FELINE FLU

Feline Flu

Always be joyful.  Keep on praying.  No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Jesus Christ.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Both of our feline family members have been ill this past week.  It all started with Harley, about eleven days ago.  He began to sneeze.  He also got lazier than usual.  This is hard to gauge since the only movement normally seen is from bowl to box, box to stuffed chair, chair to kitchen (so he can beg for the cooked poultry steaming from the oven), and kitchen floor to my lap whenever I stop moving long enough for him to notice me.  When he stopped lifting his enormous weight from a spot on the dining room floor to eat, we knew something was amiss.  He couldn’t even manage to climb onto his normal post, the top of MY stuffed chair (and I use the term MY with some insistence, though he is certain that we purchased the chair for HIM.)  When his eyes began to drain and the sneezing to escalate, we took him to the veterinarian.  The doctor, a very kind woman, seems unusually adept at getting animals to tolerate things that surprise even those who have lived with the creature for eight years.  For instance, who would have thought Harley would sit still (and not seem to mind much) when she pried his mouth open to remark about his gingivitis, give him a shot in the scruff of his neck, or stick a rather unkind-looking glass mercury thermometer up his bottom?  He just stood there on the examination shelf and didn’t even attempt an escape.  Hard to believe this was the same anxiety-ridden cat that lost at least three pounds of fur from nervousness in the car on the way to her office.  He was not amiable to the suggestion of staying in the pillowcase for his car ride, or the cardboard box which Jim attempted to use for cat-to-car transfer.  We saw more animation from Harley than we’d seen in weeks.  The most notable drama occurred when Harley began a low growl aimed at Jim, who was trying to capture him for the trip. Featherweight Jasmine came bounding into the room at the sound of the growl and promptly whacked poor ailing Harley across the nose in defense of Jim.  Or maybe she was just ganging up on Harley since everyone else seemed to be doing it.  Oh my.  In retrospect, Jasmine’s nose-smacking display was more than likely the point of feline germ transfer.

Long story short, Harley weighed a whopping 17 pounds and was given a new diet plan.  He had a fever of 104 and left with a 10-day supply of kitty antibiotics, in the form of a pill.  He was not wild about his family prying his mouth open and stuffing a pill down his throat, but he soon learned that it was going to happen regardless of his feelings on the issue and he became pretty compliant just to get it over with.

Four days later, Jim was the first to arrive home on Wednesday late afternoon.  He discovered that Jasmine was now also congested and beginning to look lethargic.  Lethargy is a much more significant finding in Jasmine, who can turn an old pipe cleaner into a solo physical chase game for hours.  He took her to see the good doctor, and she was sent home with a lower dose of antibiotics as she’s less than half of Harley’s weight.  The problem (one of them) with Jasmine is that she doesn’t get the whole ‘sneeze’ thing.  If she would just sneeze, she wouldn’t have to try to suck oxygen through her pinhole nostrils when they are filled with congestion.  She sounds HORRIBLE.  We discovered that cats aren’t terrific mouth breathers.  She would sooner have expired from hypoxia than open her mouth to take a breath.  It was torture to watch.  It didn’t take long for her stuffy nose to take over her appetite and she discontinued eating and drinking.  By Sunday night, she was a dishrag and had labored breathing.  Since the ingenious humidity tent Jim concocted under the kitchen table out of pans of boiling water and blankets wasn’t doing the trick, we opted to pay the extra emergency room fee to have her rechecked by the doctor. 

Sure enough, Jasmine was dehydrated.  She was admitted overnight for fluids, oxygen, a stronger antibiotic, a chest x-ray and imagine this - some blood work.  She came home the next day, bringing our one week total due the veterinarian to around $600.00.  My goodness.  There are people in our country who don’t get this caliber of medical care. 

She is doing better, though she decided from the get-go that she was NOT going to be agreeable to taking any pills.  The decongestant kitty chlorpheniramine must taste atrocious as evidenced by the impressive force with which she even spit it across the room for the veterinary technician who was equipped with a pill shooter.  We managed to get one dose into her at home.  It was so incredibly unsuccessful, she has clearly resolved that despite a week’s worth of antibiotics, she may never let us near her mouth again.  Jim has the puncture wounds and scratches to prove it.   

Apparently the cause of their malady was viral because stubborn Jasmine recuperated quite nicely without complying with any of the medications ordered.

The next time I am relieving stress by petting one of our wonderful furry friends, I hope I remember to be thankful that their illnesses are few and far between.  And in the meantime, I’ll keep working on ways to hydrate an unyielding Seal Point Siamese with pinhole nostrils and not a bit of common sense.