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Good lord and baby Jesus, the Borg have assimilated my cat.

My poor Katzuhiro, he was so sick.

Fortunately for us, there is an emergency veterinary clinic in our neighborhood. Well, I dunno, maybe it wasn’t so fortunate. I love my Katzu, I really really do, but I’m not sure what to think now that he’s been assimilated. He seems like his old self but that hive mind may strike whenever you let your guard down.

You see, last week Katzu started to fail. Just generally…fail. First he started barfing, then he stopped eating, then he turned yellow. Which, if you didn’t know, is NOT a normal color for a cat to be no matter how gingerey they look. No, our Katzu was definitely staring at that big scratching post in the sky and thinking about sharpening his claws for the final time.

What we weren’t aware of at the time was that Katzuhiro had pancreatitus. A strange thing for an indoor cat to get but it happens and, as I understand, is more common than one would think for fat tuxedo cats. The pancreatitus made him stop eating which triggered Hepatic Lipidosis, also known as fatty liver disease.

Put simply: when he stopped eating his body decided to try and use all the fat he had stored up but his liver was all like “Whoa dude! No way! Too much fat! I can’t take it anymore!” And then his body was all like “Oh yeah! Well, I’m just going to start eating all the muscle, so take THAT Mr Lilly liver….”

Anyway, long story short…Katzu ended up at the emergency vet. The vet recommended that he be force fed through a tube to which we agreed because our experiences with force feeding at home were not going so well. So they stuck a tube up his nose and down to his throat in order to continually him enough calories to get his body back on track. Here is an excerpt from his vet record:

7/4/07
New PE findings: Katzu has been tolerating his tube feedings well without vomiting. He appears slightly less icteric today. His fluids were discontinued at 11am, presumably due to weight gain (approx 0.3kg). He was slightly jellylike last night. His VS have been stable. He is slightly resentful of abdominal palpation . . .

Um, jellylike? What the hell does that even mean?

Abdominal palpations weren’t the only things of which Katzu was resentful because he eventually pulled the tube out of his nose. The vet then recommended an esophageal tube placement and since Brian found a money tree growing in our backyard last week, we agreed.

Let me explain something about the esophageal tube. It is exactly what it sounds like: a tube poked through his cheek going straight down his esophagus. It is also, for lack of a better term, weird looking.

The upshot of this whole deal is that we were able to take him home today (finally) But I’m going to be honest here, that cat is looking rough. He has been shaved on his forelegs and belly, his hind end is stained yellow from biliruben in his urine, his face is stained pink from the antibiotics, his skin is all dry and flaky and he’s got an enormous tube sticking out of his cheek that is taped down to the back of his neck. But he’s happy to be home and at least he doesn’t have to have a cone on his head.

Now all we have to do is:

• feed him 30mL of watered down canned cat food every 6 hours increasing the dosage by 10 mL each day until 50mL/ feeding is achieved
• give 1 mL of Metoclopramide 3 times a day (1/2 – 1 hour before each meal)
• give 0.8 mL Metronidazole twice daily for 4 weeks
• give 1 crushed tablet of amoxicillian twice daily until the pills are gone
• and ¼ tablet of pepcid ac every morning.

No, I’m not kidding. This cat is now on more medication than my grandmother.

Okay, that’s a lie. My grandmother is the Queen of Prescriptia.

But all the same we’d appreciate it if you kept your fingers crossed for Borg cat.