Yikes! Has anyone ever done this?

Well done Mary! This time next month you'll be giving lessons and support to others!
Good luck and good health to you both.
TC3

So glad it went well this time. I am sure that Puddy know you are helping her. Keep up the good work.

Great job, Mary! Tubby lived for 3 1/2 years after he was first diagnosed as being in renal failure, so I know you have many many years left with Puddy. :)

Oh wow! That's encouraging! Thanx so much for that. As long as she continues w/quality of life, I'm gonna keep on doing it. Right now she's doing grrrrreat! And I'm holding a positive thought. As Dr. Lee said "Puddy, I knew you were tough. I just didn't realize you were that tough." (It's Mom who needs to toughen up. And here I thought I was the strong one when it's been my furkids all along. :p )

Blessings,
M

Here's what I learned about administering the juice:

1. It worked best when I was calm & quiet, without the television or visitors or other distractions.

2. After a couple of times, the needles begin to dull--so you have to keep a fresh supply.

3. The little "tent" of skin & fur you pinch before you put the needle in has to feel just right--so that the needle lies flat, parallel to the spine, and not poking down into more sensitive tissue, definitely not going all the way through & through.

4. Sometimes it can feel shocking if the fluids are room-temperature. So if you let the bag rest against you skin (maybe inside your shirt) for a bit or let some warm water flow over it, that can make it more comfortable. Not hot, by any means--just warm.

5. Talk to the kitty & tell her/him how good they are.

6. I found that with the valve wide-open, I could get about 100ml saline in within 60-90 seconds. I hung the bag on a photo tripod and lay right on the floor with my kitty. She actually purred as the juice flowed.

7. When I withdrew the needle, I didn't see any blood, but some juice might dribble out. Best thing for that was massaging the area, keeping the point where the needle had gone in elevated.

8. The cat will probably tolerate this better if their back is to the bag & tube & all. Too clear a view of what's happening can be upsetting.

9. The volume of fluid may create a bulge before it is absorbed. It's a good idea to pet the cat & hold 'em & sort of help the fluid to spread around inside.

Hi there,
Thanx so much for the pointers. I really appreciate it! I'll tell ya, I make sure that phones are turned off, no music, TV, nothing. Puddy's back is always to the bag and I have a good supply of needles. I think I was just waaaaay too nervous in the beginning, given that it's Puddy and not one of my calmer cats. Plus she has a way of acting like a slinky or pulling her head in like a turtle and that makes it more difficult. But I've calmed down and so has she, although she knows when I'm going to administer the "juice", as you say. ;) I have to outsmart her every time and it's becoming more and more difficult. (That's rather sad, huh? My cat is smarter than I.) Anyhow, I will definitely take your advice to heart.

Thanx again!

Blessings,
Mary

I don't like needles much, but this was a routine that worked much better in practice than it sounds. I mean, the thought of it was a lot worse than the reality.

My cat was NOT pillable. But injections & SQ fluids were basically no problem for her.

I'm sorry that your kitty is not OK. I think you are very brave to administer SQ fluids yourself, and I'm sure what happened was just an accident that could have happened to anybody.

However, I stumbled over this statement as I read the thread...

Quote:

---

Originally posted by TopCat3
Lots of people would have put it all in the too-hard-basket, got someone else to do it, paid the vet to do it, or abandoned the cat. (No-one on this forum, of course).

---

- and I didn't particularly like it. Where I come from, it is rather - if not totally - unheard of that one should administer SQ fluid as a layman. So there's a cultural difference there that has nothing to do with being scared, lazy or careless. :rolleyes:

There are many different people on PT!

Good luck, anyway! ;)

Love,
Sus and Bella

I guess it's just easier for me to do it. When you live in a multiple cat household, all of them physically and mentally challenged w/special needs, ya learn quick! ;) Both Dr. LeBeau and Dr. Lee showed me how to administer the fluids but I was just so nervous in the beginning. But I got the hang of it and I'm saving time and money by not having to drive to the vet's and pay $10 each time. And, most importantly, it's easier on Puddy. She stresses when anyone except me touches her and most time she doesn't even like it when I pet her. :rolleyes: I have to think of my other furkids, too. If one of them should get sick in the meantime, I have to have money to take care of them, too. They each deserve every chance and I can't do it for one and not the other. Besides, I love them all too much, the little brats. ;)

Blessings,
Mary

I don't think anyone exactly *likes* needles. I don't.

But sometimes they are better than the alternative.

My cat got to the point that she could barely force herself to drink water. That was one of the first signs to me that she was in bad trouble.

This was heartbreaking to me, because she tried her best but could barely manage it, standing over by her fountain and concentrating on the water flowing out, where she had learned to lap it from the stream in mid-air. This was after a diagnosis of incipient renal failure, and many months of me giving her positive reinforcement basically praising the heck out of her every time I saw her drinking, and much delight that she was doing exactly what she needed to.

Toward the end--and believe me, I am still having trouble accepting that it was the end--she became dehydrated, and that made her feel much worse. I've been there. In a dehydrated state, you get bad headaches, and you generally feel just crappy.

