Fredo's Fight

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Hi everyone!  Fredo’s two-year “ampuversary” has come and gone.  He celebrated it by sitting in the sun as long as he could and eating food and drinking water, and that’s about it.

Poor little guy is not doing super well.  He had a steroid injection shot about a month ago, which he seemed to tolerate fairly well.  His breathing attacks seemed to subside, but now in the past week or so they’ve been at least daily, sometimes more.  We’re going to have to start thinking seriously about how to assess his quality of life and when to make the tough decision.

I asked my husband what he thought, and he said Fredo still seems happy.  We take him outside most days and he wanders around.  He’s still eating and drinking normally, and he keeps up on his grooming.  So, I’m not really sure what to do.  Keep him comfortable with his pain meds (which he HATES.. even though it’s just in his ears and not a pill that we force down).  Our vet said that sometimes if people know an illness is terminal, they’ll pick a day and plan for that to be the last day.  But the thought of bringing him to the vet, knowing how much he hates even the car ride ANYWHERE, and it being his last trip… that really breaks my heart.  It has been years since I’ve had to think about this.  In fact, when I was 12 my dog had to be put to sleep (brain tumor), but I was on vacation and my grandma made the decision while I was gone.  Any other pet death that I’ve experienced has been involuntary (we lived on a very busy county highway in Wisconsin and unfortunately lost many pets that way).  I’ve never had THIS much time to wrap my head around losing a pet I love so much.

Any input on that subject is much appreciated!  What would you do?  Wait for a severe decline, or get a date in your head?

Here’s some pics of Fredo in his favorite sunny spots.. and his fat sister, who is currently on a diet but of course as a lady, she loses much slower than the boys.  🙂

Pumpkin left over from Halloween.. don’t ask. 🙂

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Just a little update.  Last time I checked in, we’d gotten some bad news from the vet.  Nothing has really changed.  We’ve been less than successful administering meds to Alfredo, so we opted to get a steroid injection versus a daily pill.  We found it to be immediately effective; he was having near-daily breathing attacks due to mets in his lungs.  Since he got the shot almost two weeks ago, we’ve only witnessed one breathing attack (and it was very short and resulted in vomiting–which almost makes me think it wasn’t breathing-related at all since those particular actions are somewhat similar sounding).

On the other hand, all our attempts to administer his bronchodilator have  been met with resistance… lol.  We’re still trying.  He’s also not a huge fan of pain meds in his ears (buprenorphine gel).  He’ll let me touch his ears any other time, but if he suspects I have the gel on them, he flattens them against his head and runs away.  Such a goof.

Overall good.  He’s eating well and behaving normally.  It’s odd to think that he’s even sick.

We’re having trouble keeping our chubby little girl away from his food (which is kitten food now due to his weight loss).  Debating the Sure Feed method for him, although he’s not microchipped.  Anyone have any experience out there with this product?

Garbage truck terror!  It’s been months and he still isn’t used to that thing coming up the hill.

Prettiest kitty eyes.

Have a lovely week!