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I'm hoping-- praying-- that I've staved off the inevitable for just a little while. Just a little while.
When I spoke with Dr. Winkler shortly after Marble's exploratory surgery two weeks ago, he told me that if she were going to start eating again, the change would be dramatic. I wouldn't think perhaps she was eating more, I'd know. Turns out, he was very, very right.
I brought her home Wednesday-- which I hadn't expected to do in the first place-- with a horrific, blinding orange bandage wrapping her entire neck like a posture collar. Worse was the tube coiling out from the layers of wrapping, ending in a port just above the back of her head. I didn't expect much. I dreaded feeding her through a tube. When they told me she'd eaten for them that morning, I almost shrugged, lost in my fatalism. But then, next morning, I found her face-down in the communal food bowl, stuffing herself like a frat boy at a free-pizza bar. She returned to the bowl two or three times that morning before I sat her down in the bathroom and shoved 20ml of liquified food through the tube. And when I went to crate her before work, she was nose-first into a bowl of dry food. She didn't even notice me leaving.
Since then, I've discovered as long as it's the right wet food-- she must have flaked, not sliced or whatever that potted stuff is-- she will eat like a small, furry pig. I called Dr. Winkler again on Friday and asked if I should still be forcing so much with the syringe.
He was dubious. "Are you sure? Because sometimes cats will run up to the bowl with enthusiasm, maybe take a bite or two, then turn up their noses."
"Oh, no," I assured him. "I put down one glop of the stuff, then had to give her seconds. She's eating like food insulted her momma."
He told me to drop back to 30ml a day, as syringe-feeding is the best way to make sure she gets all her copious medicines. And continue to offer her wet food as long as she wants it. And oh, I am. I was terrified, yesterday, that the run was over, when she walked away from a plate of particularly vile-smelling glop, but it turns out she merely didn't like that particular flavour. I have, in an instant, become one of those people who says, "No, no-- it must be the FLAKED style, and the Fish Feast. Not the potted or the sliced. That won't do at all."
And I don't care. I will buy this cat whatever the hell she wants to eat, and if she wants it in a stemmed crystal dish, I will find a way to make that happen. Today she ate nearly an entire can of food all by herself in just a few hours. In addition to her feeding.
But her skin...her skin is still so terribly yellow. And she's so horrifyingly thin, still. I can't pretend that she's all better, nor that the damage to her liver might not be so severe as to be irreparable and fatal. The doctors were all very blunt with me. The last doctor I saw on Wednesday put it very plainly: this will be what eventually kills her.
But maybe, just maybe, not quite yet.
When I spoke with Dr. Winkler shortly after Marble's exploratory surgery two weeks ago, he told me that if she were going to start eating again, the change would be dramatic. I wouldn't think perhaps she was eating more, I'd know. Turns out, he was very, very right.
I brought her home Wednesday-- which I hadn't expected to do in the first place-- with a horrific, blinding orange bandage wrapping her entire neck like a posture collar. Worse was the tube coiling out from the layers of wrapping, ending in a port just above the back of her head. I didn't expect much. I dreaded feeding her through a tube. When they told me she'd eaten for them that morning, I almost shrugged, lost in my fatalism. But then, next morning, I found her face-down in the communal food bowl, stuffing herself like a frat boy at a free-pizza bar. She returned to the bowl two or three times that morning before I sat her down in the bathroom and shoved 20ml of liquified food through the tube. And when I went to crate her before work, she was nose-first into a bowl of dry food. She didn't even notice me leaving.
Since then, I've discovered as long as it's the right wet food-- she must have flaked, not sliced or whatever that potted stuff is-- she will eat like a small, furry pig. I called Dr. Winkler again on Friday and asked if I should still be forcing so much with the syringe.
He was dubious. "Are you sure? Because sometimes cats will run up to the bowl with enthusiasm, maybe take a bite or two, then turn up their noses."
"Oh, no," I assured him. "I put down one glop of the stuff, then had to give her seconds. She's eating like food insulted her momma."
He told me to drop back to 30ml a day, as syringe-feeding is the best way to make sure she gets all her copious medicines. And continue to offer her wet food as long as she wants it. And oh, I am. I was terrified, yesterday, that the run was over, when she walked away from a plate of particularly vile-smelling glop, but it turns out she merely didn't like that particular flavour. I have, in an instant, become one of those people who says, "No, no-- it must be the FLAKED style, and the Fish Feast. Not the potted or the sliced. That won't do at all."
And I don't care. I will buy this cat whatever the hell she wants to eat, and if she wants it in a stemmed crystal dish, I will find a way to make that happen. Today she ate nearly an entire can of food all by herself in just a few hours. In addition to her feeding.
But her skin...her skin is still so terribly yellow. And she's so horrifyingly thin, still. I can't pretend that she's all better, nor that the damage to her liver might not be so severe as to be irreparable and fatal. The doctors were all very blunt with me. The last doctor I saw on Wednesday put it very plainly: this will be what eventually kills her.
But maybe, just maybe, not quite yet.