Urgent purrs needed please

"Nadia N." wrote:
Kotyo seems to be feeling pretty good. He has eaten normally, is
drinking, and has used the litterbox (only to pee - I guess he still
doesn't have enough in his tummy for anything else). He has also tried
multiple times to chew off the bandage over an IV needle they left in his
front paw, and to pull the stitches holding his chest tube in place.

Everything was great until it came time for me to give him his antibiotic
shots. I watched a bunch of videos showing how it's done, I read about
it, but actually doing it is not the same thing. I managed to do the
first shot more or less ok, but for the second shot, I think the needle
was not as sharp, or maybe it was bigger, and it would just not go in. I
had to poke him 2-3 times. Poor Kotyo started trying to get away, and
cried out a couple of times. Finally I managed to stick the needle in and
push the plunger, and I let him go. He ran off, and he was trying to
scratch the back of his neck where I gave him the shot.

About an hour after the shot, I went to pet him and tried to touch his
neck where I gave the shot, and he flinched, and then started scratching
there again. He kept doing it for over 10 minutes, and I got scared and
called the vet's emergency number. I was told that if I had hurt him with
the 2nd injection, he would just have some irritation there for a while,
but it is not really dangerous. He did stop scratching after a while, but
now I don't dare touch him there again. And I can't massage air bubbles
out of his skin on that side...

We are not going to be repeating this shot-giving debacle tomorrow. One
of the antibiotics he was given can be taken orally, so the vet said that
I can do that, and just not give the other shot.

So, today has mostly been a good day for Kotyo, except that he has a
sore, itchy neck now. My poor baby.

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety

Giving shots needs to be learned. I've had blood taken dozens of times,
sometimes it really hurts, sometimes I hardly feel it.

I'm glad to hear, Kotyo, is doing better, continuing purrs until he makes a
full recovery.
--
Adrian

Adrian wrote:

Giving shots needs to be learned. I've had blood taken dozens of times,
sometimes it really hurts, sometimes I hardly feel it.

I'm glad to hear, Kotyo, is doing better, continuing purrs until he makes a
full recovery.

Thanks Adrian. He was feeling well enough today to try to perform the
chest tube removal on his own, without waiting for the vet to do it
tomorrow. I had to chase him around and hold him down until he calmed
down and stopped pulling on the tube with his teeth. Silly boy doesn't
understand that the itchy thing sticking out of his side is for his own
good.

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety
--
Little Monster pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Kotyo
Sweety pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Sweety
Kotyo and Sweety together:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/KotyoAndSweety

On 05/13/2012 12:13 PM, Nadia N. wrote:
Adrian wrote:

Giving shots needs to be learned. I've had blood taken dozens of times,
sometimes it really hurts, sometimes I hardly feel it.
I'm glad to hear, Kotyo, is doing better, continuing purrs until he
makes a
full recovery.

Thanks Adrian. He was feeling well enough today to try to perform the
chest tube removal on his own, without waiting for the vet to do it
tomorrow. I had to chase him around and hold him down until he calmed
down and stopped pulling on the tube with his teeth. Silly boy doesn't
understand that the itchy thing sticking out of his side is for his own
good.

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety



From personal experience (long ag0), when the body wants to reject a
drain tube, the spasms can be very painful, and not necessarily itchy.
I sincerely hope this is not the case with your kitty. We are still
sending our best purrs. MLB and TuTu

MLB wrote:
From personal experience (long ag0), when the body wants to reject a
drain tube, the spasms can be very painful, and not necessarily itchy.
I sincerely hope this is not the case with your kitty. We are still
sending our best purrs. MLB and TuTu

Hopefully that's not the case with Kotyo. The hole where the tube is
does not seem infected at all. And he is not constantly trying to get
rid of it. So far he's gotten serious about pulling it out only twice in
the last 6-7 hours. I will be up all night watching him, to make sure he
doesn't pull at the tube.

Thank you for the purrs.

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety
--
Little Monster pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Kotyo
Sweety pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Sweety
Kotyo and Sweety together:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/KotyoAndSweety

Tomorrow morning Kotyo gets his chest tube removed. Then, we get to wait
5-6 hours, and then they will take an x-ray to find out if he has any
air in his chest cavity. If there is no air, that means that at least
part of the tear in his trachea has closed - the most dangerous part of
the tear. If air is still coming in, they will have to put in a new
chest tube, which is not good because the more we put foreign objects in
the vicinity of his lungs, the higher the chances that he might get
pneumonia or some other lung-related problem.

