Weekend Cat Blogging: Minnaloushe Update

Minna went back to the hospital for a day on Thursday, and we picked her back up on Friday; she had stopped eating again.

The doctor determined it was likely the oral antibiotic making her nauseous, so he took her off of it, and started giving her appetite stimulants.

She is back to eating again, hard food only–and she is more active, stubbornly pushing herself to walk around. She hates being confined to one room, though, and cries piteously when one of us leaves and closes the door.

But she is really too weak to let out to roam unsupervised. She tries to clamber, climb and jump, and she fell off the couch last night, and barely landed on her feet, the poor thing.

Here are pictures of her from better times. Above, she is curled up in a ball on our bed–our cats are the excuse we give for sometimes not making the bed, because during the day, the curl up, sometimes together in piles, and sleep. Minna and Grimmy always sleep curled up alone, but the boys sleep in groups. I hate to disturb sleeping cats, so sometimes–the bed never gets made.

The second picture is from Maryland–Minna is looking out the window, which is one of her favorite pastimes. That was our office window, and there were always birds in that tree there, and she would sit for hours and watch them.

She could also see her friend, Liriel, when she was outside, from that vantage point, and just looking at the dog would make her start purring and rubbing the window.

And when Liriel came in, Minna would run to her, rub and purr, and groom the dog, which freaked Liriel out a bit, but she accepted it with good grace, and would sometimes groom Minna back, which was always a funny and endearing sight.

I don’t think Minna would want us to post pictures of her now, as she isn’t at her best. She, like most cats, has a sense of vanity to her, I think, and would not want to appear in public except at her most elegant.

So, that is the news from here. I have to go to the farmer’s market and then make a batch of brownies and cookies to take to a friends’ house. Zak will stay home with Minna and nurse her along today, though.

6 Comments

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  1. Oh I hope she is better soon, you must be so worried about her….

    Please give her a nice pat from us xxx

    Comment by Clare Eats — October 15, 2005 #

  2. Get well soon Minna.

    Comment by boo_licious — October 15, 2005 #

  3. I’ve had a sick kitty lately and know how much it gets to you when the furlings aren’t doing so well. Skrinch her face for me and feed her some extra yummy treats–I am sure I heard that tuna helps cats heal…maybe I heard it from a cat. 🙂

    Comment by kitchenmage — October 15, 2005 #

  4. Poor baby! Get better little one, you are much loved!

    How old is she, Barbara? Does age play a factor for this illness?

    Comment by Indira — October 16, 2005 #

  5. Thank you, everyone–your wishes and hopes and support have been wonderful this past week.

    We never could get her to eat again, Kitchenmage–we did some force-feeding yesterday, but once she started to really fight it, we let her be. She started showing signs of dementia and pain, likely from the toxins building up in her bloodstream that her liver couldn’t filter out for her.

    Her abdomen started swelling a lot, and was noticably larger within hours–I sat with her most of the day yesterday, and could see changes almost from minute to minute. Needless to say, I didn’t go visit with my friends.

    Indira–we cannot remember if she was eight or nine. I think she was closer to nine–not young, but not really old, especially considering that Ozy is fourteen years old himself and is a hale and hearty old gentleman. Well, maybe not gentleman, but old, anyway. 😉 Nah, he is a good boy.

    If it was FIP, and she was a carrier of a coronavirus, it is possible that it mutated just recently into the FIP virus, and just took her down very quickly. In looking back, we realize that she had slowed down a lot over a period of about a month, and had been sleeping a great deal, but she has always gone through phases when she was independant and withdrawn and slept a lot. We thought she was just cranky over the kitten’s sudden affection and attatchment to Zak. (She was very possessive of Zak.)

    Well, now we can see that it may have been the illness. And honestly, thinking back farther–it is possible that she has been somewhat sickly for a while–some of her behavior was just odd and her sensitivity to cold was very severe–when a freak ice storm knocked out our power close to Christmas last year, she was more affected by the freezing temperatures than any of the other cats, including Gummitch, who was just a spindly little baby at the time.

    We will find out after they do the autopsy, I guess.

    Thank you all again. You all have been really great, and it means a lot.

    Comment by Barbara Fisher — October 16, 2005 #

  6. Barbara

    I am so sorry to hear about Minna. Kitty thoughts and purrs your way.

    Comment by DEBRA — October 17, 2005 #

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