Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

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Posts Tagged ‘Spot Update’

Goodie Jar – Check In #36

Posted by terrepruitt on November 1, 2013

Ooooo!  Only TWO months left to fill up the Goodie Jar.  It is never to late to note the good things so if you haven’t started yet, why not start NOW!?!?!  I have a few good things to put into my jar today.

I had a fabulous conversation with a potential Nia student.  I talk to a lot of potential participants, some actually do end up attending one of my Nia classes and some do not, but I have always had wonderful conversations.  While I would love to have everyone I talk to come to one of my Nia classes and I would love to meet them, I still feel fortunate to have been able to talk to them on the phone.  I love sharing about Nia and listening to their stories.  So many are inspirational.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaAlso, I received a wonderful e-mail.  The subject alone made me so happy.  (“Nia rocks my world!”)  How could it not?    The rest of the e-mail made my face hurt (from SMILING)!!!!!!!  I loved it so much, I printed it out and it is going in the goodie jar!

And, as some of you may know, our cat has Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) which is a chronic condition.  Basically it means that the intestines are not working properly so the body does not absorb the required nutrients.  When the body does not absorb what it needs it does not function the way it should.  And when the intestines are not healthy there are other issues.  So it is a matter of controlling symptoms and getting the body to a comfortable and a close-to-normal state as possible.  It has been about three months since we started treating this and today is a good day.  I think – as with many things – there will be days where she doesn’t feel as good as others.  I think that is just the way it will be.  But today we are half-way through our fifth day without vomit.  When I wrote my post Spot Update we were almost up to a three day vomit-free period, but that was as long as we got.  Now we are on our fifth day.  That is really huge.  Even if she throws up now we still made it almost FIVE DAYS!  I am sure she is as happy about it as I am!  To me four and half days vomit free is a darn good thing.  See there really is no rule as to what you can put in your jar.  THIS is a good thing for me.  THIS makes me happy.

When I read about it on December 31, 2013, I will be happy.

What are you putting in your goodie jar?  Any good things happen yesterday on Halloween?  

Posted in Good Things in the Goodie Jar | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Spot Update

Posted by terrepruitt on October 26, 2013

About three months ago I posted about putting my cat to sleep.  We did not do that, but she seemed so sick I thought we were going to have to.  Then when I took her to the vet he had a completely different opinion.  He is accustomed to seeing cats with the disease our cat has.  So he said she did not look as bad as he has seen.  She had just lost so much weight it just seemed so unlikely that a cat could survive being so skinny.  At one point she weighed over 12 pounds and at that point she was down to less than half that.  At the time I wrote the post I just kept thinking we were faced with that decision.  But we were not.  We might still get to that point, but since then we have come a long way.  The disease the cat has is not curable so it will be an on going situation, but hopefully she will live for AT LEAST a couple–few more years.

When I wrote that post everything coming out of the cat was liquid –  and had been for over a month.  And it lasted almost two months.  Part of the liquid was her throwing up.  She would eat then throw up, so she would stop eating the item that made her sick.  I think that part of the problem (and you will probably agree) was that I would give her something else so she would eat something.  I don’t think that changing her food that often was helping matters.  But she was so thin my main goal was just to get her to eat.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaThe treatment for the disease she has (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) is steroids and a chemotherapy drug.  Well, the steroid we were giving her made her retain so much fluid it affected her heart.  So we stopped that.  Now she is just getting the chemotherapy.  It is a very small amount three times a week.

At this writing we are headed into our 37th hour without vomit.  Yay!  But she did that earlier this week, almost made it 48 hours.  But that is still better than multiple times a day or even once a day.  Maybe it will be that she will make it past the 48th hour then it will happen, but then maybe the next span will be even longer.  That would be nice.  But at least the other end hasn’t had any issues since August.

She was settled on one particular cat food, but then the pet store owner gave me a can of another type of food.  When the cat hesitated at her dish, I thought, well, I’ll try this one he gave me because I liked the ingredients better.  Well, she seemed to like it.  And she seemed to like it more than what she has been eating for the past two months or so, so we made the switch.  But this time we switched slowly and today was the first day she had the new stuff “straight”.  I had been mixing the two.  They are the same protein, just different brands with different ingredients.  The new one has less ingredients (chemicals) than the other stuff so I am happy.  The new one does not have “meal” in it and I think that is what was making her vomit.  We will see.

Since IBD is where the body does not absorb all the necessary nutrients from the food, I am giving her Vitamin B12 shots.  Normally a cat can produce it, but without all the nutrients needed to function properly I don’t think her body is able to produce it.  So I am giving it to her.  I have increased it from once a week to twice a week.  It really seems to help.

The last visit (Thurs., October 24, 2013) to the doctor was good.  Again, she is frighteningly skinny to my husband and I and she even lost a couple of ounces, but the vet was pleased with her progress.  He said it seemed the heart problem cleared up . . . while there still might be an issue it is no longer the problem that he was hearing when she was on the steroid.  Her latest blood work came back fine.  They test it often to see how the chemotherapy is affecting the cat.  He seemed happy with her.  Again, he is used to seeing cats with IBD so he thinks she is fine.  Yes she is skinny, but her blood work was fine, her coat is great, no temperature, her eyes are bright, and she is stronger than she was two months ago.  Aside from being so skinny she is good.  So we are staying the course and enjoying every minute we have left with her.

She is a very good cat.  So we are doing our best to make her happy.  Fat and happy would be AWESOME, but I’ll settle for happy.

Again, thanks for listening.  I thought I would give you an update since I brought the situation up in August.  She has days when she feels great and days when she feels not so great, but I believe for the most part she is good.

Do you have a pet?

Posted in Cats, Spot | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »