Romeo has not yet left the building...

I have to make this fast; I am in the middle of typing my ass off.  I will for now just copy & paste what I had started on my cell, and fix it all later, but I wanted to share this joke, 'cos it has been in my mind for the past two days:

A man goes to the doctor, and the doctor looks over the patient's records.  The doctor is nodding, and making an occasional, 'hmmm'.  Then he looks up at the patient, and says, 'wow'.

'Wow?' says the patient; 'doc, what does "wow" mean?'

'It means,' said the doctor, 'that you look much better in person than you do on paper'.

When i picked Romeo up from the emergency vet, he looked just as bad, if not a little worse. Dr Vet took an x-ray of his chest to see if his shallow breathing might be asthma-related, and said his lungs were clear (enough for a fifteen year-old cat with asthma). Then he palpated what the ER vet had thought was constipation, and took another x-ray of Romeo's hind quarters. It turned out to not be poop, but a 'space-occupying mass' that Dr Vet felt was probably cancer. Odds of surviving without surgery: 0.  Odds of surviving with surgery: less than 5%.  We shot Rome up with morphine, and i phoned Meg to come over to say good-bye. After much internal debate, spurred on by the fact that on paper Romeo did not look all that bad (overall, he looked much *worse* in person than he did on paper; on paper, he was an older cat who was largely in really good health.  If you had to match the cat to the blood work, I doubt Romeo's would be correct -- he should not look this sick, and so I figured there was a possibility that it was something immediate or benign wrong), i and Dr Vet agreed to perform exploratory surgery and euthanise on the table if warranted. To Romeo, there would be no difference; already on morphine, Dr Vet started the anaesthesia-slash-euthanasia in the exam room, and took Rome back into surgery. I signed papers that said i understood this was a total Hail Mary and agreed to pay regardless, and went out into the waiting room.

Some time later (I was just sitting, willing myself to not cry or get a hellacious migraine), one of the surgery techs came out and said that Dr Vet would be out in a few minutes, but he thought I would want to immediately know that Romeo was still alive, and the 'space-occupying mass' was actually one of Romeo's kidneys, with one of the worst abscesses Dr Vet had ever seen -- the abscessed kidney was almost the size of a fist -- and Dr Vet had removed it.  The tech said that almost the moment the offending kidney was removed, Romeo's colour dramatically improved.  The abscess ruptured as it was being removed (it had been about to rupture the whole time), and Dr Vet was doing as much cleanup as possible, but it was not cancer, and Rome was still alive. 

Ok, this is good.

Dr Vet came out later and said that he had never seen anything like this, especially because Romeo's WBC count did not indicate an infection, especially not an infection of this magnitude; an infected kidney of any kind was the last thing Dr Vet had expected to see.  He said that Romeo was down enough physically that recovery was still touch-and-go, but *if* he recovers, he can live a happy life with one kidney, as long as that kidney kicks in and works right.

So I now own a nephrectomeasle.  :-)

He spent the rest of the day at Dr Vet's, and then I had to pick him up at closing time and transport him to the emergency clinic to be monitored all night, since his temp still needed support, and he had not awakened, but he was still breathing on his own, and would not close his eyes (though his being open-eyed did not mean anything, Dr Vet said; he was not actually awake). 

The not awakening part Dr Vet was not really thrilled over. 

So he had to be monitored all night (let's not even talk about how much all of this has cost me); they set him up on a heating pad with fluids and some monitory-thingy, put artificial tears on his eyes every however-often, and turned him so that he did not bake.  The tech supervisor at the Emergency Vet Clinic warned me that they would do everything possible for him, but the not waking up part was potentially bad (in case my vet had not told me).  I had to pay extra for CPR, and if he did not need it, I would get the money back in the morning.  Of course I paid for CPR; even with a 3% chance of success, without it I have made a very shitty investment of money here. 

Sigh.

So I went home, and picked him up Thursday morning at 6am to transport back over to Dr Vet to continue hospitalisation, and when I got there, HE WAS AWAKE!  Not completely 'there' awake, but he was still on morphine, after all.  But he was sitting up somewhat, and the tech said that a few hours after I dropped him off, he started responding (whilst still lying there, looking like he was in a coma) every time she came over to tend to him -- one time he would meow, then next time he would hiss, the next he would purr, the next he would growl...she said it was kind of fun to see what he would do next.  :-)  Then he sat up (his front part, at least), and got as feisty as a Siamese on morphine (great name for a band there, eh?) could get; he tried refusing treatment by pulling his IV paw under his body.  So she had to pull it back out.  Dopey from the drugs, he would let it stay out for a while, then remember he was wanting to be obstinate and pull it back in, making the monitor beep.  They played this game for a couple hours before I got there.  :-)  I apologised for my obstinate measle, and she said not to worry about it at all, 'cos with a cat as badly-off as Romeo, signs of feistiness are a *really* positive thing. 

So I got his feisty self back over to Dr Vet, and they put him back on the heating pad and fluids, and said that they were going to try to feed him today.  When I phoned yesterday afternoon, they said that he was 100% awake (save for the pain med dopiness), and they wanted him to go home to see if he would eat there, 'cos he REALLY did not like being at Dr Vet's.  At all.  In the least.  And Dr Vet thought that he might benefit more from being home and not stressed than he would benefit from staying there and being so stressed out.  So I picked him up. 

He immediately crawled into the top floor of one of my cat condos and went back to sleep.  I put a litter box right in front of the condo, as well as food and water, and just let him be.  What is funny is that in his sleep, he was purring, just really slowly!  I could hear from the condo this 'tick..........tick..........tick..........tick........' and I thought he might be having trouble breathing, so I phoned Dr Vet's back, and the tech told me that he had been doing it there too, though earlier that morning, after his morphine dose, and they had decided that it actually *was* purring.  It *sounded* exactly like purring, only way slower -- like he was too drugged to remember to purr, or something.

Ok, so he is home.  He is still mostly sleeping, though he moved from the cat condo to this padded cat cube thing I have.  He did get up last night to urinate, and it was a normal amount, so that is good.  He still has not eaten, but I have been told that will not be a big deal until it is Monday and he still has not eaten.  He has also not pooped, but Dr Vet's said that is totally normal, so ok.

So I am trying to leave him mostly alone. I have stayed with him a couple of times for an hour or so, and he will purr and sleep.  I think he needs sleep now more than anything.  His ears still look pink.  I need to check his gums again in a bit.  But the take-home message from Dr Vet was mainly to let him know that he was home, and to let him sleep and eat/drink if he wants to.  And give him one Baytril a day, and hold off the Theo-Dur for one week.

His prognosis is still guarded, and Dr Vet is not exactly reassuring me that Romeo will be ok.  I understand that.  He is fifteen, after all.  If he does die, at least I gave him a *chance*, and that is what was important to me when I signed off on the exploratory surgery instead of euthanising him.  He is purring, he is happy to be home, I do not think he feels as badly as he did when I took him to the vet in the first place, and if he cannot heal, at least he had a little more time with me.  He is enjoying it, I think.  He is still at an ok quality of life right at the moment.  If that changes, then I will do what is right by him. 

ok...now I have to get to work.

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