world champ

koobs is the jacoby ellsbury of cats. she's the best and so pretty.
although she hasn't eaten in days, her heart looks good. she has been talking a lot about her trip to the vet yesterday.

koobs

koobs is going through a little rough patch so i thought i would use this time to make her list.
- exploring
- playing fetch
- tuna
- hair elastics
- cashmere

tomorrow she's having an echocardiogram.

guilt

every time i look at my nightstand i think about this night not long before isis went to the hospital. i had left a glass of water out and she knocked it over and water went everywhere and i yelled at her. but instead of yelling, i should have recognized her obsessive water drinking as a cry for help and taken her to the doctor then.

isis hated being left alone. even if it was just for a few minutes. when i would go to the basement to do laundry, i let koobi fora come with me. isis would sit at the top of the stairs meowing until we came back. i know she was so sad at the hospital. all alone all day for a week. the awful sounds and smells. and she died alone without me there.

check up

koobs had a check up today. i thought for sure the vet would see her and be overjoyed at how good she looks. first, she cried because she was sad about isis. but then she said that koobi fora's pee is very diluted (which is bad) and she might need to get more fluids more often. which doesn't seem possible given how good i thought she was doing. they took blood too so they can check her kidney levels.

then everyone fawned over koobs and told her how pretty she is. when she got home she talked so loud and for so long. eventually i have her the fluids and she shut up.

like a kitten

if there is any happiness in this story, it is that koobi fora is like a kitten again. it's like she's taken all of isis's strength and playfulness and is now like a kitten again. a hungry, chatty, needy kitten. she has to be touching me all night long. always on my stomach or curled up in a ball next to me. she is playing fetch all the time now. that is one of the things i am putting on her list. when she was first sick, she stopped doing it. so now i know she is feeling better.

favorite things

when isis came home and we thgouht she was going to get better, the vet asked me to make a list of the things she enjoys so that if there was another time when isis was sick i could look at the list and judge her quality of life. unfortunately, i didn't have time to make the list and isis din't have time to do anything that would have gone on it. but i am making the list now anyway.

isis loved the folowing:
snuggling, first and foremost
building nests in strange places, particularly the closet
getting in refrigerators, sinks, bathtubs
knocking stuff over
eating salty foods like chips and crackers
drinking water from a people cup
talking
koobi fora

Isis Reed

September 14, 1999–October 11, 2007


i had to put my baby down this morning. her body ruined all her new blood and her levels all dropped. while i was on my way there to say goodbye, she went into cardiac arrest. i told the doctor not to resuscitate her. but i guess when they stopped, her heart kicked in a little bit. by the time i got there, she was alive but not conscious. then they did whatever they do to end her life. but it was awful and not instantaneous and i was screaming at them to make it go faster and they were going to kick me out.

my greatest fear about leaving koobi fora when i went to spain was that something was going to happen and she would die without me there. i never wanted them to die alone. and that is what i did to isis. she was sick and dying and i didn't get there in time to hold her one last time.
so after i ignored her all summer to take care of koobi fora then left her in the hospital for over a week all by herself, i let her die alone.

no picture today

wednesday again.

last night was tough. i slept on the bed next to isis. not cause we were cuddling and happy. i wanted to keep my eye on her. i got very little sleep. at 3:00 i changed her blankets (those big diaper like blankets) and then she dry heaved. i was up for a while. she was sort of awake sort of not. she was the same way when i got up at 6:00. so i called angell and the guy who answered the phone told me to bring her in. but since he doesn't know her, i waited for my doctor to call me back. she wasn't too worried but said i could being her in for a day of observation. i was scared about leaving her alone all day.

isis perked up a little in the car. the doctor who checked her in wasn't too worried either. then this afternoon i got a call from the doctor who said her red blood cell count had dropped significantly from when she was checked out last night. the best thing to do was a transfusion.

i agnonized about whether this was the right thing to do. she has been in the hospital for a week. i don't want her to suffer. i really thought that bringing her home was going to be the miraculous thing she's been needing to get all better. all i want is for her to feel okay again. and if that isn't possible, i want to know now so i can stop putting her through so much.

all three of her doctors told me that the transfusion was the right thing to do. i went to visit her after work. she didn't look great so i didn't take a picture. i'm not taking any more of her while she is sick because i don't want to remember her like that. they want to send her home tomorrow but i don't want her to be alone while i am at work on friday. so i'm going to have her stay an extra day to be safe.

so far

so far, nothing has been going so well.

i gave isis her fluids okay. but then i tried the appetite stimulant and she peed. fortunately she was on her diaper blanket. then i cleaned her up and tried again. this time she started retching and hacked up all this phlegm. so i panicked and got the travel box ready and called the emergency line at the hospital. after waiting on hold forever (3 minutes), i got to speak to my doctor who kind of laughed at me and told me not to worry about it. i can just try the medicine again tomorrow.

