Gryphonic

I was just about to come here and start to compose another post, and then I saw my last one was about Cylia’s health, and that I’d left things hanging.

She’s been on medication three times a day (which really could be compressed to twice a day, I suppose) since mid November, and she’s responded extremely well. I now have a happy cat who is back to loving life and enjoying spending time with me. In fact, I just was at the vet with her today getting her a checkup and vaccinations, and the vet is pleased with her progress. Unfortunately, she’s still lost a bit of weight since then, but it could be water weight as one of the meds she’s on is a diuretic. That said, her appetite doesn’t really seem off.

The vaccinations are necessary because I’m going to be putting her in boarding in a few weeks, as I’m going to be heading back to the UK – because I didn’t get back at Christmas, and I have a week of vacation time to use before the end of March, or I lose it.

This past Christmas for me… didn’t really happen. I started feeling not too good on the latter part of Christmas Eve, and then by Christmas Day I felt awful. Breaking out the handy-dandy free COVID tests I’d been hanging onto, I tested positive. So my Christmas plans got thrown right out of the window, and I was essentially quarantining at home for the next two weeks until I tested negative.

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Time for an update on Cylia, since it’s been an ‘interesting’ couple of weeks.

She had been rather down and very much not herself for much of last week, and then last Friday she went to the litterbox, and after doing her business, lay down in the box.

Never a good sign.

The next day I took her down to the vet, and she was examined and found to have fluid buildup in her chest. Since she had been diagnosed with heart disease (and a fairly advanced stage of that too) this is one of the things that can happen.

That can make it hard for her to breathe and as a result was making her feel really bad. She spent most of Saturday at the vet, was given a diuretic and then later the vet did some manual draining of the fluid buildup.

Since then, she’s really turned things around and is starting to feel a bit more like herself again. She’s walking around with her tail held a little higher each day, and last night she slept all night on my bed with me – something she hasn’t done in a few months now.

At this point, I’m feeling a lot more hopeful now for her. Yet at the same time, I know that the heart disease could be ready to complicate things without notice at all.

Also it complicates the plans I had for December, since she’s now on meds for the rest of her life.

Due to this, I can’t have a friend come check on her each day and make sure food & water is stocked up, as well as scoop out the litter box. She needs meds twice a day. That means if I want to travel anywhere, she needs to be boarded.

But doing that would put her into such a state and likely make her health spiral downhill. I can’t do that to her.

So, right now, it looks like my planned trip back to the UK is probably going to be postponed. Parents are understanding, though rest of family don’t know yet. Still tentative.

It’s unfortunate, but she’s worth it – and there will be other Christmases with family.

Though so much for doing a 50th birthday celeb with them. I’m still not even sure what I’m going to do here on the day. 😛

I’ve been somewhat absent this past week due to concerns with Cylia. All that’s been going on is pretty much responsible for my mood having tanked lately.

When I got back from NC, she really hadn’t been eating. This has really been going on for some weeks now with her appetite being off, and last Thursday (Oct 26th) I got some medication from the vet to try and help. Between my giving it to her in the evening and leaving for NC at 4pm Fri, she hadn’t eaten a thing.

I figured that this was probably down to the meds (one of which was a sedative) and that she would eat more while I was away. Though when I got back, while there were signs she had been eating, she hadn’t eaten much. She’d go to a food bowl, look at it, and then go to get water instead – or just go elsewhere.

Monday I took her down to the vet and got some appetite stimulant as well as anti nausea meds for her. By Tuesday, not much had changed, so she was admitted into hospital with the aim of them getting her to eat (syringe feeding), IV fluids, and monitoring.

While in, she had started to eat a little better, but they discontinued the IV because they detected a ‘gallop rhythm’ in her heart. Over the next few days this was monitored and she continued to eat better, and yesterday (Thursday) she was seen by a cardiologist.

It’s here the news becomes not so good.

She does indeed have a level of heart disease (though we’re not quite sure how far that’s progressed), and also an enlarged heart. This enlarged heart could explain much of her symptoms recently, as this can cause lack of appetite, listlessness, and abnormal heart rhythm. It can also cause blood clots to form which could lead of paralysis of certain parts of her body.

I’ve got medication for her to prevent blood clots – essentially a blood thinner. Also more meds for the appetite stimulant. I just now have to monitor her for the next couple of weeks to see how she does.

She’s 14.5 years old, and I hoped I would have more years with her. But this diagnosis puts that into doubt. Sure, with medication, she could last maybe a couple more years, but now I feel that the Time is coming far sooner than I expected. I don’t know when, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she stays with me for as long as possible.