Pouncer update

Thanks to everyone (Brent, cb, Anne Marie, and others) who have inquired about our lovey kitty boy, Pouncer. The good news is he seems to be getting better, slowly. The bad news is that we still don't know exactly what's wrong with him yet.

As I wrote earlier, he got 'sick' while we were on vacation in Portland, OR and did not eat for a full week. We took him to the vet on Mon of last week where he was examined. The vet said his soft palette was swollen and he was dehydrated. They gave him a fluids injection for the dehydration, a steroid injection for the swollen soft palette, and an antibiotic injection in case there was an infection causing the soft palette swelling. They charged us $450. and told us to call back on Wed if he was not doing better.

I wondered if he was not eating because his dry food was too painful to swallow, so I bought some canned wet food on Mon and diluted it with a little water to make a puree. The poor guy was so hungry he devoured it immediately and licked the bowl clean. Same thing on Tues. The vet called us each day to check on Pouncer.

On Wed, the day I was to call back if he wasn't doing better, I called the vet because even though he was eating, he still had that horrible wheezing with every breath. The vet was encouraged that he was eating, and suggested we wait until Fri to see if the wheezing improved. If it was an infection, the antibiotics would need a few days to result in improvement.

On Fri I thought we were going to take him back to the vet because his breathing was still labored. Sometimes he seemed to be coughing, which I imagine must be painful to him. However, we were unable to coordinate a time for an appointment until it was too late for Spouse or me to take him in, so we scheduled an appointment for Mon.

Mon morning I left Pouncer at the vet so he could be examined again and so they could do a procedure where they sedate him and insert a tiny camera behind his soft palette to hopefully determine what might be causing the swelling. When we picked him up that evening we were shown photographs of his soft palette and sinus area and told there is a 'mass'. It was easy to see in the photos. They said Pouncer woke up from the sedation when they touched his soft palette, so it must be extremely sensitive. They took a biopsy of the mass and sent it to the lab. They said the mass could be a tumor, an infection, or possibly cancer. The biopsy should tell which one, but it will take a week for the results to come back. Spouse asked for something to give Pouncer for his discomfort, they obliged, we paid $650. and took him home.

To my surprise, Pouncer was much more alert than I expected, after having been sedated. We weren't allowed to feed him until the next day, but he was walking around the house a lot more. He sat on my lap and I petted him for a while as we watched TV. Then we settled in on a chair and dosed.

Pouncer's appetite and activity level seem to be returning. We usually feed him dry food once a day, but since he lost so much weight from not eating, we've been feeding him the wet food puree twice a day and he's been licking his bowl clean. He's also returned to his usual behavior of meowing for food in the mornings while we get ready for work, a behavior he stopped last week, so I see these as 'good signs'. The wheezing is still present, but not as loud. It seems to be getting better.

So while we wait for the biopsy, my earnest hope is that his increased appetite and activity are the result of the antibiotics working on an infection which caused the mass. I don't even want to THINK about the possibility of a tumor or cancer. I just can't.

Please continue sending positive, healing energy to Pouncer. I think its working!

Crush du Jour: Bo Dixon