Harlow: Stupid Sinuses!

Our sweet Harlow's sinuses are A Hot Mess, have been ever since he happened into our lives when he came into the care of Humane Haven Animal Shelter back last summer. He'll get a sinus infection, get a course of some random antibiotic, be clear of any signs of infection for a few days to a week or so, and start exhibiting signs of sinus infection all over again. The vets at Brookville Animal Hospital have had him on a merry-go-round of Clin Drops and Doxycycline for the most part until we put up more of a fuss about wanting to try something stronger and different than what hasn't already worked longer. This time he got put on Azithromycin--250mg once daily for five days, then twice weekly for 6-8 weeks. We're currently in the midst of the 6-8 weeks part. So far, so good: his nasal discharge cleared of coloring and grew thinner after the first five daily doses.

Our issue with the way Brookville's vets have been treating his chronic sinus issues is they don't do much beyond giving him a basic physical exam and then throw the same antibiotics at it over and again. This is a great recipe for antibiotic resistance and it's not treating the root cause of what's going on. Time for a specialist, but who and where?

I called out to our usual standby for specialty vets, VCA Aurora, early last week. Internal medicine also handles issues with the sinuses. I brought him in last Thursday to see Dr. Medinger. He got a very thorough physical, I got asked lots of questions. Hell, they even asked about how concerned we were about Harlow's five pound weight loss since September; we weren't terribly concerned because we thought it was primarily related to diet and much more exercise, but...yeah, we could see why there might be a concern... Dr. M ordered pre-procedure blood work, urinalysis, and a thyroid check, a nasal CT along with biopsies and cultures. This cost Big Bucks, of course, but what can you do if you want to find out the Root Cause of what's going on? They send everything out of house to specialty labs for testing, so no results until at least the end of this week at the earliest. Preliminary findings were positive in that no polyps or growths were found in the nasal cavities or sinuses, but there was swelling in the nasal cavities, especially on the left side, lots of fluid in there, and signs of sinusitis.

Sigh. Our Cheeto Burrito kitty was such a good boy throughout--the techs and Dr. M all raved about how wonderfully cooperative and quiet Harlow was while they worked on him. :) That's our boy! :)

...And now we wait for the results, and any further action steps that may result from those results.

I will keep y'all posted...

State of the Cats: Errant, frequent pisser...

We've, once again, got us an errant outside of the box pisser in our midst. Twice in the last week we've found large puddles of piss under the "sunning chair" which resides under the kitchen window, the second of which we found this morning. In addition, the last 2-3 weeks have brought lots more and larger urine clumps in all the litter boxes; one of which was so large our oversized litter scoop almost couldn't scoop it up. Verdict? One of our idiots likely has a urinary or kidney issue going on.

Our plan of attack is to take them in, one by one, in order of suspicion of guilt, for check-ups and blood work and urinalysis. Harlow's done by default, as he had his full work-up by coincidence last Thursday, and we'll have his test results back sometime this week hopefully. One down...

Next up will be Ulysses. At eight years old he's our most senior cat, so he's a good next "suspect". He had a baseline full blood draw done that came back all normal back in late April or was it early May? Regardless, I know things can change in a heartbeat with cats, so...yeah...He's also got a history of crystals in his urine that we think is controlled by his special prescription diet, but there's no way of knowing without another urinalysis. Interesting note on that--in the last month and a half we switched to a different brand of wet Rx food and he seemed to love it at first, but has been somewhat rejecting it in the last couple of weeks...Coincidence? Another reason to get his fat butt into the vet for a looksee...He'll be seeing Dr. Bajwa at Aurora Cat Clinic on Thursday morning at 9:30 AM. That oughtta be fun--he's a total beast at the vet and at his last visit totally cowed the timid substitute vet that took care of him. We're hoping the more steely, much more experienced, and "hardcore" hands of Dr. B will work out better on Thursday...

After that it'll be in order of age--Lars, then Dorene. We'll pin down who's doing all the pissings eventually, LOL, and if whomever it is needs treatment, they will receive it...

Sigh...It's always something in our house. The cats we adopt inevitably end up just as broken as their respective owners...

(no subject)

"Evolution of Michael Jackson - Pentatonix" (Watch on YouTube)