maniacal rage

I've received a few emails in the past several months inquiring about Oscar's condition post-surgery, so I figured I would post a short update here in response for anyone who is curious.

Oscar is doing very, very well and it seems his problem was the crystals in his bladder, rather than some sort of ongoing FLUTD (feline lower urinary tract disease), although the very nature of FLUTD is that it comes and goes indiscriminately so it's possible he still has that but it's calmed down because the crystals were removed. In either case, he's back to being a healthy, normal cat.

We've permanently switched both Oscar and Felix to crystal-preventing food so as to rule out any future crystal build-up, and the only side-effect seems to be thinner cats. Rather than being ten-point-five and eleven pounds respectively, they're each half a pound lighter, and a little thinner. It doesn't seem to be a problem, but they're due to visit the vet again soon so we'll know then. Neither seems any less energetic or, well, insane, so I don't think the weight loss has had a negative effect on them.

The only thing that has changed since Oscar returned to health is that he seems to be more aware of his own boredom. Whenever he wakes up from a nap or stops playing with a toy and realizes that he wants attention or interaction, he starts crying and whining like a baby until someone talks to him or picks him up or pets him. Oh, and he's grown a large affection for sitting in the bathroom (I think this came from when we placed a smaller, secondary litter box in there for him while he was sick).

Thanks very much to everyone who sent me nice emails about Oscar, I appreciate it.

Oscar has been sick since November. It started with what they thought was a UTI—he was going into the litter box every five minutes, scratching and going generally crazy, like he always had to urinate but couldn't—and after a week of anti-biotics, he wasn't any better. We took him back to the vet and they took x-rays—no stones—and concluded he must have Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease, or FLUTD as they call it, and that there was no cure. FLUTD makes him feel like he's gotta go when he doesn't, and, in general, makes him pretty damned unhappy. We gave him some antispasmodic drugs to lower the urge and after a week or so we had to leave for Japan so we took him to my mom's house so she could watch him while we were away. We felt really awful, but we figured he'd be better there than alone at home (with only people coming to feed them once every other day).

Luckily, he seemed to improve over the two weeks at my mom's house. When we got back from Japan he seemed to be back to normal and when we took him home he was running around and eating and acting like a regular cat. Then, a few days later, he started going into the box every five minutes again. We called the vet, took him in again to check for a blockage (that's the biggest threat of FLUTD—if they get blocked they can die), got more antispasmodics and were told to hope for the best. Things did not improve.

At the end of last week he started crying a lot. One night he wailed all night. Wailed like a dog. A dying dog. He was in the litter box for thirty minutes at a time, crying and scratching, and the rest of the time he was sitting like a pigeon on the corner of the bed, his pupils fully dilated, looking very unhappy. I took him back in to the vet and they checked him for a blockage again (none) and gave him fluids and a steroid shot and then noticed that he had crystals in his urine. They think he might have had them all along, they were just too small to register before but they're getting bigger and they're making it painful to urinate (hence the wailing). So then, surgery was required.

He had surgery on Monday afternoon. It took about an hour and the doctor said they cleaned his bladder out until he was "finally urinating crystal clear." Apparently his bladder was really inflamed. They started giving him fluids and kept him overnight and I picked him up yesterday after work. I was expecting to see a sad, mad little guy in the carrier but when they brought him out he was rolling around inside. When I started talking to him and sticking my fingers in he started petting himself against me hard, purring almost instantly. He was going crazy in there. It looked like he was actually happy for the first time in two months.

When we got home I gave him some of his new special food and he ate like I've never seen him eat before. He just kept eating and eating and eating. When he was finally done (or at least couldn't fit anymore in), he rolled around on the ground and stretched and cleaned and did all the things he hasn't done since what feels like forever.

He seems better. Finally. Hopefully things will continue to improve.