Defying The Odds

Jordan seems to have croup, or perhaps it just started out that way (it's going around). On Tuesday night she was "barking" when she coughed, but it turned all moist & mucus-y shortly after. Now she just seems to cough when she's sitting up, but lying down she's fine (at least for about 95% of the time). She went to the pediatrician today for a "baseline" check on the cold -- no pneumonia, bronchitiolitis, ear fluid build-up (in the left ear, the one without a tube temporarily). In fact, she's had no yellow goo or fevers, so there's no reason to think she has an infection going on. Just a terrible, juicy, cough. This is definitely defying the odds. I would have guessed she'd be in the hospital by now, but she seems to be on the upswing (knock on wood). But boy is she pathetic & miserable when she coughs! Breaks my heart!

In other statistical anomalies, Mojave is one of the 20% of cats that has a yeast infection in his ears (instead of ear mites). 80% of the time a cat has black goo in his or her ears it's from ear mites -- so we've been treating him for ear mites since he came home in late September -- to no avail. I finally dragged him to the vet this week, and he confirmed my suspicioin -- no ear mites. Fortunately, the cleaning drops & ointment the vet gave us seem to have eliminated the problem in 3 days. Unfortunately, we're supposed to keep up the treatment for 10 days. Ugh!! In case you didn't know this -- cats hate having stuff in their ears -- so it's a rodeo every night. 3 days down, 7 days to go. . . .

And in even skimpier odds, Sierra is one of only 1.2% of cats that had oxalate bladder stones. Unlike the "normal" (98.8%) bladder stones that are nice & smooth, oxalate stones are sharp & shaped like jacks, are hard to feel, and cause extreme pain & bleeding as they poke & cut around the bladder. No wonder she was having such peeing issues! Unfortunately the cause seems to be the catfood she'd been getting for the last year. I had her on Iams for 7 years & she was fine, then our former vet told us to switch her to NutraMax, and voila! oxalate bladder stones for Sierra! Now we have a new vet, who quickly identified the problem, removed the stones & insisted that we get her back on Iams. Luckily I switched her back to Iams on my own a couple of months ago. Hopefully the horrible peeing incident chapter is closed, and we can all move forward with great litter box habits!