Curious Cases

Sophie is a sweet calico kitty

Who had been healthy up until a year ago. Then she started to not feel well. She was losing weight, she was peeing more as well as having accidents out of the litter box,  and she was having  trouble walking properly.  Her hocks couldn’t hold her up and were dropped to the ground. Her owners were worried and brought her into the hospital.

Dr Kathleen did some blood and urine tests which confirmed a diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus. Sophie had all the typical symptoms of diabetes in a cat. Her owner described it this way. “When she was first diagnosed, her fur felt brittle and greasy, and she wasn’t grooming herself. She slept all the time and couldn’t walk far without breaks. She was having a lot of accidents outside the litter box. She didn’t snuggle the way she used to. She stopped playing with her doggy sisters. She seemed older… this photo (the before Tx photo below) shows how she had to eat or drink because she was physically unable to sit normally. You can see how her poor little legs splayed out. She also was unable to lift her tail up. It drooped behind her at about half mast.”

Because her symptoms were severe, Dr Kathleen started her on insulin injections right away. This may sound difficult but giving these tiny injections to a cat is really easy. However, it is very important and necessary to monitor the sugar levels. This can be quite stressful for a cat because it involves coming to the hospital and taking blood samples. And most cats don’t like either of these activities!

Fortunately there is now a new monitoring technique for checking the sugar cells in diabetes cats. This is called continuous glucose monitor CGM. Dr Kathleen put one of these monitors on Sophie so now her sugar levels can be well monitored at home with much less stress for her. This allowed Dr. Kathleen to perfect the insulin requirements so now Sophie is a happy healthy cat again, leading her happy healthy kitty life. As her owner says, “She is talkative, cuddly, playful and all the accidents have stopped.”

Sophie Before Tx

Sophie After Tx

The blue circles show how her weak legs splayed out and could not support her body weight.

Bentley is a happy active one year old husky who was running off leash when he was hit by a car. His owners rushed him into our hospital where we immediately started emergency treatment for shock. Fortunately, his shock was only moderate and he recovered well from that.  However, his right front leg was seriously damaged with skin abrasions and several bones in his carpus [wrist] were fractured. The biggest problem was that the abrasion in the skin went all the way through into the joint with the fractures. We treated him aggressively with antibiotics, topical honey, and sterile bandages, along with anti-pain medication. Topical honey is a treatment used in the ancient Greek and Roman world that has recently become popular again.  Scientific studies have shown that it is a very effective aid along with antibiotics, to treat skin wounds and abrasions.  Wounds that go through the skin all the way to joints and bones are the most difficult to treat.  We were concerned right from the beginning that conservative treatment alone was not likely to cure his leg, and that more aggressive treatments would probably be required.

After a week of conservative wound bandage care, it was clear that this infection was not going to go away. Fortunately, dogs have 4 legs and can get along just fine on only 3 legs. For a human, a leg amputation means a life altering, devastating change.  For a dog, it means only a few days in hospital, followed by a normal happy dog life. After several discussions with his owner, leg amputation surgery is what we decided would be best for Bentley. The surgery went very well and he recovered quickly, never missing a meal. He now romps around home as well as he did before his accident.  The biggest change is that it is unlikely that he will be allowed to run off leash again for a long time.

Velma is a sweet pet rat who lives with Dr. Kathleen.  She is friendly, curious and affectionate. But in August, a lump started to grow in her neck. This is never good news. It kept growing and started to interfere with her ability to live her normal happy rat life. So Dr. Kathleen realized that she had to do something.  Surgery was an option but anesthesia on rats is always difficult because of their tiny size.  And Velma was no longer a young rat which increased the chances of problems. However the lump kept growing and there was no choice but to try to operate and remove it.  Our nurses took extra special care to keep Velma warm and dry while she was under anesthesia and Dr. Kathleen performed the surgery. It is always more difficult to do surgery on our own pet, but she performed the delicate tricky surgery very well and Velma woke up fine. A few weeks later, you cannot even tell where the huge lump had been.  Velma is back living her happy rat life at home with her rat best friend Daphne.