Promiseland

[Fetian]

Rough day! I got like nine hours of sleep and could definitely have gone for more, but I did heave myself out of bed and into the office for class. I was running late such that I couldn't give Oz her pill before her breakfast and then when I finished class she wouldn't take it at all, so I had to force-feed her the B12 again and am hoping that she's just still full from breakfast and will be willing to take the rest of it later when she's hungrier. She did eat most of her breakfast again. In a couple days I'm going to try giving her kibble again and see if she'll eat it when she's got more B12 in her system, or if not wanting the kibble is distinct from losing her appetite in general

Class was. We just went through some textbook stuff for two hours, and now we've got more assigned reading and a couple of homework assignments to do.

It is wet, and raining.

[Fetian]

Alright! Done all the reading and all the homework, I am good for the rest of the week. I do still have some arcadia bits that are due but not urgent, and my mouth is still healing so I'm going to continue putting those off for a bit. I need to eat dinner and then I'll fuck around for a bit before going to bed

I did get Oz to eat her pill-mush, but that was a couple of hours ago so I'm probably going to have to skip her second pill. Let that be a lesson, I have to give it to her before she's eaten or there's too high a chance it'll throw everything off

[Fetian]

Rought night. Rough morning. Rough day.

More issues with Oz not eating, waking me up trying to get me to give her food she then wouldn't eat. She has eaten some now and hopefully will eat more later

Vet appointment in two days. When I have some brain I'm going to try writing out a general timeline of her issues to be prepared for talking to the vet about them

[Fetian]

Alright, seems like there's something wrong with the steak meals and Oz won't touch any part of them. They don't seem spoiled to me, but if she's decided she's not going to eat them then there's not a whole lot I can do. It could be that it's too rich for her to eat multiple meals of in a row, so I'm not throwing them out yet, but I thawed a couple of rabbit meals and she ate those fine, mostly. They were both still semifrozen when she got to them so she took a while eating.

There were some other issues with her eating through the night last night -- I tried giving her an egg and she would eat a little of it and then leave, but if I followed her and put it where-ever she was sitting, she'd do it again, eat a little and then leave. I am going to hold off on any more B12 pills until she sees the vet, in case that's messing with her

Tomorrow I will try to sort out my jumble of thoughts and observations about what's going on with her, to hopefully be able to relay everything relevant to the vet in a coherent manner at the appointment

[Fetian]

Back from the vet. She thinks it's probably behavioural rather than physical (I think it's probably both), but it could be lymphoma or inflammatory bowel disease, which are hard to tell apart without a biopsy (and which is what I've been suspecting since the research into the inflammation). She's doing a blood panel to check her organs, because it's been a while since we've done that one and she's due, and a panel to check her B12 levels. She also prescribed a single-protein food in case it's an allergy, but after I left the office I looked it up and it is a. out of stock everywhere and b. $100 for an 8 lbs bag, which, is not possible for us. So I called the office and they were out to lunch but I should get a call back soon so I can ask about what else I can do.

The vet has Opinions about raw feeding, of course, which make it really hard to not buy into the whole 'vets are being funded by the pet food lobby and spread anti-raw propaganda' conspiracy -- got both 'it's impossible to feed a nutritionally complete raw diet' and 'it's unsafe to feed from multiple protein sources'. I do not care if I have to take her off of raw to get her to eat, though, so long as she eats.

The vet seemed generally receptive to my concerns and we are doing something. We have a general sort of strategy for moving forward, depending on the results of our more immediate actions. Naturally I do have a bunch of things I wish I'd said or brought up or pressed on now that I'm out of the office, and I do wish I had, like -- what do I do today? She needs to eat, what do I do to get her to eat?

Anyway. I need to eat, myself. Later tonight I'll break down the game hen into more meals for her, until we get whatever commercial food we're going to be trying.

[Fetian]

Like obviously I really want to believe that veterinarians are well-trained and knowledgeable about animal nutrition, I want to trust that they know much more than I do, I do not want to be in a position where I believe that my layperson's casual-internet-research knowledge trumps dedicated study in an actual classroom environment. I really want to live in a world where I can just trust scientists to know facts about their field and to be able to utilise those facts to, for example, help my cat live a long and healthy life.

But the world is complicated. And I get vets whose education was funded by Purina and whose offices have deals with Royal Canin who tell me that it's impossible to provide a nutritionally complete diet with the foods that cats are biologically designed to eat, and I just can't believe that.

[Fetian]

Like

The history of taurine in cat food can be traced back to the 1920s, when researchers began studying the role of various nutrients in feline health. It was around this time that the first commercial cat foods were being introduced, but these early products did not always contain adequate levels of essential nutrients, including taurine.

In the 1970s, a group of researchers in Australia made a groundbreaking discovery: taurine deficiency was found to be the cause of a condition called feline central retinal degeneration (FCRD), which can lead to blindness in cats. Additionally, in the 1980’s feline taurine deficiency was also linked to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM – which can have multiple causes). This is a condition where the heart becomes enlarged and weakened, leading to heart failure. These discoveries led to a deeper understanding of the importance of taurine in feline health, and prompted pet food manufacturers to quickly start adding taurine to their products.

30 years ago I would not be providing a nutritionally complete diet by feeding my cat commercial pet food. But I would be closer to it by feeding her PMR raw

[Fetian]

Professor has finally graded all of our homework assignments - I've gotten perfect marks on all of them

[Fetian]

Okay, vet never called me back about the food, in the meantime I've broken down our last game hen and gave that to Oz for dinner. She has eaten it eagerly. I also gave her a B12 pill earlier

[Fetian]

And Oz is refusing her breakfast this morning. The chicken smelled a little off to me, so it's possible that it's spoiled, but there's nothing I can do about that if so and we'll both just have to wait for ash to come home with a new one