then i brought koobi fora on the bed to say hi and she totally hissed at isis in a really mean way.

august 13

in case you were wondering what isis looked like just over a month ago, here she is.

thanks to phoebe for the wonderful picture.

home!

tuesday.

i got a call this afternoon letting me know isis could come home! i picked her up after work. i got bags and bags of medicine. all of which she needs to start tonight but for now, i'm letting her sleep in silence. the critical care unit of the hospital is a very noisy place.

her feeding tube is out but a different one may have to go in if she doesn't eat in 48 hours. she won't have to stay in the hospital though if she gets it - it will be one she can have at home. a little later i am going to try the appetite stimulant and see if she will eat some tuna.

i am very concerned with her quality of life and i know that she is happier here than she was at the hospital. i have high hopes that she will make a recovery as miraculous as koobi fora did.

speaking of koobs, they are kind of scared of each other. i'm sure the tearful reunion is to come.

day six

monday.

isis cleaned herself for like 15 minutes of my precious visiting hour.

there were some cuter pictures, but i am posting this one because you can clearly see that the orangutan has been checked in and is wearing hospital collar and isis is very flexible and is interested in doing normal cat things.

she was less interested in eating and drinking today but very interested in cleaning and having her belly rubbed. the vet said she is finally hydrated so she's not thirsty. which is very interesting because she has ALWAYS drank so much water. especially if it was from a glass. but i guess that is because she has always been sick and i never knew.

tomorrow when i visit after work, we get to "make a plan" for bringing isis home!!

day five

sunday.

i brought isis a stuffed orangutan that is orange and fuzzy like a kitty. she enjoyed snuggling. there still isn't much news. she is getting calories in her now. she cleaned herself while i was there and sat upright for a while. her kidney values are getting better and if they plateau then we can talk about bringing her home. so not today or tomorrow. but sometime next week maybe. she's not drinking as much water as she normally does (both at home and the past few days) but i think that might mean she is somewhat hydrated finally.

day four

saturday.

isis is not getting that much better. they put in a central line that they can use for her fluids, to draw blood and to give her "food." i'm hoping this will make her much better because it will be the first calories she's had in probably a week. i don't really know when she stopped eating. i know isis was a little tubby, but her bones are poking through now. she still has a lot of tummy flab though. visible without fur above. it will also free up both paws so hopefully she will move around more. they had to shave her neck though to put the central line in and she is very itchy. yesterday she licked a lot of tuna juice off my finger which is a good sign and hopefully she will be interested in eating soon. she's allowed to eat whatever she wants as long as she eats. so every day i try tuna and blue corn chips. i tried a muffin too but she doesn't want any of it yet.

koobi fora is a wreck. she's not sleeping at night and she's constantly under the overs then out then meowing a lot then licking me.

i know in the pictures it probably looks like she's getting worse because she's so shaved and has so many tubes now in comparison to the first picture. but if you look at her eyes, you can see a good change.

day three

friday.

isis looked pretty good today. she stood up and walked to her water bowl but then was so tired she fell asleep with her face in the water. i brought her a blankie from home that i hope smells like koobi fora and home. she still hasn't eaten and doesn't really feel well enough to stand up much. and she can't really use the litter box so she just pees when she's lying down. but her eyes looked bright and she was totally alert.

day two

thursday.

this is the first day i visited isis in the hospital. she had her right front leg bandaged up so she could have a line of fluids going in her. she was on a heating pad to help get her temperature up. she looked so sad.

about half the time she wasn't really responding to me. she had her eyes closed and just kind of wouldn't do anything. but the other half the time she was alert and let me pet her and scratch her chin. she drank a lot of water but then fell asleep with her face in the bowl so i had to take it away. i brought her some toys to remind her of home but she's not really up for playing. she is getting an ultrasound this afternoon.

the vet who saw her yesterday wasn't in today. but the vet who didn't see her yesterday thought she looked good. although she has nothing to compare to. her neighbor in intensive care has the same thing and has been in for about three days. so i think it is going to take a while. but i have some home that she will get better.

critical care

isis and koobi fora have chronic kidney failure.

so this is day one of my blog but day six of isis being in critical care at angell memorial hospital. i meant to start writing about chronic kitty kidney failure long before isis got sick. i found out about koobs in july. she lost a ton of weight and stopped playing. all summer we have been treating her and that is what i was going to blog about. but i didn't know the whole time isis was sick too and just didn't show any symptoms.

one week ago, i thought she was being unually lazy. she didn't come into the kitchen and try to steal food while i was making dinner. tuesday night i noticed she didn't move too much and she peed on the couch. i almost took her to the emergency room. but she got up and drank some water and i thought she would be okay for the night. last wednesday i took her to my regular vet and she sent me straight to angell.