03/11/2024
It is good to be back with you all today however we are again sharing this one story across all our Kittybook pages. Please forgive us but as you read this we hope you will understand why (&, God willing, next week really will be back to normal (whatever that is! MOL) with all of our individual stories). As we come to terms with the loss of Mark, father of Marklets & a kitty loved by all of us, we have another crisis to deal with. The health of Alfie, another rescue ragdoll & one who has kept a low profile here on Kittybook, took a nosedive. Lots of incredibly watery diarrhoea & often. A trip to the vettie on Monday showed significant weight loss since his last visit. He was given two injections & some paste to mix in with his wet food. To add to the situation he has a loose back tooth which has caused a gum infection but he was deemed to be too poorly to undergo an anaesthetic.
A return to the vettie on Friday showed a further weight loss & he was taken to the main vettie hospital where he would stay overnight to be rehydrated & for blood tests. The test results ruled out most of the possible causes with the vettie concluding it was gastro-intestinal cancer. With a bill already at £550 ($711) sadly there was not enough money to cover an abdominal ultrasound (estimated by the vettie as £400/$517) to give a more conclusive view. Given that Alfie’s health & quality of life was, is & always will be our priority & seeing how sad he looked our humans decided that to put him through a series of chemo treatments was not the right thing to do. Alfie was brought home with some steroid tablets to help him through the weekend. Our humans wanted to give us all the opportunity to say goodbye before Alfie was helped to cross the Rainbow Bridge early in this coming week. Seeing a slight improvement in Alfie, the Daddy contacted some of our great friends in the worldwide kitty community. A pattern emerged. Showing almost identical symptoms to gastro-intestinal cancer is Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). This can be treated by on-going medication. A call to the vettie on Caturday & he has agreed to dispenses a course of Metronidazole tablets which will be collected today. Nothing ventured, nothing gained & certainly Alfie seems to showing he has some fight in him even before he gets his tablets. We guess this just goes to show that whilst respecting your vettie it is sometimes right to challenge them. Do your research & don’t always take “no” for an answer. Obviously we will update you on Alfie’s progress & please rest assured that if he shows no signs of improvement then our humans will not allow him to suffer. Your love, prayers & positive thoughts are asked for. We would also ask those of you who are able to do so to consider financial help (no matter how small) given Alfie’s vettie bill comes so quickly after that of Mark. Purrhaps you might buy a 2025 calendar featuring all of us Anderson kitties (see our recent post for details). That way you get something back in return for helping out. That sounds like a fur deal to us. (Please use the Daddy’s PayPal ([email protected]) with the “family & friends” option – thank mew). Anyway, it is good to have Alfie back home with us & we treasure every moment of every day with him among us.
All our love, the Anderson Kitties at Prancy Paws & especially Alfie xx
