Kind of like humans.
Our Reverend Jim barely escaped a criminal case of animal neglect. For his first six months with us, his digestive system was not that optimal, and we juggled his dietary needs with his insistence on only eating certain kinds, and flavors, of food. As he bloomed under continuing vet care, got over his eye and ear infections, and started putting on weight, everything settled in. By the time he was a year old, he looked, and acted, great.
Two years ago, the trouble started again. We’ve been managing with dietary changes, tummy-soothing herbs like catnip and chamomile, and the decision to keep any interventions as low key as possible. Now, a plan to start steroid treatment is on the horizon. Considering that he’s nine years old, we’ve done well holding off the “big guns” until now.
Here’s the considerations I have lined up as a guide to chronic care:
annoyance factor
I’m not just taking about the difficulties we face. We must consider the challenges our cat faces, too.
If we need to take our cat to the vet every week, and our cat really hates going to the vet, we do not have a promising scenario for recovery. If the term of treatment is short, and the results highly likely to succeed, we can power through this tough time, and then work on our cat’s mental recovery. By the end of both interventions, we should have a well cat.
But such is not always the case.
That’s the added issue with chronic care. We’ve dodged a lot of the mental mayhem for RJ by having our vet come to the house. RJ isn’t happy about being examined, but that’s a fraction of how unhappy the journey in a carrier to a strange place makes him.
This has factored into our diagnosis procedures, too. We haven’t left him there for the invasive procedures that might nail down what’s wrong; because very often, with these intestinal issues, they can’t figure it out. We’ve eliminated parasites, blockage, and any underlying disease like a virus or an infection. When we adopted him there was a full workup, and he’s been an indoor cat since then, hanging with healthy cats.
There was a period where his skin was getting dry and his fur was matting easily; we changed his food yet again, and that cleared up. The doctor says he’s in good shape for a cat who has trouble digesting protein.
In the times he flares up, it’s a cleaning ordeal for us (though he’s very good about using the litter box at such times) and a physical ordeal for him. His distress upsets the other cats, too. But as long as it resolves in a day or two, and RJ’s back to his happy self, we’re all okay with it.
As my friend says, who is dealing with a similar mystery issue with her dog, “It’s about quality of life.”
think like a cat
I’ve decided it is a pitfall to think of these issues with a human template. After all, Mr WayofCats has a chronic condition. But he has far more of an ability to think ahead, past the current difficulties. Several years ago, we embarked on a challenging therapy for him, which did lead to an improvement in his quality of life.
But it was often a miserable time, and suspenseful, too, since the treatment did not have a guaranteed outcome. This was the advantage of Mr WayofCats being part of the decision process; he decided it was worth trying.
Treatment is not something our cat can decide.
As discussed in my post, Dear Pammy, But my cat still has good times!, we must not let our own enjoyment of the cat’s presence let us lose sight of what our cat’s life now contains. With chronic conditions, we could encounter a situation where the painful parts can start to loom much larger than the happy ones. If our cat starts to see a pattern in their illness, and begins to be fearful about their recurrence, then we have an unhappy cat for more of the time than just the episodes themselves.
When we humans are sick, we get through it by thinking ahead to times we will not be sick, or how our distress can be treated. Cats live far more in the moment; they don’t have this safety valve in their minds.
If we are close to our cat, we can let our own distress shield us from what our cat is feeling. But at the same time, we know a lot about how they feel, day to day. When RJ takes long long naps, doesn’t join the other cats for group activities, looks distressed, and acts frantic; we know things are not going well for him.
We can’t let him deal with this all by himself.
big picture
I was hoping RJ would make it all the way back from his ordeal. And he mostly has. But I suspect (though our vet is dismissive) that going eyeball to eyeball with Death left a mark.
His ordeal could have damaged some organs that aging has made into more and more of a marginal situation. Which is why we are planning to ramp up our efforts to cope with it. Long-term steroids can do wonders, but create further issues. But then, all of life is a balancing act. Whatever happens, RJ has gotten much more out of life than that pathetic little kitten had any reason to expect.
Yes, rescue is a gamble, but no more of one than any other relationship decision. We can get a kitten so we can give good care from the beginning, but we don’t know their genetics and how it will all play out. We can be shy about adopting a senior, not realizing they had to have some good care in the past to make it to the age they are at. We can decide to get a purebred to dodge these issues, only to deal with genetic factors in the gene pool, or breeders who are not as caring and careful as they should be.
If I had not come by that day, Reverend Jim was doomed. He wasn’t responding to his medical interventions because he needed the focused care and love of being adopted. The shelter manager there doesn’t want them to “spend their lives in a cage” and brings the older kittens to a managed barn cat situation; but RJ wouldn’t have lived long there, because he couldn’t have gotten care for his issues in such a situation. No one would have seen them.
Love is a gamble that we all win.
I have come to believe that the length of the outcome does not matter. If we look at Reverend Jim through such lenses, we realize that whatever comes next, he already got his happy ending. He’s already contributed to the lives of his humans, his Cat Civilization, and –via this blog– the entire rest of the world.
He’s loved and been loved.
In the cosmic scheme of things, the rest is commentary.
Remember, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
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