The Six Million Dollar Cat

Round-the-clock care, 24-hour access for updates or visits -- I never dreamed we'd spend this much to find out what is wrong with a cat. I'm not sure what the outcome will be, but I know it's getting more expensive every moment. Part of me cringes at the cost; part of me doesn't care.

This morning's update:

Mack is still on IVs for fluids and nutrition. They've had food and water available the whole time, of course, as we did at home. He's just not interested. They tried syringe-feeding him twice: once last night, and again between 5 and 6 a.m. Both times, Mack was "struggling with food aversion," and both times he threw up the food they got him to ingest. They're now offering him a liquid nutrition orally, but he's still showing absolutely no interest.

They did test his blood yesterday, again. His bilirubins are down (4.3), compared to when he was admitted to the hospital (6.8) ... but they need to be between 0 and .5 to be normal.

I'm not sure how useful the information is, because I'm not sure what to make of the values, but the vet told me Mack's ALT values on admission Friday night were 362, and were down slightly to 346 when tested last night. Something I heard as "elk fass" was UP, from 549 to 656. For anyone interested in knowing more, I found a website that could help you understand a bit about how to read lab tests. I'm thinking the "elk fass" might be the Alkaline Phosphotase (ALKP) which could easily be abbreviated to "alk phos" by those in the business. Normal readings, according to the website I found, would be between 10-130 for the ALT, and 20-220 for the ALKP.

Bottom line, Mack still has a low-grade inflammation in his liver, and won't take food or water orally. They won't try again soon, since they don't want to have him develop a total food-aversion, which could happen if he associates eating/drinking with nausea. (Could be too late for that worry?)

Tomorrow, Monday, when the lab technicians return, I'm sure they'll test his blood again, and I know they will do the ultrasound and possibly an "aspirate" of the liver tissue. The difference between that (done with a long needle) and a biopsy (slicing a bit of the liver tissue) is that the aspirate is less invasive and will give Mack less to heal from.

After the ultrasound, and aspirate (if they do it), we'll know more about the nature of the liver dysfunction, and whether it can be cured.

The cost of waiting until the weekend to hospitalize him is very high. We could have had the ultrasound done right away, any other day of the week. Sigh. It's only money?