Difficult Cat

Osiris has always been a difficult cat. Always. He ate a poisonous plant when he was two, developed kidney crystals (that requires an exclusive diet of special food) when he was three, escaped through a not-perfectly-latched screen door multiple times, fights with every cat he can see (even if he can't reach them), and he even attacked me and SPF on two separate occassions when we were trying to stop him from fighting other cats. So I don't know why our current situation came as a surprise.

We have been trying to deal with his aggression issues for some time. We have tried pheromone therapy, homeopathic stress reduction, and even "corporal cuddling." As a last resort a week and a half ago, and with the supervision and advice of our vet, we started him on some medication to help with aggression. I gave him the medication on Monday morning and he stopped eating. Entirely. I tried to encourage him to eat when I noticed that he didn't seem to have a great appetite, but I didn't realize how bad it was until after I gave him the second dose of medication.

After two and a half days of not eating, I took him to the vet so that we could figure out what to do. I stopped the medication and she agreed that we would need to find an alternate way to manage his aggression. She gave him some fluids and an anti-nausea medication and sent him home. Two days later, he still wasn't eating. At this point the vet became more concerned. I, of course, was frantic. Osiris may be an angry, spiteful, moody cat, but he is my baby. I love him.

At this point it was Friday. I took him back to the vet and she gave him some more fluids and anti-nausea medication and suggested that we do some bloodwork, just to be safe. I told her that he has been picky and difficult when his stomach was upset in the past (reference the poisonous plant) and didn't eat for several days even when he had already passed the plant material. She said that she felt better about that but encouraged that we hire a pet sitter for the day and a half that we were going to be in Santa Barbara to remove my final show. We called the pet sitter, packed, and left.

Twenty minutes into our drive North, the vet called and told us to turn around and take him to the emergency room. Thankfully, we decided to do the blood work which revealed some possible liver problems.

Liver problems.

So we took him to the emergency hospital in Sorrento Valley which is half an hour South of our home, and an additional half hour from our ultimate goal of getting to Santa Barbara. We stayed with the emergency vet for almost two hours filling out paperwork, meeting with various vet techs and Internal Medicine specialists, and getting him examined for the fourth time in two weeks.

It turns out that a "rare but documented" side effect of the aggression medication is liver failure. Combine that with a cat that doesn't eat when he doesn't feel perfectly normal and you get a cat that takes an "acute hepatic event" and turns it into potentially permanent liver damage. Hooray.

So our six year old cat spent three days in the hospital under constant supervision. His liver enzyme levels were ten times higher than normal. He was on an IV with b-complex, a liver protectant, an appetite stimulant, and more anti-nausea medication. We got to visit him during visiting hours. He looked horrible. He was scruffy, dirty, shaved on his belly (oh, did I forget to mention the ultrasound?), and shaved on his leg where an IV catheter was STILL IN HIS LEG when we visited him. When they brought him to us he was shaking horribly he was so scared. It was awful. We spent about half an hour with him and then had to leave.

As of right now he is back home. I have to give him six pills a day. I say "I" because SPF is off on a business trip in Arizona. Have you ever tried to give a pill to a cat? Now imagine that times six. Times "until all medication is gone." There are a lot of pills. Liver protectants, appetite stimulants, antibiotics (because it might still be a liver infection), and I don't even know what else. Six pills a day. He hates me. But I love him enough to let him hate me as much as he likes. What other choice do I have?