Ivy told me I should blog a prayer request for this. I’m not so sure, but I’ll do it anyhow. My kitty has renal failure and she’s at the vet. After a full day on fluids, her BUN is still over 300 and her creatinine levels (which I’m spelling wrong) are 16. Those numbers *should* be about 50 and 2, respectively. She’s also hypothermic, so they’ve got her sleeping on a heating pad.
It doesn’t look good for her. This is the second time she’s had acute renal failure. The first time was four years ago, and the vet then told me to tell her goodbye because she wasn’t going to live another six hours. This time, she’s not presenting as badly. I do remember her numbers were sky-high last time too.
Ivy wanted me to ask for prayers for her. And in my heart, I keep running up against that time when I was a kid and my mother told me “I don’t pray for animals.”
This has nothing to do with reality, mind you, and my mother will be unbelievably horrified to read that. (Sorry, Mom.)
The reality is, my mother has since become a Cat Person herself and loves her cats and asks me to pray for her cats when they’re sick and even asked my guardian angel to go find my brother’s missing cat. (And he did! That’s another story entirely, but I have a thank-you card from my brother and SIL thanking the angel.) Animals are a part of God’s creation and Jesus said that not a sparrow falls from the sky but that God notices it and cares for it. That God takes even the wildflowers that bloom and fade without notice, but He makes them beautiful and cares for them.
I pray for Ivy’s cats when Ivy asks me to. So why not my cat? I don’t know. It’s just a mental block.
I have prayed for her. What I haven’t done is ask others to pray for her. It feels like an imposition. Either on you or on God. I don’t know.
God gave us that cat. We had two cats, and I was happy with two cats. One day, looking out the window, I had that familiar call that NFP users will recognize and laugh at: “God is calling us to have a third cat.” Usually that call comes as “God is calling us to have another kid,” so I got off easy. Later that day, we were going to go to the Humane Society Walkathon, and I figured we’d get nabbed there. We didn’t: they had no cats at the event!
Ha-hah! We escaped!
By 2pm that day, I’d gone into the back yard with the kids and a tiny, bedraggled kitty meowed at us. I stopped, with an eight-month-old Kiddo#2 standing in the grass between my knees, clinging to my fingers as this cat approached us and butted her head against the baby. I left the kid with my neighbor friend and ran inside for a can of cat food. I opened it and was trying to figure out how to scoop out the food when the hungry kitty carefully took the can by its edge in her teeth, removed it from my hand, set it on the ground, and proceeded to lick the inside cleaner than my great-grandmother’s fine china teacups.
She then ate another bowl of food and drank a whole lot of water before I caved and brought her inside. She was clearly a previously-owned cat. She’d been dumped because, we figure, she was pregnant. With five kittens. My Patient Husband has never forgiven her for having five kittens. Three he could have forgiven, but not five. 🙂
And now here we are, six years later, and we’re losing her. God gave us a cat, and I think now He may be taking her back.
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Adding my good kitty thoughts.
Adding more good kitty thoughts from here.
{{for you and your kitty}}
lotsa good thoughts coming your way.
Thanks, everyone. She’s home now and goes back tomorrow morning, since the vet doesn’t have any overnight staffing.
She’s looking weak and sick, but when she first got home she was wandering around and giving me attitude, which is something at least.
My prayers are with you. I am glad she’s at home.
My prayers are with you and your kitty. Plus a small suggestion: If you don’t already feed her canned food instead of dry, you might want to make the switch. Wet food is much, much gentler on the kitteh kidneys. I’m glad your sweet friend is home.
Sunshine sends a nap for her.
Thank you guys.
She’s looking bedraggled and exhausted still. She’s found the warmest spot in the house (in front of the exhaust from the fridge) and stayed in it all night. I have her in a kitty bed with a blanket on her, water within reach of the bed, and a makeshift litter pan beside her. She can’t really walk, but I know that’s standard for renal failure.
AOK, she does get wet food (pouch food, not canned) but I can’t entirely keep her from eating the food for the other two (diet food, dry). We used to have her on a renal-health food but the formula changed and she refused to eat it any longer, and the vet agreed that food she’ll eat is better than food she won’t. 😉 If she comes through this, clearly we’ll have to go back to the renal formula food. It’s a dilemma I’d like to be able to confront.
She’ll go back to the kitty hospital in about an hour. Apparently this is the important day. :-/
My prayers are with you and your wonderful cat as well. I hope she is improved today. I know that whatever decision you make will be made with love and much thoughtful reflection.
Praying for the cat and your family. May what is best happen, with the minimum of pain for all. Keep us posted.
Praying for your kitty!