Rant Thread

[Worba]

Glad to here he's feeling a little better - sounds hopeful. If his appetite is coming back even temporarily then it may not be a chronic issue.

[Chimera]

his hunger constantly fluxuates, he doesnt eat a lot in the long run of the day, especially if hes in a mood but im not gonne rule anything out or maky any serious assumptions till i talk to the vet. But more and more i think about it i think his over-drinking is due to his kidneys and the hacking up is a side effect cause the 'runny mixture of doom' is usually cause he has more water then food in his system. he would get sick eating the wet/dry mix usually only cause it was really runny, all the other times was that it was probably a build up of the dry food since that always made him hack up. I also completely forgot to mention >< we do have pro-biotic powder that we got from the vet in november, it has only worked to some degree for him since then, we give him a packet a day as the vet told us, and we've kept him on it, and it doesnt stop the hacking. It hasnt worked from the start honestly and at $30 for a months supply, we've spent $90 for it so far cause we bought another one when our 2nd one was running low, and only now do i actually think its completely useless.

[Worba]

If it seems to be dragging on without your vet being able to figure out the cause, you might want to ask him if he'd recommend another vet for a second opinion on this.

Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can be helpful.

[Worba]

I wish wowhead would finish their maintenance... I used them alot before transmogrification, but since 4.3 that site is pure gold.

[Miyon]

I'm not sure if you have mentioned anything about the likes, but have you tried changing his diet entirely? To boiled chicken and rice? I had to do that with my kittens for a while.

[Chimera]

Meat is horrenously expensive for us, 5 chicken breasts costs us like $25 and its not even organic or even very big. Hed be eating one breast a day at their size.. pork and beef arent wholly much better, only inexpensive meat is ground pork and beef but i feel uneasy feeding him food that fatty and thats made of several different individual animals. Buying the extra lean isnt much help either, its like $20 for a big package of extra lean and our grocery bills already cost us about $300-400 monthly for our basics and thats not including the occassional need to buy personal and general cleaning products.

Stepdad hasnt had a job since May cause no one wants to hire someone whos 63yrs old with diabetes as a hard labor mantinence man so hes living off a $2000 monthly paycheck and when you get done with all the bills, groceries, gas, medication for him, we're barent left with any money.. Im living off my education fund cause i havent had a job for 2 years. Any moneyive made these past few months were from doing presentations on the side at my work/school.. but buisness is slow so i havent made a dime since before christmas.

[Miyon]

Ah, I see.. pretty tight situation though.. I wish I could help. :/

[Chimera]

Yea life just loves to throw you around like a handball :/ I thank those of you concerned with his well being, all that can be done right now is to wait and see what the vet says, and im gonna ask him about other clinics numbers as Worba suggested, i know theres one out in the district beside ours but theres no bus access to it and difficult car access (you gotta drive right into town, then turn around and drive all the way back just to get into it), i dont know the name of it to look it up and find a contact number but i'll get it from the clinic and tell them the situation and what my vet said and see what they think.

Also lol Worba, Wowhead is definitely amazing for finding same-model-as armor/weapons and locations, i look the item up always if im in the WMV to see if its available or not, so handy <3

Now what to do today.. Im bored out of my mind but i dont feel like drawing and i cant leave the house incase vet calls ><

Edit: earlier the vet called back, i talked to him for a while and he said its not the kidneys but rather he thinks Luckys bowels are shutting down. They arent able to digest the food as well as they should be and its a result of age and its causing constipation and forcing digested material back into the stomach and thus out the wrong end.

He said if we dont put him down then we're going to need to get it under control cause its a painful process that can cause his intestines to burst. I got the number of another vet from him and i called them up, explained the situation, didnt tell them i talked to another vet, and they too said it was a natural age process but they simply said that euthanisation was the best way to go.

My vet said that if we can control the digestion of his food (and he strongly advised to not give him anything solid anymore, it all has to be mushed into pate or it could cause more damage) then he might be able to live somewhat comfortably for a few more months but he said he couldnt really put a somewhat accurate timeline on him cause he'd need to see Lucky and asess his condition which he said he'd do for us for $40 which isnt bad compared to what we've had to pay in the past, but he said it really isnt worth it. Even with control it could end up being only a matter of weeks rather then months before we have to put him down.

It does explain why hes drinking so much at least, hes not drinking to kill his hunger or cause his kidneys are failing, its actually cause of the sheer amount of liquid that he hacks up when his digested food gets forced out of his intestinal track. Small intestines are filled with fluid and thats where all that liquid is coming from and hes drinking lots cause he loses a lot of fluid each time he hacks up. (this paragraph btw is my own guestimation, i know like, pratically nothing about the human body on a chemical level)

It helps a little that i was taught that just because an animal -looks- healthy, like today, lucky has been happy and hungry like a pig, hes actually really sick on the inside. If i was never taught that id probably underestimate the direness of the situation and it'd be all the more worse on me when his time does come to an end.

