Scary night last night.
Rafiki had been to the vet a week ago for a follow up + a B-12 shot. She had been food fussy and a bit listless so we decided to bring her in on a Wednesday instead of waiting until Saturday. Bloodwork looked stable with liver enzymes still elevated but either decreasing or staying the same. Ran an additional test and it showed that the pancreatitis seemed to have resolved itself. She had been on only Denamarin for a month. Internal Med vet wanted to get her back onto the cyclosporine to prevent the fibrosis from advancing. We decided to start this past Monday and only give her a dose every other day.
She had been acting fully normal for the last several days. I had been taking her out for afternoon walks whenever it was cool enough and had to wait until my husband got home yesterday before going for a walk myself because she wanted to come with me.
I gave her the cyclosporine around 6:30 pm. When I fed her, she was being picky. She is still on the bland chicken breast diet (with Mazuri slab, extra taurine + B12 with intrinsic factor) so I had chopped up some freeze dried duck breast (current favorite) to add in. She kept picking out the fragments and leaving the rest behind. I gave her a break while we ate dinner (giving her 2 small meals is often the answer) and tried again around 8. She was super fussy but would eat off my fingers. I got her to eat about 2 oz when she started acting odd. She laid down on her side and could not seem to get comfortable. Her left rear leg was a bit twitchy. I gave her some water and stayed with her. I was thinking that the meds had made her nauseous and was planning on giving her some Cerenia and Pepcid. About 15 minutes later she got up but she wasn't using the left rear leg. She tried to jump onto the bed but missed. I ran my hands across her full belly and both legs but she did not exhibit a pain reaction. I looked up cyclosporine but did not see anything along these lines as a side affect.
Off to the emergency vet we went. My internal med vet works there so they contacted him immediately.They kept her for observation for 2 hours. They placed her in a small room so that they could observe her movement and even placed her on a chair to see how she would jump down. All seemed normal. She was using both back legs and was landing on the pads of her feet. Her heart and breath sounds were all normal although a bit fast. I now have one more vet and a technician totally in love with her. Knowing how anxious she is, we opted to bring her home last night.
Thank goodness for Jammu. He stayed with her all night long. I got up at 2, 4 and 6 am and my good little boy was curled up with her and keeping an eye on her. I had the feeling that if she got worse, he would have gotten us up immediately.
This morning she is up and walking although I can see that her back leg is still wobbly. Her poop was a real stinker and was soft but not quite diarrhea. Jammu escorted her all the way down to the laundry room and even got in the litter box with her while she was doing her business. My cats are weird that way. As a result, I was not able to grab the poop sample before he totally buried it and peed on it. Rafiki is lousy about burying her poop so this is not unusual. I got her to drink some water and gave her a bit of Beechnut baby food. I will be bringing her back to the internal med vet today at 2:30.
