Osamenor
Staff member
Same cat I posted about a year ago, different health issue now. The problem this time is bad nasal congestion, plus she's had big nosebleeds twice in the last week and a half. (She also had a nosebleed about 6-7 months ago, which the vet checked out and found nothing; they said she'd probably just sneezed hard and ruptured a vessel.)
We've been through two vet visits about this, one course of antibiotics that didn't seem to have any effect, and now we're on a second type of antibiotic, four days in. It may be improving a very little bit, but hard to tell at this point. They've ruled out every easy to diagnose cause except bacterial infection (apparently, there are several types of bacteria that could cause this and no ready test for that).
Kitty seems distressed; she's been plaintively meowing a lot. Her appetite is a little less than normal, although it's improved in the last few days - for a couple of days, she didn't eat at all. The vet prescribed an appetite stimulant just so we could get some food into her and start the antibiotic. But she isn't running away and hiding, like she did the last time she got really sick.
Other possible diagnoses, according to the vet, run to cancer or nasal polyps, but the testing for that would be much more involved, invasive, and expensive, the cat would have to be sedated, and she has a heart murmur, which makes them hesitate to do that. And then, well, I've done a little research, and it looks like that if something like that were diagnosed, the options would be invasive treatment that could keep her alive another two or three years, not necessarily with good quality of life, or... accept that the end is near. Which it would be anyway within two or three years, since this cat is at least 15 or 16 years old.
I'm hesitant to do those tests because they'd be so invasive, I don't really have the budget for them, and the outcome is probably not going to be any different from if they're not done. On top of that, the vet hospital has some serious staffing problems and has just discontinued most services at the only location that's really within accessible distance for me. So, accessing care will now be a lot more problematic.
So, horary help. All I can tell here is that I'm Venus, I seem quite powerless here, and kitty is Mercury... but then what?
We've been through two vet visits about this, one course of antibiotics that didn't seem to have any effect, and now we're on a second type of antibiotic, four days in. It may be improving a very little bit, but hard to tell at this point. They've ruled out every easy to diagnose cause except bacterial infection (apparently, there are several types of bacteria that could cause this and no ready test for that).
Kitty seems distressed; she's been plaintively meowing a lot. Her appetite is a little less than normal, although it's improved in the last few days - for a couple of days, she didn't eat at all. The vet prescribed an appetite stimulant just so we could get some food into her and start the antibiotic. But she isn't running away and hiding, like she did the last time she got really sick.
Other possible diagnoses, according to the vet, run to cancer or nasal polyps, but the testing for that would be much more involved, invasive, and expensive, the cat would have to be sedated, and she has a heart murmur, which makes them hesitate to do that. And then, well, I've done a little research, and it looks like that if something like that were diagnosed, the options would be invasive treatment that could keep her alive another two or three years, not necessarily with good quality of life, or... accept that the end is near. Which it would be anyway within two or three years, since this cat is at least 15 or 16 years old.
I'm hesitant to do those tests because they'd be so invasive, I don't really have the budget for them, and the outcome is probably not going to be any different from if they're not done. On top of that, the vet hospital has some serious staffing problems and has just discontinued most services at the only location that's really within accessible distance for me. So, accessing care will now be a lot more problematic.
So, horary help. All I can tell here is that I'm Venus, I seem quite powerless here, and kitty is Mercury... but then what?