I got up at 1.10am this morning. I know, my sleeping hours have been totally crazy in the past week.
I tiptoed to Bunny’s Place and saw Cow Mau sleeping comfortably at the pantry. That’s good. I was hoping he wouldn’t know I was up, but he did and soon came to call for me at the door.
Last night, I don’t know what time I konked off to sleep. It must have been quite early because I had been up since 3.30am yesterday and did not have any time to catch a nap all day.
Cow Mau just wants to be near me. He’s lying down resting, but he isn’t exactly asleep. He’s just looking at me.
We are in this together, Cow Mau. I’m always here for you.
I haven’t stepped out of the house ever since Cow Mau fell critically ill except once when husband’s car remote control failed and I had to drive out in the pouring rain to bring his spare key. Well, so much for technology! But Ming-Yi was with Cow Mau at that time. I even cancelled my ballet lesson and have not gone out for any exercise. Luckily there are other exercises which can be done inside the house!
I’m hoping Cow Mau’s condition will stabilise soon. I have accepted the fact that his heart is failing and it’s due to aging. There’s just so much that we can do. But as long as he is reasonably comfortable, that’s good enough.
For now, we will address the issues one by one. Earlier on, it was only the mouth pain, then came the laboured breathing which was really critical, but thank goodness his breathing is back to normal now. I have never had any cat suffer from breathing issues before so this was all new to me and it made me realise that apart of hunger, the inability to breathe comfortably is a greater suffering. Such is our imperfect life. Lesson learnt – subcut fluids may be detrimental to a heart patient even though I was following what the vet instructed, ie. only 60ml of fluids daily. I guess nobody can know exactly what reactions can happen to any well-intentioned treatment protocol. When Cow Mau’s breathing was laboured due to fluid accumulation, the drug Furosemide had to be used to alleviate that problem; it was so effective too because after the second injection, Cow Mau’s improved so much. But, Furosemide can cause acute kidney injury (I was already told about this) and looks like it has now even though the vet gave a “safe” dose. So sometimes, it is all about choosing the lesser of the two evils and doing what needs to be done despite knowing there could be undesirable effects.
Now the latest issues are the infection and the acute kidney injury – these are our battles now. The mouth pain will have to take time to get better, maybe it may not totally heal since Cow Mau is FIV-positive, but let’s hope the laser therapy can reduce the pain.
Fish oil would be a very good natural supplement for inflammation, but Cow Mau cannot take it because it would thin out his blood further. There are also other natural supplements but some cannot be given to heart patients.
Next on the list to explore would be Chinese medicine and anti-inflammatory supplements like moringa and curcumin. The vet did also mention Fortekor for Cow Mau’s heart. But one thing at a time. The more pressing issues have to be addressed first.
I’m going to feed Cow Mau now as it’s been on hour since the Azodyl. Many years ago, this supplement had a reputation of “not working” but perhaps this was due to the fact that it has to be stored in a low temperature at all times and this includes the entire chain of delivery system which was beyond our control. The only thing within our control is transporting it from the vet’s clinic back to our house where we ensure it is packed in ice and put straight into the fridge. Now, there’s Renal-N, Renal-P and Renal-Combi which do not need to be frozen. Cow Mau, Indy and Tabs are on both. Call it “semua taruh, semua mahu” or being kiasu, but even vets agree that CKD pets can be on both. They are just probiotics aimed at reducing the nitrogenous toxins. Ours are even on Astro’s Oil’s Nitrogen-Creatinine Scrub as well. So, lagi kiasu!
At the end of the day, which one works? We will never know, but if the desired effect is achieved, that’s all that matters. We are not doing research here, we just want our pets to feel better. I used to disagree with our former senior vet (well, we disagreed on quite a number of things, actually, but we agreed to disagree and all was well). He said we should try every protocol one by one so that we know which one works, but I said I don’t care which one works, as long as one of them works! And usually, we don’t have the luxury of time to try one by one, do we?