Day 10 - Xin Xin's home

She's finally home. :)

She is now sleeping on our bed, her favorite place for lounging and resting at home. We are letting her rest before we let the gang meet her tomorrow morning. I think they know she is back as they, especially BB and YY, are crowding in front of the bedroom door sniffing away.

She is very weak as she has not been eating or drinking on her own. So it was a small sigh of relief when I see her walk to the water bowl and proceeded to have a few sips of the water despite hesitating for a while. She's not interested in food yet as we had just syring fed her at 8pm.

And despite being away for so long, she still know the litter box is the place for peeing. Her last pee before she came home was at the vet when we were visiting her. There was not much as she has been off the drip for a few days. It was clear urine, meaning that it will still be time before her kidneys can fully function.

They did a blood test on her tonight. It showed improvement which even astonished the vet.

1. BUN (10 - 30 normal): Off the chart (Sat 14 Jun 08); 180 (Wed 18 Jun 08); 70 (Mon 23 Jun 08). There is quite a lot of improvement but it is overall still high. According to a website, we need to bring it down to 60 - 80 for a kidney patient.
2. Creatinine (0.3 - 2.0 normal): 19 (Sat 14 Jun 08); 10.9 (Wed 18 Jun 08); 3.3 (Mon 23 Jun 08). There is vast improvement and hopefully she can bring it lower.
3. Phosporous (3.4 - 8.5 normal): 8.7 (Wed 18 Jun 08); 6.1 (Mon 23 Jun 08). It has dropped to the normal range.
4. Calcium (8.0 - 11.8 normal): 12.0 (Wed 18 Jun 08); 11.9 (Mon 23 Jun 08). Slight improvement here.

She now weighs 3.65kg, down from 4.0kg when she was admitted last Sat on 14 Jun. Her whole stomach has sunk in as she is not taking in enough food. We will try to handfeed her again before we retire for the night but I hope she will eat on her own soon. I had rushed to buy some rice and minced chicken just now so that we can cook some chicken porridge for her tomorrow as suggested by Katie (thank you). Hopefully the refined carbo + the limited protein will give her some strength and put on some much needed weight.

The vet had told us that although her kidneys have seemed to improve and the amount of water in her chest cavity have been reduced, her heart is still giving her a lot of problems. The prognosis for cats with such an ailment is not good, usually only 3 to 12 months with a minority of cats lasting 2 years.

Food intake, weight gain and dehydration are major issues. To combat dehydration, we'll be sending her to the vet every evening to get some fluid under her skin at least for the next week. After that, we'll have to see what happens as going to the vet on a long term basis is not a solution.

I never would have guessed our atheletic Xin Xin would actually be a heart patient one day and when she is still so young. It's heart breaking to see her so weak but it comforts us that at least she is now at home and resting, definitely less stressed than at the vet. Hopefully, she will continue to grow stronger and beat all odds to stay alive for another few years.