After they take out the chest tube we get to take him home and watch him
there until the afternoon. I wish that he could just stay at the vet's,
so that if he starts choking and wheezing again, like he did last
Monday, they will be there right away to help him. But this is Spain :-(
The vet's hours are 11am to 2pm, 5pm to 8pm. There will be no one at the
clinic to watch him. I miss Canadian working hours :-( Still, last
Monday when he started to have trouble breathing it was around 4pm, and
one of the vets was able to get to the clinic in 5 minutes - she was
actually there faster than we were. I will ask if it would be possible
for one of the vets to be that close tomorrow, too.

Even if the x-ray shows no air in the chest cavity, my parents and I
have a plan to watch Kotyo in shifts for the next few days, so that at
the least sign of a breathing problem we can rush him to either his
regular vet or the emergency clinic. I've got 2 cab companies' numbers
sitting next to the phone, so if the first one says they can't get here
quickly, I can call the 2nd one. I should probably just tear out the
Taxies page from the Yellow Pages... I am hoping that this will not be
necessary, but better to be prepared. This is the only time since we
moved to Spain that I've missed having a car.

He is still improving. He is eating normally - he actually woke me up
this morning at 7:30am to ask for food! Today there were barely any air
bubbles when I massaged his forehead, and much fewer bubbles around the
back of his neck and his front legs. I hope this means that the tear is
mostly closed. Especially the lower part that goes into his thorax.

Now, I just need to get him through the night without him pulling out
his chest tube on his own. 11 more hours to go...

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety
--
Little Monster pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Kotyo
Sweety pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Sweety
Kotyo and Sweety together:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/KotyoAndSweety

"Nadia N." wrote in message
...
Tomorrow morning Kotyo gets his chest tube removed. Then, we get to wait
5-6 hours, and then they will take an x-ray to find out if he has any air
in his chest cavity. If there is no air, that means that at least part of
the tear in his trachea has closed - the most dangerous part of the tear.
If air is still coming in, they will have to put in a new chest tube,
which is not good because the more we put foreign objects in the vicinity
of his lungs, the higher the chances that he might get pneumonia or some
other lung-related problem.

After they take out the chest tube we get to take him home and watch him
there until the afternoon. I wish that he could just stay at the vet's, so
that if he starts choking and wheezing again, like he did last Monday,
they will be there right away to help him. But this is Spain :-( The vet's
hours are 11am to 2pm, 5pm to 8pm. There will be no one at the clinic to
watch him. I miss Canadian working hours :-( Still, last Monday when he
started to have trouble breathing it was around 4pm, and one of the vets
was able to get to the clinic in 5 minutes - she was actually there faster
than we were. I will ask if it would be possible for one of the vets to be
that close tomorrow, too.

Even if the x-ray shows no air in the chest cavity, my parents and I have
a plan to watch Kotyo in shifts for the next few days, so that at the
least sign of a breathing problem we can rush him to either his regular
vet or the emergency clinic. I've got 2 cab companies' numbers sitting
next to the phone, so if the first one says they can't get here quickly, I
can call the 2nd one. I should probably just tear out the Taxies page from
the Yellow Pages... I am hoping that this will not be necessary, but
better to be prepared. This is the only time since we moved to Spain that
I've missed having a car.

He is still improving. He is eating normally - he actually woke me up this
morning at 7:30am to ask for food! Today there were barely any air bubbles
when I massaged his forehead, and much fewer bubbles around the back of
his neck and his front legs. I hope this means that the tear is mostly
closed. Especially the lower part that goes into his thorax.

Now, I just need to get him through the night without him pulling out his
chest tube on his own. 11 more hours to go...

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety
--
Little Monster pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Kotyo
Sweety pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Sweety
Kotyo and Sweety together:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/KotyoAndSweety

Purrs will continue for everything to go well so the chest tube can stay
out.

