Change in Lifestyle

Good news! I just got the call from my vet and Winston is in the clear. I had made an appointment for him last night as he didn't seem to be feeling well recently, and it had only gotten worse. Three hundred dollars and an hour later we find out that he has mega-colon. In the x-ray you can see these huge blobs were he is just completely constipated - really bad. So bad that he actually has to have 'surgery'. The vet goes in and removes all the waste manually, which is what he under went today. I felt a bit like a mom, because at work all day I kept waiting for the vet call to be able to breath a sigh of relief once it was all done - and kept blaming myself for getting him into this condition (which the vet continually reassures me that they don't know what causes this issue and it wasn't my fault).





The second bit of good news (at least in Winston's mind) is that he now gets to eat wet cat food. He's been on a diet of dry cat food with occasional treats of wet cat food every now and then. And he loves the wet cat food, he pratically brings me to my knees with his head-butts when I prepare the food. It turns out that a diet of only dry cat food is not good and rather cats should eat wet cat food predominately. It's better for their weight, their intestines, their coat, their bones, the list goes on. The only thing dry cat food is good for is the dental issues such as tarter build up. So now both the boys are on a 75% wet cat food/25% dry cat food diet.





After going through everything post-op with the vet and what the next steps are and what preventive measures I need to be doing (as this is a chronic condition - the muscles of his colon don't work right now and therefore this has a high chance of reoccuring), I realized that the bad news is that my lifestyle has just drastically changed all of a sudden. Let's just deal with wet cat food - the days of leaving a bowl of food for them to munch on for several days is gone. So hopping into the car to visit dad for the weekend just got a bit more complicated. Plus, Winston needs medicine for the rest of his life. I think it's like the cat version of metamusal - it even comes in powder form that gets mixed in with the food. But now I need to police the food so that the right cat eats the right food (not sure how to do that yet). Plus, since this is a chronic condition I need to make sure Winston has one bowel movement a day, so that we can catch any build up in the early stages and treat with additional medicine. That means changing the kitty litter every day - not my favorite at all and keeping track that he is having the right kinds of poop (still not sure how to do this as two cats use the same box). And if that isn't enough, it turns out Winston's ear wax and acne (yes, my cat has acne on his chin, poor thing), has gotten worse, so I need to take care of that constantly... for the rest of his life. Somehow I went from a nice low maintenance relationship with two wonderful boys, to a super high maintenance relationship with someone I have commited my life with.





But that's ok, the last 24 hours really scared me as I hadn't realized how close I've truely become attached to my animals and that I wasn't ready to let go. And frankly, it's not that bad, especially considering everything they give me - they are the best guys. Finally, the condition, if a bit expensive (I'm scared to see the bill tonight), isn't that bad. I have two friends now that have cats with diabetes - yes they have to give their cat a shot every day - so it could be worse. I'm going to duck out of work early and pick up my groggy boy, go home and appreciate my life.