What's been going on
Hi all! Things have been crazy lately. Craaaazy, but mostly good. Here's the low down on what's going on.
First, we had a really bad week last week and the week before, and we thought we were going to have to put Butters down. He started having a lot of accidents around the house (one to two a day) and was simply peeing all over himself. I took him to the vet, and the only thing she could find was that his renal disease is progressing, but isn't at catastrophic levels. He was miserable, Scott was miserable, I was miserable, but when I kept talking to folks about putting him down, they kept saying, "you'll know when it's time," and I didn't feel like it was right yet.
Lo and behold, when I was up cleaning up Sammy in the middle of the night (yeesh, let's not go there), I was musing on what to do, and it hit me. Helllloooo... if he was a human patient of mine, I would have already searched the drug databases to make sure that nothing he was on could be causing this. Sure enough, his antihistamine, hydroxyzine, can cause bladder distention and swelling of the penis in humans, along with sporadic action potentials in the cervical spine in cats. No one of those things would cause accidents, but all of them together can. I took him off the meds, no accidents for 3 days. I put him back on the meds after 72 hours, and we had 3 accidents in 24 hours. Pulled him back off, and he's been fine ever since. So, no more hydroxyzine for Butters, and I am very happy I did not put him down 10 days ago because I would feel horrible now if I had euthanized my cat and it turned out I just need to pull his meds. Whew.
I've also started a new clinical rotation, and I love it. I'm at a specialty pharmacy twice a week, where we primarily see patients with HIV/AIDS, solid organ transplants, and cancer. It's a great learning experience for me, and I'm meeting great people. Unfortunately, I am incredibly busy.
This week we fly to Joisey! Yay!! We finally get to see Guido and Ryan's house on Long Island, my dad is flying up from Florida for the weekend, my in-laws are coming over on Saturday, we see more of the awesome Philly crew at Steph's sister's wedding, and we spend tons of time with Aunt Linda and Uncle Paul. I am really, really looking forward to this vacation like you would not believe.
Finally, on a very cool note, I saw this article about Babe Ruth today. Go Babe. Also, this article about a pig sanctuary nearby, with this adorable picture of a piglet wrestling a pug.
Have a great week y'all.
First, we had a really bad week last week and the week before, and we thought we were going to have to put Butters down. He started having a lot of accidents around the house (one to two a day) and was simply peeing all over himself. I took him to the vet, and the only thing she could find was that his renal disease is progressing, but isn't at catastrophic levels. He was miserable, Scott was miserable, I was miserable, but when I kept talking to folks about putting him down, they kept saying, "you'll know when it's time," and I didn't feel like it was right yet.
Lo and behold, when I was up cleaning up Sammy in the middle of the night (yeesh, let's not go there), I was musing on what to do, and it hit me. Helllloooo... if he was a human patient of mine, I would have already searched the drug databases to make sure that nothing he was on could be causing this. Sure enough, his antihistamine, hydroxyzine, can cause bladder distention and swelling of the penis in humans, along with sporadic action potentials in the cervical spine in cats. No one of those things would cause accidents, but all of them together can. I took him off the meds, no accidents for 3 days. I put him back on the meds after 72 hours, and we had 3 accidents in 24 hours. Pulled him back off, and he's been fine ever since. So, no more hydroxyzine for Butters, and I am very happy I did not put him down 10 days ago because I would feel horrible now if I had euthanized my cat and it turned out I just need to pull his meds. Whew.
I've also started a new clinical rotation, and I love it. I'm at a specialty pharmacy twice a week, where we primarily see patients with HIV/AIDS, solid organ transplants, and cancer. It's a great learning experience for me, and I'm meeting great people. Unfortunately, I am incredibly busy.
This week we fly to Joisey! Yay!! We finally get to see Guido and Ryan's house on Long Island, my dad is flying up from Florida for the weekend, my in-laws are coming over on Saturday, we see more of the awesome Philly crew at Steph's sister's wedding, and we spend tons of time with Aunt Linda and Uncle Paul. I am really, really looking forward to this vacation like you would not believe.
Finally, on a very cool note, I saw this article about Babe Ruth today. Go Babe. Also, this article about a pig sanctuary nearby, with this adorable picture of a piglet wrestling a pug.
Have a great week y'all.
1 Comments:
Hurray for pharmacology! My class starts today--woo!
On a more serious note, you WILL know when it's time. I think it's really awesome that you made the connection between B's incontinence and his meds--I'm not sure if or when I would in that situation. You are an awesome pet owner and good for you for applying your knowledge!
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