Joy

Mega purrs en route to Spain

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

Lesley Madigan wrote:
Mega purrs en route to Spain

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

The same from me and Baggy.
--
Adrian

Well, the chest tube has been out for the last 24 hours, and so far
things seem to be going ok with Kotyo. He didn't have any air bubbles on
his forehead or the back of his neck this morning, either. The tear is
definitely healing, or has healed already.

When we went to get the chest tube removed on Monday, I asked the vet
about a part of the tube which was bent at a 90 degree angle (either
from Kotyo lying on it, or from him trying to chew it off). He said that
the tube had stopped doing its job when it bent like that. I had noticed
it was bent sometime late Saturday or early Sunday. So Kotyo hadn't
really had a functioning chest tube since then. In view of that, and the
fact that he seemed pretty ok, the vet decided that there's no need for
now to stress him out with an x-ray to check for air in the chest
cavity. Instead, I am supposed to monitor his respiration rate, and if I
notice that it is increasing at a constant rate, I should bring him in.

I am giving him 2 kinds of liquid antibiotics orally, 3 times a day. So
far it has not been too difficult to do, but as he feels better and
better I am sure he will be making it harder and harder to give him his
medicine.

He seems to be breathing slightly faster in the last 2 hours, but I am
not sure if that is not because of the position in which he is sleeping.
He's curled up into a ball on top of his cat tree. The other times I
measured his respiration rate, he was stretched out, not curled up. He
also seems a bit warm to me, so it's possible he has a slight fever and
this might be causing him breathe a bit faster. His respiration rate is
still within the range that the vet said is ok. Still, I will mention it
to the vet this afternoon when we go in again to have the IV needle
removed from Kotyo's paw (it was supposed to be removed yesterday, but
Kotyo got too upset with the tube removal and started fighting the vet,
so he didn't want to stress him out anymore). It's probably just a case
of me being extra paranoid. Just the fact that there are no air bubbles
on his head and neck anymore shows that the tear is closing. I know this
in my head, but I still keep watching him breathe and my heart stops
every time he seems to breathe a little faster.

Thank you everyone for the purrs and prayers. Please keep them coming
for a little bit longer.

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety
--
Little Monster pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Kotyo
Sweety pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Sweety
Kotyo and Sweety together:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/KotyoAndSweety

"Nadia N." wrote:
Well, the chest tube has been out for the last 24 hours, and so far
things seem to be going ok with Kotyo. He didn't have any air bubbles on
his forehead or the back of his neck this morning, either. The tear is
definitely healing, or has healed already.

When we went to get the chest tube removed on Monday, I asked the vet
about a part of the tube which was bent at a 90 degree angle (either from
Kotyo lying on it, or from him trying to chew it off). He said that the
tube had stopped doing its job when it bent like that. I had noticed it
was bent sometime late Saturday or early Sunday. So Kotyo hadn't really
had a functioning chest tube since then. In view of that, and the fact
that he seemed pretty ok, the vet decided that there's no need for now to
stress him out with an x-ray to check for air in the chest cavity.
Instead, I am supposed to monitor his respiration rate, and if I notice
that it is increasing at a constant rate, I should bring him in.

I am giving him 2 kinds of liquid antibiotics orally, 3 times a day. So
far it has not been too difficult to do, but as he feels better and
better I am sure he will be making it harder and harder to give him his medicine.

He seems to be breathing slightly faster in the last 2 hours, but I am
not sure if that is not because of the position in which he is sleeping.
He's curled up into a ball on top of his cat tree. The other times I
measured his respiration rate, he was stretched out, not curled up. He
also seems a bit warm to me, so it's possible he has a slight fever and
this might be causing him breathe a bit faster. His respiration rate is
still within the range that the vet said is ok. Still, I will mention it
to the vet this afternoon when we go in again to have the IV needle
removed from Kotyo's paw (it was supposed to be removed yesterday, but
Kotyo got too upset with the tube removal and started fighting the vet,
so he didn't want to stress him out anymore). It's probably just a case
of me being extra paranoid. Just the fact that there are no air bubbles
on his head and neck anymore shows that the tear is closing. I know this
in my head, but I still keep watching him breathe and my heart stops
every time he seems to breathe a little faster.

Thank you everyone for the purrs and prayers. Please keep them coming for
a little bit longer.

Nadia, Kotyo and Sweety

I'm so glad Kotyo is getting better, continuing purrs until he's fully
recovered.
--
Adrian