Cally update: medicating again

[stephbg]

I started Cally back up on Metacam on Monday night, so at time of writing she's had two doses. She's just discovered that she can once more wash herself all over and is one happy cat.

After the last trial ended inevitably with vomiting I tried to hold off as long as possible before restarting, but the contrast in behaviour is now so obvious it's going to be hard to schedule in these breaks in the future. Still, it's giving her good days now and then and it's very rewarding to see. In fact, she responded so well that I booked her in for a dental appointment with no qualms about the anaesthetic.

As you'd expect, her tail is extremely expressive. When she's feeling stiff and sore, she can't seem to hold it at the usual confident 90 degrees, so it points stiffly behind her at 60 degrees, with a slight kink. (If it goes below the spine for any length of time that's a sign of infection.) On this medication her tail is much more perky and flexible: she can hold it at the 90 degree mark, but it also curls and wafts gently. She loses a slight hunch in her spine, and her fur lies flatter. She curls more tightly in her sleep.

She sharpens her claws more often.

Some time in the new year I shall have to start saying she is 17. It's a guess as always, for she came to us as an abandoned Cat Haven cat, but I have records going back to 1993. She's been with me about 15 years. I'd say "with us" but she's definitely a one-woman dangerous psychopath cat.

Comments

[baby-elvis.livejournal.com]

My cat Johnathon made it to twenty. In his last few years he looked every bit of his age: a shot of steroids was very helpful in perking him up. In his last year we once got a call from the Cat Haven saying that he had been brought to them after having been in an accident. He hadn't; he just looked like that. Someone had seen him out the front of our house and assumed that he'd been run over.

He lived an AMAZING life - the sort of life only a manic, sex-crazed, alpha tom cat who wasn't sterilised until 11 could live. He would disappear for up to two weeks each year and then appear bedraggled and starved late one night, having spent his seed over an area we know for a fact to have extended at least 8 blocks West from our home and included either crossing the railway line or navigating a major intersection at a subway.

Yes, we were irresponsible cat owners, but once I was of an age to really take control of things it improved; hence his first visit to the vets at the age of 11. Being sterilised didn't stop his behaviour at all.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

He did a good job to live until 11 as an un-neutered tom, never mind hanging on to 20.

[baby-elvis.livejournal.com]

He was the only one of his litter to survive.

[delicious-irony.livejournal.com]

My Dervish is going on ten, but you'd never know it from her frisking and kittensookiness.

You'd think she's closer to three.

I love my fluffdaughter. :)