Diva--still not right...

Diva's appetite and eating habits have been off now for just over a week. She's eating about half again what she normally eats. She refuses her normal diet save for the K/D and S/D kibble mix, and she'll only eat half her normal of that when I give it to her. The only food she'll eat in any tangible amount is straight A/D (crisis food) with up to 1/4 teaspoon of miralax in it, and only when I'm nearby in the room with her. If I try to add her normal turkey food to the A/D she barely touches it. If I try to add more miralax, she'll barely touch it. Don't even think about adding squash or benefiber; I haven't even bothered to try since last weekend when she started rejecting it outright. No sense wasting my time or the food if she won't touch it.

This means her normal food concoction of mature turkey/miralax/benefiber/baby squash (a concoction she'd been happily eating with gusto for months, mind you) is completely out of the picture for the majority of the past week. This has lead to her constipation coming back with a vengeance. We had to put her back on a small dose of enulose to get her going again--risky because it can raise serum calcium levels in larger amounts. Thankfully 3ccs did the trick the other night and she went a goodly amount so no trip to the vet for an enema...

Been in communication with Dr. DiVerde (Dr. B. is on vacation) and he said if Diva didn't eat right this morning to give her one of Jazz appetite stimulant pills to see if it might help some with the eating. It takes a few hours to kick in, so now we wait to see if its introduction to her system changes her eating habits any.

He says if there's no change in her eating by early this afternoon I should probably bring her in, but it's really up to me. If I *do* bring her in he'll give her a good check-up and do the short blood panel to check her kidney functions. I hate to bring Diva to the vet if I don't have to, both for her stress levels and because, frankly, I don't have money growing on trees to be able to easily afford it.

The maddening part of things is she's otherwise acting relatively normally. She's only weird when it comes to eating. I've tried feeding her outside the guest room and that went even more poorly, so it's not the guest room feeding sequestering that's causing the problem. Not lethargic, not really clingy (though a bit more clingy than normal, especially with the eating thing), not depressed acting.

I'm at a loss. Being at a loss, it's probably time to bring her to the vet. Le sigh. I swear I live there...

Jazz: still improving?

You would think I'm starving her, she begs so much and so constantly. It's the prednisone and appetite stimulant. I wish we could take her off the appetite stimulant while she's on the pred, but it's my understanding it's something that needs to be weaned from, so she's still getting it every other day. This makes every other day MADDENING! She sit's on my side-desk, patting me and meowing loudly most of the day, begging desperately to be fed.

We're still on the 1/2 teaspoon every hour and a half plan, which isn't satisfying her at all, poor thing. Today I'm going to push the envelope again and start feeding her a little bit more in slightly shorter intervals and see what happens. The key, remember, is to feed her small amounts in regular intervals in order to prevent vomiting. So far it's worked, but damn! SHE'S DRIVING ME CRAZY WITH THE BEGGING!!!

She's seems especially interested in getting her paws on some kibble, something her tummy is probably not ready for yet. This means when we feed Ra we have to keep a close eye on whether he leaves any behind in his bowl so we can swoop in and put it up before Jazz gets her head in there to snatch it. There is I/D kibble, but I don't know if it's kidney friendly and I'm not sure I want to invest in a bag of the stuff, not knowing how long she's going to be on this particular diet. I'll ask Dr. D. about it when I call with the Diva update later today.

She's battling a bit of constipation, so we had to give enulose a try again last night. Thankfully she kept it down, and it did the trick overnight nicely. I'll have to pick up more at the vet next week if I don't end up there today with Diva just so we have it around just in case.

If things keep going the way they're going, I think we'll start weaning her off the prednisone on Sunday. Fingers crossed things continue to go well...

Diva: back from the vet.

She got a good looksee from Dr. D. and a blood draw to check her kidney numbers to make sure nothing was amiss. Her numbers are virtually unchanged from two weeks ago at her last monthly followup save for amylaze (which is still up a bit) and calcium (which actually came back down into readable range on the testing equipment! It's at the top of the scale, but not over the top of the range now! :)). Her amylaze is usually a little high, indicating possible chronic pancreatitis, so with the appetite/eating thing going on we decided it would be prudent to get her the Convenia antibiotic shot to hopefully help calm things down. Dr. D. also said there's a possibility the bladder stones she has are causing her some pains/infection as well, so it would also help that if that were the cause as well.

This morning after yet another woefully inadequate feed I gave her one of Jazz's appetite stimulant pills per Dr. D. It's been working a wonder--Diva's appetite is very strong now. She's pigged out on everything I've given her since the pill started to kick in early this afternoon. We're to give it to her every day til Tuesday, then every other day for a week after that, then off completely if her appetite holds.

Hopefully Diva's going to be on her way back on the mend soon...