Dooley still challenged

[Patti]

I know it sounds ominous but I think that not knowing is the worst part. The biopsy should help give you more information and a more conclusive prognosis - until then, I am praying that Dooley experiences a complete recovery and remission!

 

[John Popp]

We will do our best for Dooley as we always have. His liver is discolored and deformed and we'll do what we can to restore some health to it. With his current regimen there is a very fine line of how much food he can handle per meal. He's always hungry and foraging for something else at which point everything becomes a target to sink his teeth into.

We continue to hold out great hope for Dooley, we just know that our challenges are large in what's already been a 4 month process. The plan is to pick him up today, make an appointment with the internal medicine doctor and put together a plan moving forward.

 

[SV Dad]

JP, hoping for the best for Dooley!

 

[admin]

Once you get the biopsy, you will know how to proceed. There are holistic methods that help with liver function and diet change as well...I have liver issues myself and have been able to minimize it with diet change and holistic methods...let's hope the same can be done for Dooley.

 

[Rafiki]

Is Dooley already on Denamarin?

 

[John Popp]

Dooley came home today in the early afternoon. He has a freshly shaved belly and was excited to see us. He was pretty active, head butts and purrs. After dropping him off in his room where he'll be sequestered for two weeks, I ran to sort out out his Meds and instructions. Inside a minute he's violating rule#1, reduced exercise for two weeks by cruising on his wheel.

Dooley's currently taking Lactulose, Keppra and Amoxicillin, hard to change this up until we get the biopsy results.

We've reached out to Dr Lisa Pierson to formulate a raw diet recipe for Dooley. Would have got It rolling sooner, but knew his diet needs were going to be changing post surgery. The diet will still need to be low protein, just hoping to have better protein quality than the canned hills science diet.

In all, I'm pretty happy with how well he's doing post surgery and we are going to do everything we can to get him healthy again.

 

[WitchyWoman]

We've reached out to Dr Lisa Pierson to formulate a raw diet recipe for Dooley.

Very smart move. I've exchanged a few emails with her in the past re: diets and she's as sharp as they come.

 

[admin]

That's a great idea! I never knew one could contact her like that..


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[Patti]

I'm glad to hear how well Dooley has bounced back from surgery. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a full recovery from his liver issues.

 

[John Popp]

Very smart move. I've exchanged a few emails with her in the past re: diets and she's as sharp as they come.

When I received the initial response from Dr Pierson I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of detail she wanted to cover and at that point I knew the dietary needs were going to be interim until post surgery.

Also, the IM specialist is very open to getting a low protein raw diet formulated and also said she would help us on this front as well. In some respects it should be a lot easier than formulating a KD diet as for liver disease it's largely going to be about reducing protein.

We have also been experimenting with different vegetables to see what Dooley likes. He loves spinach and kale, tolerates cooked carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkin and we are trying some different kinds of green beans and peas. Not having any success with the peas and string beans yet, but haven't cooked them to soften them up yet.

With the stew selection of the Hills KD diet, Dooley makes special effort to pick out the rice. I'm planning on making some brown rice this weekend to see if that works and ill substitute butter for about half the water. Also just as a note, unsalted butter is fine as it doesn't stress the liver having about 1 gram of protein per stick.

Lastly and perhaps I've previously mentioned this, both our boys really enjoy higher protein meats such as goat or rabbit. Neither of them care much for chicken that has only 30-40% of the protein. Dino will always consume 2-3 ozs of cucumbers before he ever starts thinking about eating meat. Dooley isn't quite as bad, but easily goes through an ounce a day of fresh baby spinach (Doctor approved).

I guess the point of that is we know cats in the wild will oft eat the contents of the stomach in their prey, and it's really not discussed much with all the raw diet variants. With Savannahs, and servals for that matter, there is evidence suggesting they have relatively smaller livers than other cats, both wild and domesticated. Perhaps there is a relationship to what an actual serval's diet consists of.

There's certainly lots of anecdotal information about medicating our cats and the most helpful explanation I can offer vets is what Brigitte once shared. Our cats are very lean with much lower body fat than a domestic cat. I mentioned this to the surgeon prior to Dooley's surgery, and when we spoke post op he said I was absolutely correct and working with Dooley was like working with an anotomical model.

While there are lots of potential contributing factors to Dooley's issues, his asthma, the mint oil ball, high protein diet, sedation and medication, where I look back and felt like we were most vulnerable was when he was under the care of the emergency vets. As much as I tried to frame things, I'm not sure they ever got it and it would have been helpful to have a form letter to place under their nose.

"Hi my name is XXXXX and I am likely to have a smaller liver than most domestic cats. I'm also very lean having lots less fat than domestic cats. Please take great care in medicating or sedating me." Then go on to provide some specifics.

Again, I don't think Dooley's medication was a primary factor, as the two things he always responded best to were oxygen and fasting despite whatever medication he was given or had taken. As soon as he was feeling well enough to eat a large portion, the cycle would begin again.

Anyway, that's a ton and I probably need to get a little sleep before working today.

Thanks for all the thoughts and advice!