Hi! Newbie from Ogden, Utah

dwmeowmix

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Hi I'm Debbie and I'm furmom to Woody (15 yr old Orange tabby with issues), Waco (10 yrs), Yota (9 yrs) and my new rescue kitty Chasca (1 yr) all siamese. I've loved cats all of my life. I guess I inherited that love from my mother who was also cat crazy. She had 4 of her own as well. So between us we've loved and unfortunately lost many, many kitties. I've lost 2. My dearest Maize crossed in 1993 and Woody's brother, Jake crossed over last year.

I study cat issues, health, behaviour and nutrition to be a well informed slave to my kids. I'm also of a more holistic bent. I prefer more natural solutions to common problems where possible and I do raw feed. I also run a blog called "The Frenzied Feline" to help educate people on commons issues with cats health, behaviours, nutrition (this is big with me), news and sometimes just funny stuff that amuses me like poems, stories, videos, a joke here and there. It's at http://thefrenziedfeline.blogspot.com if you want to check it out. So, that's me...about my kids....

Chasca, she's the new kid on the block. I rescued her from a kill shelter in September. She had been brought in with her kittens and was so skinny and malnourished it was obvious she had been trying to fend for herself. Every bit of what she took in went to those kittens. All the kits got adopted out but little Chasca remained. Lucky, I went looking for an adult Siamese to adopt and we hit it off immediately! She's a beautiful Diluted Tortie Point and the little squirt has wormed her way into my heart already. She's just a love.

Yota. She's momma's lap baby. I should've named her velcro. She is with me ALWAYS. I sit, she's in my lap. I lay down, she lays on top of me. I go to any room in the house, she follows...I love her to death darn it! She's so cuddly I just hold her and hug her. She just licks me.


Waco is Boss Hog. No questions asked! He rules the roost and everyone better know it or else. He has a voice he uses like a weapon. That very typical siamese yowl. I wear earplugs at night. But he's a champion cuddlier when he's in the mood. He's your typical crotchity old man.

Now we come to Woody. Poor Woody is struggling. I came very close to losing him recently. He has IBD or cancer we're not sure which. I have declined exploratory surgery to make the determination. He was a beautiful 15 lb bruiser but is now down to a skelatal 7.5 lbs. He's on steriods and we had to switch his diet from raw to cooked venison (which he's not crazy about) but at least now he's keeping his food in (both ends!). It's a challenge and it's heartbreaking but I think we might be stablizing. Got another appt with the vet this afternoon for a check up so we'll see what she has to say.

So, that's our story. I hope we can get to know everyone well and BTW you can blame Lil Maggie for dragging me over here from another forum!
Pleasure to be here!

DWMeowMix
 

twokatz

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Hi , welcome, nice to see another "Utahn", I live in the Salt Lake area . I enjoyed your blog, well done. Be seeing you around the boards.
 

lil maggie

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Debbie! ((((HUGS))) Glad you made it here!
Welcome to TCS!
I drug you and your cats here because you have so much to offer and hope you'll share

Glad to hear Woody is doing a little better, please let us know how it goes with the vet?? Still worried..... &
for Woody.
 

flisssweetpea

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Hi there
we're so happy to get the chance to welcome you and your furfamily to TCS. I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay with us - we're one great big family and you'll find loads of friends here. If I can help at all while you're finding your way around TCS just click on my username and send me a Personal Message - I'll do what I can to answer your questions
 
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dwmeowmix

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Thank you everyone for your warm welcome. I hope I can share some of my knowledge with everyone as well as receive some emotional support for me. My trip to the vet yesterday was good and bad. I took 2 of my kids in. Woody and Waco. Woody is holding his own and we're cautiously optimistic about his progress. The vet wants to keep him on the 1 ml 1 x d steriods for another 10 days and then see about tapering him off. The vet is concerned about his appetite though. It's just not picking up enough for him to gain any weight back. So if it doesn't pick up some more in the next 10 days, she's going for a new plan of attack.

My bad news was Waco. I have to give a short history here for you to understand my anger and dismay. Waco had his molars removed about 2 1/2 years ago. One of which the vet had to break into pieces to remove. After Waco's course of antibotics was over he started sneezing so back to the vet we went. He told me "Oh, it's sintinitus. Here's some antibotics." I gave it to him and after the course was over, yep...he started sneezing again. So, back to the vet we go. The vet tells me this time, "It's chronic sintinitus. He'll have to have antibotics whenever he starts sneezing again for the rest of his life." Gave me antibotics and sent us on our way. Well you guessed it. The sneezing didn't stop and I was not about to keep pumping antibiotics into poor Waco since the obviously didn't help. So I started using echinachea with goldenseal which worked about as well as the antibiotics did. Recently, that just wasn't working as well anymore which lead up to the trip to the vet yesterday. I'll try to keep this short, the condensed version is: after taking x-ray's of Waco's skull he has a raging inner ear infection deep inside his brain. Probably caused by a bone or tooth fragment that perforated his sinus area and was never treated properly. The vet (new vet) tells me this kind of infection is extremely difficult to treat. She didn't come right out and say so, but I got the impression that it may not be treatable anymore. His ear is full of pus only detectable by microscope. And she says, he is most likely already deaf in that ear. So the result of all this is that now I feel like a total failure as a protector and competent furmom. I'm so angry at that incompetent vet for just patting my head and telling me, "oh some cats go through this, I have another client with the same problem and he comes in once a month for antibiotics..." Blah, blah, blah...liar.


