So Worried...

 

Thomas - helping with the car build in October.

 

But more recently...

We've had a horrible few days with my beloved elderly 'cat child'.

Only a couple of posts ago I was telling you all that he'd had a great trip to the vets (in terms of his health anyway!) and that he seemed very stable for his age.  Suddenly, over the weekend, everything started to go wrong.

 

We think that he was 'jumped' by one of the other younger cats in the neighbourhood while he was on one of his daily potters round the garden.  He's a tiny, frail old thing so this really upset his arthritis in his back.  On Sunday evening he yowled with pain when Mark tried to pick him up and bring him upstairs.

 

Early on Monday morning I took him down to the vets again.  She gave him a strong dose of pain killer and gave me a further 'holding dose' for Tuesday.  She asked me to bring him down again this morning so that we could check how things were and potentially do some blood tests.

 

Early yesterday morning he did a 'bad jump' off the sofa, jarring his shoulders and front paws badly.  This accident was largely a result of the pain killers - because he doesn't know that I'm dosing him up and just feels 'better'.  By the time I got up and realised what was happening, he was walking around as if he'd been in a car accident.  It was awful to see and there was a period of time yesterday morning when I seriously thought I would have to have him 'put to sleep'.

 

Fortunately it became clear that Monday's huge dose of pain killers were masking the worst of the pain.  While it was distressing to see him move around, he still had an appetite and wanted to follow his normal routine.  He actually ate THREE sachets of cat food, rather than his normal two, and a substantial helping of biscuits.  On the vets advice, I gave him the next dose of pain killers yesterday afternoon and tried very, very hard to stop crying.....

 

So this morning we had an early visit to the vets.  He's moving better than yesterday, which gives us hope that his arthritis will calm from all these bumps and knocks.  He's got more daily medication than either Mark or I... and we hope that it will give him a little more time of quality life.  The only problem is that the pain killers could create renal problems.  Even though his thyroid condition is under control, we're still in a 'last chance saloon' with him now.

 

It's very upsetting.  Relatively recently I'd dared to hope that we might even see in 2018 with him on our knees.  Then, yesterday, I thought that we'd be measuring his life span in hours and days.  Now we seem to be talking about weeks and months....

 

When you take on a pet you know that this stage is emotional trade off for all their love, loyalty and commitment.  It doesn't stop it being SO hard...

 

Here are a few more photos of Thomas' world..

 

 

He'll sleep on anything.. even Mark's PS3 controller..

 

 

Neighbourhood watch.. taken a couple of years ago..

 

...and a furry paperweight (again taken when he was a little younger)

 

Jx