I don't post this here to discourage anyone from the surgery, because I really value that I did it for my cat Dug. I'm glad for the extra time we got. I'm glad I have him that chance. So anyways. My timeline. After Thanksgiving of this year we saw that Dug was straining to pee, so we took him to our vet. They did an x-ray, saw crystals, said his bladder was hard. They gave me a muscle relaxer and pain meds in the hope that it would help him pass some urine, and told me to call them in the morning if he hadn't urinated. He didn't. I rushed him in the next day, he was clearly in pain, and they said okay we'll put a catheter in and monitor him. I went to work and while at work they called me saying they couldn't get a catheter in he was blocked so bad. They'd never had that happen before. They could only get an IV catheter in which wasn't enough to help my buddy. The recommendation - perineal urethrostomy surgery to remove the blockage and create his new urethra. I panicked about expense but I called many places, and found a place that I could afford, a wonderful place, willing to stay late to do the surgery. They did the surgery, and I picked him up the next day. Got his meds. They said the surgery had gone well but that I should isolate him to monitor to him better and so he didn't play with our other cat. Anybody who's gone through the surgery knows it's hard afterwards. I spent lots of times with Dug, we cuddled even though he wasn't a cuddler... I think he knew I had helped him. Gave him antibiotics in his prescription wet food. The normal things. When I took him in two weeks later to get his stitches out, they wanted to leave them in because he wasn't healed fully. Luckily by then I had gotten him a puffy collar that he didn't mind as much as the e-collar and we went on our way. After his two weeks of isolation I decided to let him out more but watch closely the whole time and to give him breaks without the collar cause he hated it. Again, I took him in two weeks later for the final stitches. By then I could tell that he had lost weight, and my voracious eater of a cat wasn't even finishing his wet food that he loved. They checked his weight because I was worried, and he had lost 3lbs, but said it could have been stress, but they also checked his kidney levels, worried it was that, but they were perfect. So we went home. Days later he was eating even less and I asked them to look again because I was panicking. My tubby Duggy was even skinnier! He had lost more weight in those days. (approximately 30% of his body mass by now). They checked his urine, found bacteria, and said it seemed like it most be a bladder infection, and we got a shot of convenia. Thankfully this helped! My buddy started eating much more normally again. So much so that he started puking again (he used to always puke if he ate his food to fast), and I was so relieved. This was mid January. He was back to a much happier self. The first week of February we learned my husband's start date finally and knew we ought to move before his start date (or commute three hours a day). So we started packing, and initially Dug seemed fine, sitting with me as I packed boxes and wrapped pictures. Then the day after valentines i noticed him getting in and out of the litter box over and over, like the last time he was blocked. Once again, my heart dropped, worried he wasn't okay, and the vet that did his surgery took him immediately in. Well he wasn't blocked, he had peed on the vet, which was basically a relief. They agreed that maybe his odd behaviors had to do with stress, and that an antibiotic might help. So with that, we left again. Following that he seemed a little better, definetly not doing such frequent trips to the litter box, but he started to pee on plastic things in the house. By then we were down to the last like two days before moving, so we put him in a bathroom with a litter box until the nice. The day of the move I went down first with Dug so he could see the place initially while it was quiet and nobody was there. As soon as my husband and his friends got there, we locked him up so he wouldn't get out during moving. When my husband left, I let him out, and obviously watched him. He got a big tail and wandered around the house checking things out, but otherwise seemed fine. I thought it was going well. I really thought everything was going well for the next couple days. I didn't catch him peeing on anything until Friday (we moved Monday) and that I reasoned had to do with the area where his litter box was being closed on accident. It made sense of course that he had to pee somewhere. I didn't see any blood in his urine. I had no idea. But then I caught him peeing on the kitchen table, and my husband and I talked saying like okay maybe he has another infection of sorts, let's lots him up tonight, and be really strict with only wet food in his diet now. We had a plan of attack to see if it would help our Duggy. Can I just say how wonderful he was Friday night? He was the best of all the things I loved about him when I spent time with him in his little area. I had plans to help him feel better. I bought a new scratching post and cosequin that would apparently help the bladder lining. I had so much planned to help him. Saturday morning... I went down to feed him. He had puked. He was making terrible sad noises of pain and I could see he was bleeding from his urethra. This must be a blockage. I called three vets in the area, and one could take him in for sure, so there we went. I figured they'd unblock him... It'd be easy! He had a new urethra like a lady, it should be larger. It shouldn't have blocked at all... I thought good thoughts as I drove Dug to the vet. At the vet they immediately put me in a nice room with him. There was obviously waiting because I wasn't a planned visit. But I used that time to pet Dug and try to comfort him a bit as he strained... The vet came in and felt his bladder, he was hard as a rock, definetly blocked. She explained two scenarios... The one we wanted, and the one we didn't. She said they'd do an ultrasound, and if the ultrasound showed stones, we could have a good prognosis, it's most likely that if they saw stones they could be treated with a diet that broke them down, and balanced his pH. He didn't have the stones... So the other scenario... He had a stricture, possibly due to scar tissue. They could see fluid around his urethra, and inflammation. The prognosis... Not good. If they could get the catheter in, yes they could relieve him, but he would need to be monitored, and potentially another surgery. And there's only so much you can do to such delicate tissue as a urethra. And it likely would cause more scar tissue. She said she had seen from experience that with a block occurring so soon after, it was likely it would happen again and again and again. Even if he didn't need the surgery it was likely. I'm crying as I type this...The choice seemed obvious, we had to keep my Duggy from going through this again and again. It wasn't fair to him. We had done what we could, and the vet said she had ultimately put a cat down for similar reasons, that it wasn't fair to her cat. We put my buddy Duggy down. It was fast and it broke me. I miss him. It wasn't supposed to come to this. I wanted to post this also because I wanted to tell the vet who had given me three more months with my buddy that Dug had passed. And she too was incredibly kind about it. She said that my cat was not a cat who had bounced back well. He was not as elastic as most cats... She did say most cats recover so well after the hump of the surgery that they don't have problems anymore. But my buddy was a stressed and anxious cat. I did everything to help him the best I could but I obviously couldn't change my cat... I wouldn't want to because he was my Dug. That's why I posted this. Most cats survive the surgery with an excellent life, and I want people to do it because he's worth it. You can't know the outcome for sure, but it was worth for 80 or so more days of purring and Dug love.
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