Monkey Is Home!

On Saturday afternoon, Holly and I went to the vet and picked up Monkey from the hospital. He had been there since Monday, so we were quite happy when we heard the news that we could bring our baby home. However, just because he’s home doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods just yet. His liver is beginning to respond to the treatment and that’s great news, but we still have a long way to go.

With his feeding tube still in place, we have been feeding him every 4 hours by injecting his food directly into his stomach with a syringe. The food is called A/D and it’s a canned food that you can only get from your vet. We mix it with water and then draw it into the syringe. In the morning we have to add antibiotics and supplements into the food. At night, we add just the antibiotics. The vet originally said that we had to do the feedings 4 times a day, but given the amounts of food that we have to give him, it’s worked out to 6 times a day and sometimes as many as 8. It seems every time I turn around, it’s time to give Monkey more food.

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An Update On Monkey

We took Monkey back to the vet yesterday and it’s not great news Monkey did not respond to the treatments that we were giving him over the weekend. His blood work showed that his liver was doing worse. So the next step was to leave him there at the hospital and let them take over the treatment.

They are going to insert a feed tube into his stomach so that they can feed him directly as well as put him on a fluid program. After 4-5 days after that, we should be able to take him home and continue the feeding through his tube until he starts eating on his own. This could take as long as 12 weeks or more before he decides to eat on his own. The most important thing is to get his liver to begin coming back to normal and that’s why he’s staying in the hospital.

I think the additional fluids and vitamins will make all the difference and he’ll round the corner this week. However, having to leave one of your pets at the vet is one of the worst feelings in the world and Holly isn’t taking it too well. The cloak of doom has descended and until we get word that Monkey is doing better, I don’t know if anything can lift it. The doctor saying that we had a 60% chance that he’ll recover didn’t help any. I see the 60% and Holly sees the 40%.

So, as silly as this may sound since I’m talking about a pet, please keep us in your prayers. We’re praying for a fast recovery and that he’ll be home very very soon. Thanks.

Update: We went by this morning to look in on Monkey and he’s doing great. He has an IV attached to his wrist and they’ve been giving him vitimans in addition to his fluids. He was very perky when we visited him and quite active. I took a couple of pictures and posted them in the moblog.

Home Care For Monkey

This has been a tough week for Holly and I because of our 3rd cat Monkey. We noticed that he had been losing weight and we thought that was great because we’ve been trying to slim all of our cats down. However, in Monkey’s case, we found that he lost too much weight too fast. None of the other cats appeared to have lost more than a pound over the last few months, but Monkey appeared to have lost more than 5. We were obviously concerned, so we took Monkey to the vet on Wednesday to have him checked out.
My wife Holly has a very soft heart for people, animals and even plants, so Monkey’s condition already had her worried and on the verge of tears. The vet did some blood work, but scheduled an ultrasound for the next day. The doctor’s initial prognosis was that Monkey could be dealing with something called Feline Hepatic Lipidosis, otherwise known as Fatty Liver Disease. However, there could also be cancer in his liver as well, so the ultrasound and maybe even a biopsy might tell us more. In the meantime, they gave him an appetite stimulant and injected fluid under his skin to make sure he was hydrated.

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We Need A Bigger Bed

It’s a miracle, but Gracie slept in the bed with us the whole night! This is the first time we’ve gone the entire night without Gracie starting a ruckus with the cats, so clearly we’re making progress. I ended up leaving her leash on her so that she couldn’t hop down and go cat chasing, so that may have been the ticket. I toss and turn a good bit throughout the night, but she stayed at my feet the whole time. Once my alarm went off the magic was broken and she was ready to play. If nothing else, Gracie is a snooze button killer.

The only real downside to this momentus occassion is that with a dog and two cats sharing the bed it’s getting a little crowded. We have two other cats and if they were to join in, I don’t know where Holly and I would sleep. We have a queen now, but Holly says she’s been keeping her eye out on a king size.

Oh and it case you haven’t seen them yet, I put up a new gallery entitled Gracie’s First Bath.

Operation Bedroom Freedom

I think Gracie is the most perfect dog in the world. My cats, on the other hand, this that she is the spawn from hell. We’ve been trying to integrate Gracie with our four cats for about a month now and we’re having very little success. We’ve tried supervised visits with one cat in a neutral area, we’ve tried group meets, we’ve tried just about everything and the cats simply want nothing to do with Gracie.

When Gracie sees one of the cats, she wants to play, so she gets a little bouncy and hops around a little bit. The cats see this as a threat, so they hunker down, growl and hiss at her. After a month the cats haven’t figured out that she’s trying to play and Gracie hasn’t figured out that they don’t like her.

Our hope has been that they would somehow find a middle ground, then we could all live happily ever after. Right now I’d settle for a good nights sleep. I’ve tried to have Gracie sleep on the bed with us, but she just won’t leave the cats alone and Holly and I can’t take all the bitching from the cats. Finally, at 3am this morning, Holly and I agreed to put Gracie in her crate. I hate to do it, because she’s in her crate for most of the day when we’re out working, but what else can you do?

We did have one good night sleep with the dogs and cats and that was about a week ago. All the cats had bailed on the bed and were hiding in the master bathroom. Gracie had fallen asleep and then the cats slowly snuck back onto the bed. I was dead tired and didn’t stir all night (which is rare). We all slept together in perfect harmony until 6AM. That’s when Gracie woke up and all hell broke loose!

Clean Bill And A Long Night

I took Gracie to the vet yesterday morning and she got a clean bill of health! The vet’s best guess is that she is mostly Cocker Spaniel and perhaps a little Shih Tzu due to the shape of her face and hair pattern, but it’s all a guess anyway. The vet also guessed her age at about 3 months and that she’d probably reach a final weight of around 20 lbs. Right now she ways 7.3 lbs. She now has her first round of shots, an application of Frontline and a follow up appointment in three weeks.

She’s been an absolute joy to have in the house and she has such a great disposition. While I worked yesterday, she slept at my feet and didn’t make a peep. Oh how I have missed having a dog! The only negative was that she started whining and scratching at the door at 3:15am this morning. Until she’s integrated with the rest of our pets (4 cats), we’re keeping her in the downstairs bathroom when we go to bed. So when she started making noise, I woke up and I took her for a walk outside. When she was done I put her back in the bathroom, but it wasn’t long before she was whining again. I tried to ignore her and let her get it out of her system and go back to sleep, but after 5 minutes, I just couldn’t hold out any longer. I walked back downstairs and let her out. I slept the rest of the night on the couch with her and she couldn’t have been happier.

Small price to pay to have her in my life.