Tag: cats

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I just went back through 7 years of blog picture roll. Dear lord, I keep weird shit.

Edit: I had a bunch of pictures on my phone that weren’t on the blog. This has been rectified. I’m also that anal that all the pictures are now chronologically ordered, from latest to oldest. Yes, I did that. Yes, it matters to me :)

How he used to be bitey-bitey and nip at my elbows or toes when I wasn’t giving him the attention he wanted.

How he was a sound-powered cat and always had to made noise when he jumped in the bathroom sink to get a drink (usually while I was on the toilet).

The attack-cat chittering noises he made towards the birds who dared to come on the balcony.

Being woken up in the morning by him jumping in bed with us, walking over us and wedging himself between Katy and me.

The contented, smug face he’d make when getting a chin scratch at just the right place. Pavel gave good face!!

Generally just walking into a room, rolling your eyes and going “oh, Pavel!” at whatever convoluted and/or obscene position he was sleeping in (see above picture).

How, on a king-sized bed, he’d always sleep on any item of my clothing (usually pj bottoms), or nestled in my body pillow.

How he had a stupidly loud purr for a cat his size, and how Katy would always ask me to “turn down the volume on my cat”.

How he loved to chill on his cardboard scratching pad, in his cardboard box. Even after Tolstoy barfed on it.

How he’d sleep on the sofa arm, as though he was the only thing holding the sofa together.

How he loved to eat anything that was made of rubber or silicone, including a grooming brush, Ben’s wellie boots, Ben’s Ikea nightlights, Ben’s crocs, Ben’s stress popping toy…

How he was a soft, fluffy, furry ball of lovable dumb.

I’m going to miss the hell out of you, buddy…

Pavel just had another thromboembolism ? he’s at the emergency vet, with high dose heparin and morphine. Same thing as last May, but now worse prognosis because it happened again, while he was taking the meds to supposedly try and prevent new clots from forming.

He made it through the first day, first week, but it seems to have caught up with him. We had a month and a half we didn’t expect to have, but now we need to see what happens again and make some potentially heartbreaking decisions.

This sucks.

I mentioned that Pavel has amusing sleeping habits. He’s not the only one.

Edit: this is the view Katy woke up to a few days ago:

Pavel is doing much better. He’s not out of the woods yet. He made it through the first 48 hours. He’s coming up to the first 10 days. Then it’s the first 3 months.

The very good news is that the cardiologist vet we took him to on Friday said that the ultrasound couldn’t detect any more clots in his heart or in his major blood vessels. We’re now giving him blood thinners and diuretics to try and prevent clot formation in the future. There’s no major limb, nerve or organ damage, though there are a few crystals in his kidneys (which he’s also prone to but those, so far, are controlled by diet). He spent the first few days being a bit lethargic, and just about being able to jump on the sofa or our bed, but he’s now mostly back to his noisy self. He’s grooming, eating, drinking, pooping. All the usual good cat behaviours. He can also jump into the bathroom sink to get a drink.

So yeah. We seem to have dodged the 1st bullet. No telling when, or if, the next one will hit, so in the meantime, we’ve making the most of the time we have again with him.

Last Sunday, Pavel seemed to get a cramp in his back leg. It was bothering him and he kept shaking it. It seemed to annoy him but it didn’t last more than 10 minutes or so. Then, yesterday, it happened again, except now he was yowling in pain and couldn’t stand on his back legs. We managed to get him seen by our vet. The news was devastating. He had a feline aortic thromboembolism, or a saddle thrombus.

A saddle thrombus is a blood clot that cuts off blood supply to the back legs. The clot forms in the heart, gets pumped into the aorta, then travels in the bloodstream until it reaches the junction leading to the arteries in the back legs. It lodges at the junction and cuts off blood supply to the legs. Without blood, the back legs become paralyzed and extremely painful.

Saddle thrombi are most common in cats with heart disease (which we knew Pavel has but seemed to be in stable condition). This is because cats with heart disease often develop large clots inside their heart that release small clots into the blood stream. Sadly, outlook for a cat with a saddle thrombus is very poor – it’s an extremely serious condition that most cats don’t recover from. The first 10 days are critical.

A third of cats that recover from a saddle thrombus develop the condition again, and their symptoms may not completely resolve i.e. they may be left with some dysfunction in their back legs and will likely need ongoing treatment for the rest of their life to prevent further blood clots forming, and also for any underlying problems such as heart disease.

For now, he’s stable. He’s mobile, which is good. He’s not in pain. As long as he doesn’t throw another clot.. But there’s no way of knowing. So for now, we watch. We hope, and we book him in to the cardiologist for a full work-up.