Our Poor Kitty

When we moved in with my in-laws I had to send my two cats to live at my parents' house because my father-in-law is allergic to cats. 

But Oscar and Olivia have lived with my parents before and it worked out well.

This time my parents were also keeping my brother's dog, Lizzy.

Yep, my parents are saints.

Now, Oscar was an overly-plump cat when he moved in to "Nana and Pops' Hotel".

But over the last few weeks he started to loose weight and looked fit and trim again.

I was excited and thought that running from Lizzy was helping him get in shape!

But then he kept losing, and kept losing, and kept losing ...

By the end of last week he was just lying around and not doing much of anything.

I took him to the vet and was told that his liver enzymes were elevated.

They said it could be caused by tumors, infection, or something else.

Gotta love "something else".

In order to figure out the cause, they had to bring in an animal sonographer and do an ultrasound.

And so the hemorrhaging of money began.

The ultrasound showed that Oscar had fatty liver disease that was caused by acute pancreatitis.

The cure was (get this) to feed and water him.

It sounds so basic, but because he was sick he didn't want to eat or drink.

So he ended up spending the weekend at the vet while they force fed him and gave him fluids.

By Monday he still wasn't better.

The vet said that he may not be eating on his own for another one to two weeks

so they recommended surgically placing a feeding tube.

At this point I had to ask the vet the hard question.

Before we put him through this, do we need to consider that it may be time to stop?

She assured me that he seemed happy and was not in pain so we really just have to feed him.

So I gave them the OK to place the tube so that we wouldn't have to
hold him down and shove food in his mouth five times a day for the next two weeks.

Easier on him, and easier on my parents ...... because he now lives with them and they will be taking care of him most of the time.

Like I said, my parent's are saints.

The next day Oscar was ready to go home.

My parents and I met at the vet and got instructions on how to tube feed him delicious brown mush, how to change his dressing, and how to shove a GIANT needle into the skin between his shoulders so that we can run IV fluid in and give him a "camel hump" to hydrate him.

Have I told you yet that my parents are saints?

Last night we all went over to my parent's house and the kids got to see Oscar for the first time.

 I love my cat, but the kids are the reason that we have put so much money and effort into getting him better.

And after all this, he had better get better!