[Makoes]

**Gives Xakaal a really huge hug**

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Seems my BF has once again placed himself on a pedistal thats so high up, his brain isn't getting any oxygen.

Maybe when he falls, it'll knock some sense into him again...probably not.

[Chimera]

*hugs back*

its about 3am, ive been worried about lucky hacking up cause he didnt go to his litter box for over 24hrs, im here sitting in the livingroom watching him and he walks over to the corner of the dining room and pees. everywhere. thank god its tile flooring. so i clean it up and i find that while i was doing that he crapped all over the livingroom floor. thankfully solid so no mess on the carpet but still.. wtf.. pee in the dining room and crap in the livingroom. he spent time in his litter box like 10min previous to crap but couldnt get very much out and he lets everything go in places that if stepdad found out would have lucky in deep shit.

anyways, the tile has been washed and the carpet febreeze'd down to kill any odour and will be putting plywood that we have sitting in the back room in the entranceways to the living room and dining room so he doesnt come back in here and do that again while i sleep. least today he hasnt hacked up, he hasnt even made the noise indicating that he might hack up.

vet said just about any laxative would work and we have metamusil here so i put a little bit in his food and a half teaspoon in his water (its a big and deep dish so its not actually very much at all unless he drinks the entire container in one day but his water intake was quite normal today which was surprising after last nights episode.

god am i tired.. i have no idea how much sleep ive lost this past week, all but the one night where i had a lot of coffee and forgot that it keeps you awaaaaake has been spent cleaning up barf and tending to lucky when he cries and getting up every so often just to simply see if hes still sleeping and not, well, lying there.

and its... SNOWING. seriously its suddenly snoeing and we have like several inches of fresh snow right now and its steadily falling heavily, we're gonma end up with a couple feet if it continues strongly into the morning and might get more if it doesnt melt and ends up snowing again in the night

[Miyon]

I'm sorry to hear about what the vet said.. And yeah, it's entirely correct. Just because an animal seems healthy, it could in fact have less than a week left. Learned from experience. However it's not my fault that they weren't taken to the vet sooner, because I'd been pushing it ever since they got sick. I hope they find something to help Lucky, so that he can live a bit longer, while being healthy and not in pain.

[Worba]

/hug

I'm very sorry to hear the news. All you can do is take it a day at a time; as long as his good days outnumber the bad ones, and his treatments aren't breaking the bank, just keep giving him laxatives and keep him as comfortable as possible. It's possible things will work themselves out, but ofc as the vet said, he is 16 and that will take its course at some point.

It's never easy to lose a pet, but at least he's had a lot of years.

Anyway, keeping my fingers crossed...

[cowmuflage]

god I just woke up and I feel like I have a hangover but I did not get drunk last night. I had 2 beers O.o

[Chimera]

Yea hes definitely had a lotta great years and hes pretty much in their average lifespan right now, i was trying to look up exactly lifespans of different cats and a lot of people claime theirs lived anywhere from 14-18 years (of course taking into account that not all breeds live the same length of time). He is doing really well today tho, he is purring like a motor and has been snuggled up on the couch arm since like 8am just watching outside. he doesnt like going outside when its this cold but i guess he likes the amount of light that shines off snow cause he always hangs around the balcony window when theres snow on the ground.

And friggin god its only 11AM AAAaarrggggsss.... i thought my clock read that it was after 1pm so i unwillingly got up cause i am horribly tired, tamika is feeling much better (she has a bit of a cold) this morning cause i left the heat cranked up in my room for her (while i melt to death under the blankets rofl) and has been zipping up and down up and down in her cage and flip flopping like someone pulling off some really random kung fu moves and then she'd scare herself and start zipping up and down up and down and then go into her bottom house to eat some of her stock pile goodies and start the routine again.. that went on for about an hours straight earlier this morning.. when i got up and checked on her she poked her head out of her hammock and gave me good morning kisses and is now sound asleep.

She drives me bat crazy sometimes but i luvs her <3 But now i gotta do laundry and dishes and its cold in every part of the house but my room and im terrified to know how cold the hallways in the building are cause we live on the 1st floor and ever since they changed the type of insulation they use in the underground our hydro bill has skyrocketed, its always cold. It takes seriously only like 15min for my room to turn chilly after turning the heat off. I hate it. And thats how tamika got her cold, cause the heats being sucked out of here within practically minutes and she needs a lot of heat since its the middle of winter and i really dont want anything to happen to her, ive given her a bit of extra dark chocolate to clear her respiratory system cause shes been sneezing a lot and i dont want her to start suffocating. She has luckily stopped sneezing, hasnt sneezed all night long so somethings going right at least.

