Stone

There was no feeding of the kitty tonight. No purrs or snuggles. There will be no litterbox scrabbling waking us up now and then.

The kitty is boarding at the vet’s, where she awaits surgery to remove a stone. We could have tried a different prescription food for a month that might have dissolved it, but after three months of medications and discomforts and collecting samples, I am ready to be done with this, and to get this kitty feeling better as soon as possible. I feel like we’ve wasted so much time (and money), and if she ever has any urinary tract symptoms again, I’m going directly to x-rays and sterile (vet-collected) urine samples.

The vet was planning to collect urine directly from the bladder, via a needle. They were going to try at the appointment this afternoon, but we all knew that this kitty is so irritated in that area that she wouldn’t have a nice full bladder to work with.

As the vet was checking her out, she noticed lots of little hard stools and an empty bladder, and decided not only would they keep her overnight, they’d give her an enema. Not long after Amy and I got home, they called us to say that they did an x-ray and found that there was a stone, and gave us the two options.

This is a fair amount of money to spend on an animal. We are not so bound up in our pets that we’d do absolutely anything no matter what, but this kitty is a very good kitty, is not old, and is otherwise pretty healthy. I wouldn’t feel right putting her down just because we don’t want to / can’t afford to spend the money for this surgery.

Whatever happens, the vet says she should stay on the prescription diet forever, to prevent future stones. I don’t really like that idea. Expense is a small part of that, but mainly it’s got lots of crappy ingredients and smells kind of nasty. I might want another few opinions on that, but it can wait until her health has settled down some.