So I realized I never updated after the cat post, so I thought I would now..
Vet visit 1 it turned out that she has an ulcer under her tongue that the vet says is probably cancerous, although I can't remember what the type of cancer is (some sort of carcinoma). She said it wasn't worth the stress/risk of doing a biopsy since that would involve anesthesia. Surgery isn't a reasonable option, so she gave her antibiotics because it looked infected, pain medication (which are thankfully this transdermal kind that you just rub on their ear, not pills), and then interferon to stop the growth. She also cauterized the ulcer to slow growth and also just help with the discomfort. The key she said was getting her to eat, so I went out and bought a bunch of cans of cat food in a few brands because I didn't know what she'd eat. I also spent some obsessive time (before and after the appointment) trying to figure out how to clean her face and paws (her mouth was bleeding and she'd wipe it on her paws) without actually trying to bathe her (like stick her in the sink).. which ended up being kinda impossible. I finally just washed her paws in the sink today, and that helped. I have wipes to use on her face, but white fur doesn't exactly go back to white.. so she still looks pathetic.
Anyway, she ate ok the first day or so. At least she ate. It's a pain because I have 2 cats, and the other will eat all the food if I leave them unsupervised with canned food out. That means he has to be shut in the bedroom to give her a chance to eat it, and she never would finish it.. but frankly my other cat is kinda fat, so I'm not letting him have the canned food anyway.
Well, then she stopped eating.. or she'd try to eat but not seem to manage to actually eat any. That's hard to explain without watching, but it was really worrying me. She also had more blood in her mouth Sunday night, so I got home last night and she just looked pathetic.. and this is after crying a ton while talking to my sponsor, but that wasn't entirely about this.. but I got upset and called my mom. She told me to take her back to the vet, and she actually called in sick to work yesterday (since it's technically Wednesday now) so she could go with me.. in case it was bad or just since it's overwhelming anyway. Both her and my dad came actually.
Vet visit 2.. apparently her mouth is looking much better, but she thinks maybe she bit her tongue.. probably the blood. I explained about the eating, but she hasn't lost any weight at all since last week.. so that's good. I mentioned she seemed wobbly when she walks, which I hadn't noticed before. She listened to her heart and told me that she has a heart murmur. She said there were pills for it, and since getting her to eat is hard, pills might be difficult.. so I get to crush them up and squirt them in her mouth.. not fun, but at least requires little cooperation. I'm going back on Saturday to see if that helped. She seems to be acting like this is treatable, so I'm trying to feel that way.
She ate a tiny bit before I went to work. I tried just a bit ago giving her some of the high calorie, special kind the vet gave me a sample of, but she wouldn't even acknowledge that. It's chicken flavored, and her entire life she will not eat chicken/turkey flavored cat food. Stubborn. So I tried mixing it with something else, and she ate a little.. but honestly I ended up giving her some with one of the syringes (realize I mean the non-needle kind) because I felt like she needed something today after the vet trip stress.
Yeah... long explanation. That's kinda why I didn't have energy for it. She keeps waking me up in the middle of the night meowing loudly in the kitchen, which was also part of why I was worried enough to take her back.. my guess is it's because she's hungry. I've been getting up and offering her food at least once every night (or whatever time early in the morning) which means I'm out of bed for a long time while she eats, so I haven't been sleeping much. Work was interesting because I was absolutely wired on caffeine and diet pills because I had to be up at 8 to call the vet when they opened to make the appointment, and I had only gone to be after 2.. plus woken up multiple times. My response was over the course of the day 2 cups of coffee with lunch, 2- 20oz bottles of coke zero, 2 cups of iced coffee (which I've been told by others is very strong), 3 diet pills, and I think one Primatene (ephedrine). Enough that my chest felt a little tight at one point.
Other than this.. I started taking my Wellbutrin again after a few weeks without taking it. I admitted Saturday to my sponsor (and her sponsor) to not taking it, so my sponsor now has a reminder on her phone to call/text to make sure I took it. I've honestly been pretty suicidal at times, but I have this long train of thought about how basically I can't because of my cats. Who would feed them? Could my parents handle a sick cat? How much worse would it suck to have their daughter die and then their daughter's cat die in their care? Really kinda ridiculous when the last few ignore the part about me dying mainly.. the concern is about the cats. This has actually always been true. I always had a fear that my parents wouldn't take my cats if I died, and they'd end up in a shelter somewhere and never get adopted. This is the kinda shit I think about in the middle of the night when I can't sleep or when I'm driving home. This is more what I was crying about, but I did not explain any of that at length to my sponsor.
There's more going on, but that's about all I can manage right now. I will try to update the rest at some point.
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