(and i just learned thanks to google shes actually a Himalayan rat not what i first was told which is an Albino Siamese. Siamese and Himalayan both share the characteristics of red or ruby color and both have the same color points but the colors of the fur shading and how dark the color points are different. Im also speculating she might have a little Dumbo mixed in but i have to look at her ears to tell and i dont wanna wake her up)

[cowmuflage]

My cats well past 20 years old. You can tell hes old by how slow he moves nowadays XD He proberly has arthritis like most old people. thank god he still remmbers to poo outside

[Chimera]

/sigh i dont know if he's not improving very much because it was only a couple days ago we started giving him laxative to help or if its gone on too long without treatment and only now do we know whats wrong (hes gone on over 2 months hacking up the liquid of doom and we never associated it with that it might be cause his bowels are beginning to fail but rather it was an inability to digest dry cat food).. he had a really good crap last night and he had a REALLY GOOD morning but all he ate was a quarter of a can of food, drank very very little water, only a couple hours after i got up he became very depressed and would slink around like he was trying to avoid being seen, he was very tense, didnt like to talk much, would absolutely not leave my lap or the computer chair alone, he always wanted to be in my lap or the chair sleeping, otherwise he would sit and sulk at my bedroom door..

he hacked up earlier today and the food was still solid, it wasnt broken down very much and it was mixed with stomach acid not the liquid from his bowels.. he's only pee'd once today and maybe just 10min ago he had a tiny deposit in his litterbox and proceeded to hack up spittle twice in a row (since he hadnt eaten since he hacked up his undigested food earlier today).. /sigh i dont know what to do.. i dont know if we're treating him too late and that its not doing enough to allow him to live a somewhat comfortable life without having to be herded like a sheep around the house so he doesnt hack up on the carpets and ruin them even more then they already are by him (hes already done a few thousand dollars of damage to the carpets around the house from hacking up and occasionally peeing and crapping on them) or having to lie good towels all over the floors so that if he does hack up it doesnt get on the carpet.

Its too soon to figure out what one of those two questions is the answer but i dont like juggling the life of anything, i dont want to keep waiting and waiting and watching and trying and testing different things if it ends up being all for naught in the end and all the while im waiting and watching for results hes suffering. I will say that he's improved slightly which is only that he's not hacking up black liquid anymore but it really worried me when i saw undigested food get hacked up, im afraid that it might not even be entering his intestines anymore.

He's only eaten one tiny meal since last night so its all just guessing cause i dont have enough evidence to point me in any direction relating to whether or not he's starting to be totally unable to digest food or if the laxative is actually working and he just perhaps had an upset stomach. I just know currently that he's still having trouble keeping food down and trying to poop in the litterbox.

[Miyon]

I don't know if you do this already or not, but if the food comes out undigested, you should probably look into putting some nutritients in his water, since he doesn't get a lot of it from the food. I figured perhaps it would be easier for his body to absorb the nutritients if it was liquid.

[Chimera]

i dunno what we can give him, his food proclaims on the label its recognized by the Association of Animal Feed Officials as a nutritionally balanced and complete diet for healthy mantinence or whatever of animals and that a full can is to be fed to the animal per day but not always does he have an appetite so we had started after our check up in november to give him a quarter tablet of Vitamin B12 all ground up into his food to stimulate his appetite (approved by the vet of course, i dont want to give him anything thats designed for humans unless the vet says its ok) but it never really did much for him so we had bumped it up to half a tablet but still never improved his appetite so we weaned him off the B12 and thats pretty much it. Vet said the pro-biotics that we have here are useless if his bowels are shutting down and like i said before i was essentially wasting my money on them cause it wasnt doing anything for his system.

[Miyon]

You'd have to speak to a vet, ofc. My thoughts were just that his body isn't able to draw out the nutritients from the food, and that's why it comes out undigested, and that perhaps it would be easier to digest if it were in the water, as that shouldn't be so hard on his intestines. I don't think increasing his appetite would help on that matter. :/

[Senna-Umbreon]

*EDIT* Okay, so, this was just blowing off some steam. Don't take it that seriously, okay? I just.. Haven't been able to draw anything the last day or so on paper, and then when I finally figured out a way to do lineart in Photoshop with my tablet.. It won't work. I just can't handle it, and my temper's been off the charts lately (As it USUALLY is once per month.. >.>), so I just had to have a big freak out. If I didn't, I probably would have taken my anger out on my tablet itself, probably even breaking it in the process. Or worse. I don't know what "worse" IS, but.. Still. Please don't take this too seriously. I have NOTHING against people who use tablets, I just.. couldn't put my anger into any other words at the time. Besides, knowing me, I'll probably end up figuring out what's wrong and will go back to using mine.


I don't know why ANYONE in this damn world would WANT to use these retarded-ass little sheets of plastic called tablets. I HATE THIS STUPID LITTLE THING. It for NO REASON AT ALL has decided it won't work the way I want it to and PHOTOSHOP WON'T EVEN PICK UP ON PEN PRESSURE WHEN IT SHOULD BE.

Anyone who thinks a tablet is better than a mouse is RETARDED. I am sick of trying to figure out how to work this effing little piece of crap. At least with my MOUSE I know it's going to do WHAT I GODDAMN WANT IT TO DO.