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Just got off the phone with Cindy who works for Internal Medicine at the VCA. I asked her a bunch of questions about Ra's chemo treatment.
First and foremost she reassured me that Ra is on a very low dose of the medication every other day primarily for the purpose of quelling the inflammation in his small intestine, secondarily to keep the pre-cancerous cells in same from turning cancerous. Because of the low dose, by the time his food and water intake turn into waste products that will be deposited into the litter boxes, there will be little to none of the drug present in his waste products, regardless of where he is in his treatment regimen time/exposure to the drug-wise. This should be of no problem to our other two cats, both of whom are healthy, to cope with. We're to scoop twice a day and dispose of the waste in a sanitary manner. So I'll have to scoop an extra time per day--big whoop! And we're already disposing of our litter in a sanitary manner and it's pretty easy to pick up a Litter Genie if we want to be even more sanitary, so it's all good.
We're to wear gloves when administering the chemo pill particularly because it might start dissolving in his mouth while we're trying to get it down his throat, thereby exposing us to the drug, which is enough in concurrent doses to possibly cause us to feel sick from it. We're to wear gloves when giving him his other pills, too, because his saliva will have a fair amount of the drug present in it with the dosing schedule he's currently on to possibly be a problem as well. No problem, we can wear gloves when pilling!
Interestingly, the shared water bowls are not a problem, either, even if Ra gets a drink immediately after he has his chemo pill. The size of our water bowls, that they are circulating water bowls, and the give and take of water out of the bowls when everybody drinks plus our refilling them regularly will dilute whatever saliva Ra would leave behind enough not to cause any adverse affects with our two healthy cats. Again, good news!
All of these factors mean the likelihood of having to segregate Ra from the rest of the house are slim to none! Such great news!! :)
I also asked about whether or not it was a good idea for us to continue doing our shelter duties; we are regularly exposed to sickly cats at the shelter with relatively basic health concerns--the occasional ghiardia, coccidia, upper respiratory infections, eye infections, skin conditions. If we are careful in our interactions especially with the sick kitties (wearing gloves, washing hands often, which we were already doing anyway) and we continue with our practice of disrobing of our shelter clothes/shoes immediately upon entering the house post-shelter and put the clothes directly in the washer, then showering right away after that, followed by putting on fresh clothes before contact with any of our own kitties, we should be just fine.
Cindy even suggested we call both Costco and Wal-Mart pharmacies locally to get the chemo drug for a lot cheaper than they at the VCA can get it for us. I called Costco and they can get it for about half the cost of what VCA can do for us, and, handily, we're Costco members! :) If we bring the scrip in during the week, they can order whatever it is and have it in next day during the business week. Tried calling Wal-Mart, but they didn't answer the phone in the pharmacy when I called, so I'll be calling back a bit later. Nothing against mail-order pharmacies, but if we can get the med locally as we need it, that would be much better.
So, all and all, good news for our Ra, and for us as a family, too. Thank Bast for that!! :)
First and foremost she reassured me that Ra is on a very low dose of the medication every other day primarily for the purpose of quelling the inflammation in his small intestine, secondarily to keep the pre-cancerous cells in same from turning cancerous. Because of the low dose, by the time his food and water intake turn into waste products that will be deposited into the litter boxes, there will be little to none of the drug present in his waste products, regardless of where he is in his treatment regimen time/exposure to the drug-wise. This should be of no problem to our other two cats, both of whom are healthy, to cope with. We're to scoop twice a day and dispose of the waste in a sanitary manner. So I'll have to scoop an extra time per day--big whoop! And we're already disposing of our litter in a sanitary manner and it's pretty easy to pick up a Litter Genie if we want to be even more sanitary, so it's all good.
We're to wear gloves when administering the chemo pill particularly because it might start dissolving in his mouth while we're trying to get it down his throat, thereby exposing us to the drug, which is enough in concurrent doses to possibly cause us to feel sick from it. We're to wear gloves when giving him his other pills, too, because his saliva will have a fair amount of the drug present in it with the dosing schedule he's currently on to possibly be a problem as well. No problem, we can wear gloves when pilling!
Interestingly, the shared water bowls are not a problem, either, even if Ra gets a drink immediately after he has his chemo pill. The size of our water bowls, that they are circulating water bowls, and the give and take of water out of the bowls when everybody drinks plus our refilling them regularly will dilute whatever saliva Ra would leave behind enough not to cause any adverse affects with our two healthy cats. Again, good news!
All of these factors mean the likelihood of having to segregate Ra from the rest of the house are slim to none! Such great news!! :)
I also asked about whether or not it was a good idea for us to continue doing our shelter duties; we are regularly exposed to sickly cats at the shelter with relatively basic health concerns--the occasional ghiardia, coccidia, upper respiratory infections, eye infections, skin conditions. If we are careful in our interactions especially with the sick kitties (wearing gloves, washing hands often, which we were already doing anyway) and we continue with our practice of disrobing of our shelter clothes/shoes immediately upon entering the house post-shelter and put the clothes directly in the washer, then showering right away after that, followed by putting on fresh clothes before contact with any of our own kitties, we should be just fine.
Cindy even suggested we call both Costco and Wal-Mart pharmacies locally to get the chemo drug for a lot cheaper than they at the VCA can get it for us. I called Costco and they can get it for about half the cost of what VCA can do for us, and, handily, we're Costco members! :) If we bring the scrip in during the week, they can order whatever it is and have it in next day during the business week. Tried calling Wal-Mart, but they didn't answer the phone in the pharmacy when I called, so I'll be calling back a bit later. Nothing against mail-order pharmacies, but if we can get the med locally as we need it, that would be much better.
So, all and all, good news for our Ra, and for us as a family, too. Thank Bast for that!! :)