What an introduction...please forgive my rant. I'm just so upset right now I just want to put my head down a bawl. Anyway, I'm usually better than this but having two extremely sick kitties is taking it's toal on me emotionally.


Thanks for putting up with this,
DWMeowMix
 

lil maggie

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Wow Debbie, I'm sorry to hear this! Some vets are great and then you get some that you have to wonder how they got a license! It's perfectly natural to vent and glad you did otherwise how would we know what's going on? I wish I could help but all I can do is give you and the kitties big
Pmail me if you need to talk, ok?
for Woody and Waco
 
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dwmeowmix

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Originally Posted by lil maggie

Wow Debbie, I'm sorry to hear this! Some vets are great and then you get some that you have to wonder how they got a license! It's perfectly natural to vent and glad you did otherwise how would we know what's going on? I wish I could help but all I can do is give you and the kitties big
Pmail me if you need to talk, ok?
for Woody and Waco
Thanks sweetie, I'll probably do that.
 

xocats

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I am so glad that you have joined our community of caring people who love cats.
I am sending "be well" vibes to your precious kitties.

Please make yourself at home.

 
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dwmeowmix

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Thank you, Woody, Waco and I appreciate the good vibes...

DWMeowMix
 
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dwmeowmix

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Ok, once I figure out how to do that I will!

DWMeowMix
 

twokatz

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Originally Posted by DWMeowMix

Thank you everyone for your warm welcome. I hope I can share some of my knowledge with everyone as well as receive some emotional support for me. My trip to the vet yesterday was good and bad. I took 2 of my kids in. Woody and Waco. Woody is holding his own and we're cautiously optimistic about his progress. The vet wants to keep him on the 1 ml 1 x d steriods for another 10 days and then see about tapering him off. The vet is concerned about his appetite though. It's just not picking up enough for him to gain any weight back. So if it doesn't pick up some more in the next 10 days, she's going for a new plan of attack.

My bad news was Waco. I have to give a short history here for you to understand my anger and dismay. Waco had his molars removed about 2 1/2 years ago. One of which the vet had to break into pieces to remove. After Waco's course of antibotics was over he started sneezing so back to the vet we went. He told me "Oh, it's sintinitus. Here's some antibotics." I gave it to him and after the course was over, yep...he started sneezing again. So, back to the vet we go. The vet tells me this time, "It's chronic sintinitus. He'll have to have antibotics whenever he starts sneezing again for the rest of his life." Gave me antibotics and sent us on our way. Well you guessed it. The sneezing didn't stop and I was not about to keep pumping antibiotics into poor Waco since the obviously didn't help. So I started using echinachea with goldenseal which worked about as well as the antibiotics did. Recently, that just wasn't working as well anymore which lead up to the trip to the vet yesterday. I'll try to keep this short, the condensed version is: after taking x-ray's of Waco's skull he has a raging inner ear infection deep inside his brain. Probably caused by a bone or tooth fragment that perforated his sinus area and was never treated properly. The vet (new vet) tells me this kind of infection is extremely difficult to treat. She didn't come right out and say so, but I got the impression that it may not be treatable anymore. His ear is full of pus only detectable by microscope. And she says, he is most likely already deaf in that ear. So the result of all this is that now I feel like a total failure as a protector and competent furmom. I'm so angry at that incompetent vet for just patting my head and telling me, "oh some cats go through this, I have another client with the same problem and he comes in once a month for antibiotics..." Blah, blah, blah...liar.


What an introduction...please forgive my rant. I'm just so upset right now I just want to put my head down a bawl. Anyway, I'm usually better than this but having two extremely sick kitties is taking it's toal on me emotionally.


Thanks for putting up with this,
DWMeowMix
Hi, I know how upsetting this can be. My Missy had a similar experience except hers was a piece of the circular hearing bone that a careless ER vet broke and it lodged in her ear canal. It was a month before it was discovered under anethesia, infection went to the inner ear and possibly brain. My vet did a consult with an ENT specialist and we treated her for one month with Zenaquin. She also had a lot of debris build up in the ears from the infection so she was sedated every week for a month and her ears flushed. This did clear the problem up. Unfortuantely she was totally deaf from the infection. You may want to check with your vet, the specialist said with it that deep a month of Zenaquin would be needed. Good luck.
 
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dwmeowmix

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Originally Posted by twokatz

Hi, I know how upsetting this can be. My Missy had a similar experience except hers was a piece of the circular hearing bone that a careless ER vet broke and it lodged in her ear canal. It was a month before it was discovered under anethesia, infection went to the inner ear and possibly brain. My vet did a consult with an ENT specialist and we treated her for one month with Zenaquin. She also had a lot of debris build up in the ears from the infection so she was sedated every week for a month and her ears flushed. This did clear the problem up. Unfortuantely she was totally deaf from the infection. You may want to check with your vet, the specialist said with it that deep a month of Zenaquin would be needed. Good luck.
Oh thank you for telling me this. Right now my vet has him on 3 mL Clavamox something or other 1 x daily and some ear drops for 10 days. I know that's a massive dose of antibiotics but hopefully it will help. We go back in next week for a re-check so, if things aren't progressing well I'll mention this to her then.

Thank you!
DWMeowMix
 
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