annnnd... we're back!

Maybe I was being paranoid by making my blog private. Maybe not. Probably though. But isn't the fact that I was being paranoid just another symptom of my mental illness? Just food for thought. [cue crickets]

So. My hearing went... well, good. It was pretty cut and dry. I happened to have a headache that day so the volume on the teleconferencing system was a bit piercing; also I was a nervous freaking wreck so that was fun. But, overall, it was a pretty easy process. Once the ALJ and my attorney were finished questioning me the ALJ questioned a vocational expert and their testimony was basically favorable for me. So, barring anything catastrophic, we hope to receive a decision letter in my favor in the next five weeks (one week already down). Two years of waiting are almost over.

In the meantime, things have sort of unravelled. My mom's finances are a bit of a trainwreck. We're helping out as much as possible which means even though I declared bankruptcy and we have almost no bills we are still virtually broke from paycheck to paycheck. (This also has a lot to do with keeping up with mental health appointments and the fact that I drove to the RE twice in the span of a couple of weeks.) Another really unexpected and really large expense was our (well, Mom's) cat, Cupcake. When The Monkey and I first moved in with our three cats Cupcake got pretty stressed out. But she seemed to be dealing okay by spending a good bit of her time outside on the [screened in] patio. But slowly she stopped "asking" to go out. And I had to drag her from underneath one of the sofas to see if she would eat. She lost weight and we assumed that it was okay because she was obese to begin with. (My dad used to overfeed my Mom's cats something awful!) Still, her personality (aside from being a little more antisocial than usual) seemed okay. Until it didn't. She went downhill pretty quickly. I had to hunt for her and find her. We gave her my mom's room as her own but by then it was too late. We rushed her to a local animal hospital where they did a blood panel and an exam and it turned out that she was severely jaundiced (bilirubin was off the charts high) and her platelets were low. The vet mentioned a few different problems the least serious of which was the liver fluke and the most serious of which was cancer. I researched everything (of course) and found out that liver flukes are transmitted by skinks which we find all the time on the patio! She started to improve on the four medications they gave her (one of which was a dewormer for the liver fluke) so we breathed a sigh of relief.

Until about two weeks later when she stopped eating again. (Not that she'd really started eating much to begin with.)

She wasn't as visibly yellow as she had been before but she had a "tint" to her that looked unhealthy. Plus her gums were pale and tacky and she just looked and acted really miserable. (We're talking about a very loveable cat. Even when she was on death's doorstep with the jaundice she was still purring and loving on us.) I did more research and found out Hepatic Lipodosis (Fatty Liver Disease) is one of THE most common causes of liver failure in cats. Risk factors -- cats that were obese and lose weight rapidly along with their appetite. Cupcake fit the bill perfectly. When we took her back to the same vet (despite my request to get a second opinion) they kept her overnight. They said she was just dehydrated. All of her blood panels came back improved (but she's still showing signs of liver damage). So they gave her IV fluids and IV meds and then sent us home with l/d prescription diet and told us if she wasn't eating on her own by Saturday that we'd need to get a referral to a vet that's FOUR HOURS away for an ultrasound.

'Scuse me?

So, I'm a bit irritated. Because they rattled off these diagnoses of extremely uncommon disorders (something autoimmune) before checking for something VERY common? Something that the patient was clearly at risk for seeing as how she literally lost HALF of her body weight in less than two months??

I am pissed. Right now our vet bill is up to $1,000. It's not the money that matters it's the caliber of treatment. Treating FLD is actually pretty simple when caught early. It consists of intense nutritional support. But because kitties with this condition don't have an appetite, it becomes necessary to either a) force feed them via syringe or b) have a feeding tube inserted. Option b) is usually preferred because, believe it or not, it is LESS STRESSFUL on the cat. The vet said she was eating the morning before we brought her home. I got her home and she refused food of any kind. She refused TUNA!! I got her to eat a tiny, tiny bit of pumpkin mash mixed with chicken broth but not enough to brag about. So I have been forced to force feed her with a syringe which really pisses her off. (At least she comes out of hiding and snuggles with my mom at bed time.)

Tomorrow my plan is to call several other vets in the area for second, third, fourth, fifth opinions. I'm pissed that our vet decided against a feeding tube because now we're going to have to fork out MORE money for that as I'm at least 80% sure that a feeding tube is going to be what gets our Cupcake back to her old self.

It would be super great to have my SSDI kick in sooner rather than later. When it does, all of the cats are getting check ups! And we might have to look into some sort of pet insurance, too.