One of the few things we could do to make her more comfortable was give her subcutaneous fluids. Did I like that? Hell, no. Did it help her? Yes, it did. My cat was a demon at the vet's, and she was not pillable under any circumstances, but she handled injections with barely a flinch, and she got to where she actually purred as her saline flowed in. She was a champion.

Ultimately it turned out that she had just about the worst kind of cancer you can get: pancreatic. So that was that.

But if maintaining a decent quality of life for her--one that would enable her to enjoy herself and feel good, even if she had never been able to zoom around like a kitten again--had been a matter of daily sub-q fluids, we would have done that for as long as she felt okay about it. We were NOT going to mess around with any dialysis or feeding tubes or any of that stuff that would have robbed her of her dignity or made her miserable, but if we had just had to spend a few minutes every morning and evening with the necessary evils of needles, we would have done that.

I'm curious about medical and veterinary costs in Denmark. It's all very, very expensive in the United States. There are American citizens who will actually get their own medical supplies from veterinarians (kind of a black-market thing), and people who cross the border into Canada and Mexico to defray the costs.

If I had had to do so long-term, I would have made arrangements to get the saline bags & needles & tubes & all via the internet. I couldn't have afforded to take my cat to the vet every time. But I would have done whatever it took to help her.

I'm w/ya on that one. I'll do whatever it takes to keep my Puddy loving life, as long as it's true quality. She's on to me and she knows when I'm preparing to administer but she seems to be resigned to it now. She's never tried to bite or scratch, though she has tried to run for cover a few times. But who can blame her? She's so much better now, though, and so am I. She even looks younger.

Blessings,
M

I am so glad to hear that Puddy has resigned herself and that she is looking and feeling better.

You are doing a great job Mary!

Thanx! I needed to hear that! I always wanted to be the one who gave comfort to my cats, not discomfort or pain. Of course, I know it's for her own good but it doesn't help much when I have to insert that needle. But, as I say, she's a good little girl.

Thanx again.

Blessings,
M

Well, it's possible that she has learned that the fluids will make her feel better. My cat did.

I see that you looked at my posting elsewhere about my kitty dying. She did. It's hard for me to accept that. But I am dealing with it.

But our first step when they saw an obstructed duct on the ultrasound was to try a course of antibiotics and sub-q fluids. I was willing to do almost anything, as long as Ingrid would go along with it. Even in her weakened state, that sweet and trusting but stubborn little cat would *NOT* go for any oral meds. Period. She made that clear.

The fluids eased Ingrid's discomfort considerably, but antibiotics are basically useless against cancer. As I mentioned, I'm still having difficulty reconciling myself to her absence--at 17+ years, she didn't make much racket but darn it, she was an important, reassuring presence in my life--but they couldn't tell for certain that it even *was* cancer until they had a look inside her tummy on the operating table. And from what they found, it would have been cruel to prolong her life. If we had done that, Ingrid would have had very little ahead of her except pain and suffering. I miss her really, really badly, but we were *NOT* going to go the science project route of seeing how long we could keep her alive. She would have been miserable. I couldn't do that to her.

But all the same, I'm glad we tried the injections & fluids, I'm glad that Ingrid had no objections to my doing that, I'm glad that she trusted me deeply enough to go along with that attempt to save her, I'm glad that the juice made her feel better (if only temporarily), and I'm glad that when the time came, I made the right decision as far as sparing Ingrid any agony. I couldn't put her through that.

I hope it is a long time before you have to consider making such a decision. I knew that the day would probably eventually come--and 6520 days is a pretty long life for a cat--and in going back over it (as I have done many, many times, because that's just how my head works), I can warn you in advance that even if you are certain you have done the right thing, it will hurt a whole lot for a long time. My friends have been very kind, and they tell me that it's okay, that the pain I feel is natural, because I loved Ingrid. Still do.

But beforehand, even if I didn't want to think about it and I really couldn't discuss it without embarrassing myself (which is why I did most of that on the phone), the goal I had to keep in mind was what was best for Ingrid. That's all that really mattered.

True, what's best for our cats is what's most important. Sometimes we have to "just do it". I had to make the "unthinkable" choice back in April regarding my cat Peeka. She also went into renal failure and being an older cat, she went rather quickly. Everything we tried was unsuccessful, including fluids. When she became jaundiced, I decided it was time to let her have peace. She was my first rescue 15 years ago. Some kids tried to skin her alive and her fur was completely stripped from her tail and it was broken, too. She had to have her tail amputated but she was none the worse for it. She had an adorable little stub after that and she loved "stub rubs". She had the sweetest disposition and her favorite activity was lying in the sun, soaking up the rays and watching herself get fat. I still miss her patting my arm when she smelled chicken cooking as if to say "Mom, you are gonna give me some of that, aren't ya?"

I'm well aware that the day will come when I will probably have to make the decision w/Puddy and maybe all of my cats, 3 of which are older now and I'm enjoying every moment w/them. But I'll do what I have to for my cats. Period.

Blessings,
Mary