Confessions of a Bad Cat Mommy

For about a year now, Denny has struggled in his relationship with Elvis.  Admittedly, Elvis can be a royal pain, but the change was somewhat sudden - usually the sign of a health issue.  Because he is such a trooper, and his only obvious health challenge is allergic sneezing from time to time, I attributed this "crankiness" to other changes in our home.  Little's death had a serious impact on Elvis, they were the very best of friends.  Last July we lost Ike, which had a big impact on Denny since they were "patio buddies".

When I say they struggle, I'm talking about sibling rivalry ... crankiness ... two kids in the back seat of a car ... he's touching me ... he's looking at me ... he's following me ... he's repeating everything I say.  Of course, Denny's negative reaction DELIGHTS Elvis, who is always looking for a game of Greco roman wrestling!

Time has gone by and I've tried a variety of tactics:  redirect Elvis' attention - except sometimes he's not doing ANYTHING to Denny; I've shouted, I've swatted them with dish towels, I've spoken softly telling them to be sweet, I've put them both in kitty time-outs ... Denny more than Elvis in recent months.  I've even taken to offering them nightly treats, sitting inches apart, eating out of my hand, so that they associate being close with receiving a treat.

As I've worked on the sibling rivalry, I've noticed days where Denny was "off" - nothing drastic, just not himself and these were the times when he had less patience with Elvis and his antics of wanting to snuggle or wash Denny's head.  After two days of Denny being "really off pattern" - not going out on schedule & not being interested in certain things - I was getting worried.  Then one morning Jerry called me and said "something's wrong with Denny".  For Jerry to have noticed it, I felt I needed to haul him in to Dr. Rose - looking perfectly normal with NO OUTWARD SIGNS of illness.  Gotta love that!

So we go and they draw blood, they take urine, they poke and prod and Denny is his sweet, reserved self.  He doesn't so much as meow.  Dr. Rose is baffled.  She looks in his eyes and says she's looking for signs of broken blood vessels, which would indicate hypertension.  His eyes are dialated - which I attributed to white coat syndrome - but she said they were dialated too much.  Eyes are normal, but she wants to check his blood pressure anyway.

I don't know much about cat blood pressure - of course they have a systolic and diastolic reading like humans, but vets seem to only focus on the systolic numbers, or the high ones.  Normal BP for a cat ranges between 110 and 160 with ideal BP being about 125.  Denny's blood pressure was 210.  Not good.

REALLY not good.  He is at high risk for a detached retina (causing sudden blindness) because of the tremendous pressure in the blood vessels.  No wonder he has no patience with Elvis - he feels like his little head is fixing to explode!

My sweet Denny with a headache!

The timing of this kind of thing is never good and we had to leave town that afternoon to meet a Director of Jerry's bank in San Antonio.  I'm torn about what to do, but decide I need to go and trust that Denny will be OK.  We leave them home alone and I'm checking the cat cams every chance I get. 

The whole trip I'm feeling TERRIBLE about punishing him with "kitty time-outs" for being cranky with Elvis when he has obviously been very sick!  Not a good move on my part.

Denny did fine while we were gone and they were both OK when we got back on Sunday morning - although we did cut our trip short and leave SA about 6:15am on Sunday morning so we could get back and check on him.  Jerry was driving like a bat out of you-know-where to get home as quickly as we could - it was a record three hour trip!

On Monday, the tests came back normal on thyroid and kidney function - the two biggest causes of high BP in cats.  There was protein in the urine which is another indicator of kidney disease, but subsequent testing came back false.  At this point, Dr. Rose said she didn't want to drug him for high BP because you don't want it being lowered too much.  She wanted to check it again in 5 days - it was 170, which is better, but not in the safe range.  Game plan now is to check him again in another 3 weeks and see if it's still elevated and then come up with a game plan.

By this time, it was obvious he was suffering - not feeling well and not enjoying anything he normally enjoys, so I decided to break out the Bach's Rescue Remedy.  For a few days I was giving it to BOTH Denny and Elvis and now I'm just giving it to Denny.  He seems much improved - his ears aren't red and hot and he has been much more happy and "bouncy" - more like his normal self.  We will see what happens at the next appointment.

Obviously, there is something causing the high BP and we'll have to figure it out over time.  Dr. Rose feels that we are seeing these spikes in BP because he is in the beginning stage of kidney failure - something that's not normally revealed in blood work until about 2/3rds of function is already lost.  Of course, there's nothing to be done about his kidneys other than encourage him to drink water and keep him happy and eating.

So say a little prayer for my Denny - hopefully we can get his BP down to a safer level without putting him on the full BP meds - and hopefully his kidneys are going to keep cranking for many years to come.