine, and the donor cat was also doing fine,” says Marc.
Part of the arrangement of the transplant procedure is that the owner of the recipient cat also adopts the donor cat. Newton, a 17-month-old gray tabby, was Zepp’s savior. “Newton is a fabulous cat,” agrees Marc. “He is aggressively affectionate, and loves to be rubbed on the belly, but he is brutally strong. My brother says Newton is hard like a tabletop with fur. He’s been neutered but still has the tomcat physique.”
Newton is the best thing that’s ever happened to Roger, the brown mackerel tabby Maine Coon kitten that arrived. They are constant play-buddies, chasing each other and wrestling.
It took about a month for Zepp’s new kidney to become fully functional. He came home with the feeding tube still in place. “He was not good when he came home,” says Marc,