It was Christmas Eve, one year ago that I was standing in the reception area of All Creatures Vet. I was picking up Franklin...again, when the lady walked in. She was looking kind of frantic and had something wrapped in a big towel. Being the blind bat that I am, I could not tell what it was, but some how I kind of knew. She spoke for a few minutes, very upset and getting more so by the minute as the tech remained adamant that they would not take her.
She had been shopping at the Save Mart just down the road when she saw the people drive slowly through the parking lot and throw the little cat out of the car. She said the kitty hit the side of the building and kind of hung there with her claws, then let go and just sat crouched down with her head hanging.
The tech again said she was so sorry but they could not take her and suggested she drive her to the CCSPCA and leave her in one of the outdoor drop boxes. At this point I, being the nosy person I am, sidled a little closer trying to see what age the kitty was and what was wrong with it. Having made sure it was a kitten, and cursing to myself I told them I would take it as long as we could have an FeLV/FIV test done before I left. I had just lost an FeLV kitty and was not ready to deal with all of the shuffling I have to do to house a cat that cannot be with others.
So, into the room I went with my new treasure...still cursing my stupid self ,for being unable to, for once, just walk away. As we unwrapped her what we found was a little 3 lb CAT. She had her adult teeth and was obviously a young adult, but at 3 lbs was not much more than skin and dried up bone. She dripped snot from her eyes and nose and diarrhea from her behind. She was utterly disgusting and pathetic. And she purred. She purred and rolled into my hand whenever and where ever I touched her. I cursed some more.
We went ahead and pulled blood and I started cleaning her up while we waited for the vet. This poor thing grabbed my heart strings with her poor, pathetic, sweet self and pulled on them, real hard.
The vet came in and examined her being very caring, supportive and sympathetic. She had an upper respiratory infection, complete with pneumonia...and the diarrhea was obvious. So we discussed options ... euthanasia was not one of them...and came up with a course of treatment.
He went out to write up the chart and came back in almost immediately with a tragic expression. She was FIV +. He looked at me as if I were crazy when I said, whew, and began to tell me how she needed to die. This formally caring vet who had been cuddling her only moments before actually jumped away from her as if he could catch the virus. Things went downhill from there.
Well, obviously, she went home with me and here we are a year later. Merry (obvious where the name came from) is now 6.5 lbs, still a little cat, but fat now. Living life on her terms, which generally means she is sleeping on the clean towels and fleece in the bathroom cupboard.
People say things like Kara you are such a hero, you are an angel etc, but the one who is really amazing is Merry. Her story did not end with her just getting well. Of course not, It can't be that easy right. And there were a few times when I thought I maybe should put her down. I wondered if maybe I was being cruel. But, aside from a couple of days, she never stopped eating, or purring. SHE kept trying, how could I not support her.
You see, about 6 weeks in, her URI was much better but not quite gone, when her ears (the part that stands up) got crusty...and ulcerated...and painful. Then her nipples all started oozing serum and were ulcerated and crusty and painful.
I took her back to the vet who hardly looked at her and sent me home with Panalog (REALLY...Panalog???) after giving me a stern 15 minute lecture about how this cat was a risk to my other cats and I was risking them when she was only going to die.(I do not see this vet anymore, lol, duh. I was absolutely appalled that a veterinarian could still be operating with information that was over 10 years old and be so uninformed...makes me ill at the false information he is STILL giving people) I brought her home and tried the Panalog to no avail.
At this point (and this is one of the reasons I think so highly of Dr. Jen Hendee) I posted pictures of Merry's ears on facebook, and Jen immediately told me that looks like Pemphigus and that the symptoms were classic for it. So we changed her antibiotics and put her on Prednisolone. Putting her on Pred was a risk with her still having the URI. She did not get better, well not very much and then she got worse. I noticed her limping and when I looked at her very painful foot it was ulcerated and crusty, oozing serum. This went on until all four feet and her entior abdomen was an open ulceration...but her ears got better.
She did not eat one day and that night I made the decision to end her suffering but when I got up the next morning she had eaten a whole can of food through the night! Whew, dodged that bullet.
One day, on a whim, I decided to spray her with a cortizone/Gentocin spray I had from another kitty and by the next day the inflammation was gone within three days her belly was dried up and healing...the same with her feet. Within a month hair was growing...amazing! So why did topical cortizone work when internal did not...I have absolutely no idea. But it did and she got well. She still gets the sneezies and a snotty nose once in a while and probably always will. But she seems pretty happy ...
So Merry Christmas, Merry! And Happy Gotcha Day!