I have only had a few animals over my lifetime where I was the primary provider. Five, to be exact. I have to admit, none of them have been easy from a health standpoint. My first cat, Chewy, was geriatric when I adopted him, and he had a cold that required two different kinds of antibiotics (link). He ended up developing kidney disease (typical for most elderly cats), but lived to be 16.5 years old. Boris came to me overweight and terrible GI problems which turned out to be related to a grain and gluten allergy (link). Unfortunately, this discovery was only made after three emergency vet visits, two of which were due to bladder blockages from crystals caused by the grain/gluten free dry food, and one requiring a weekend stay in the kitty ICU. Fortunately, he has settled out, is the correct weight, and no urinary issues thanks to using only wet food for his diet. Odie, the dog, was the third addition to the family. He is a Chiweenie, so we have to be careful with his weight. He's also prone to deciding he doesn't want to eat his food because it's "stale". He's a finicky little pooch with very expressive eyes and ears. Julia is the third cat, and she has asthma. This means we have to do regular inhalers with her. Fortunately, we have only had to rush her to the vet once, and were able to avoid some hefty emergency vet bills. However, in order to get her inhalers, we have to order them from Canada otherwise they would be ridiculously expensive. She is very sensitive to air changes, not surprisingly, and stress. Finally, we have Alex (the cat who jumped out of the tree in October... link). Now part of his regular vet visits (pretty much every three weeks since October) have been for his vaccination cycles and neutering. In addition, however, he also developed a "hot spot" or wet dermatitis which is basically a skin infection that he then aggravated by continuing to lick it or scratch it. We think it was related to him attacking the Christmas tree and developing an injury from that. The tree is gone and the hot spot is almost completely covered with hair again (it was a big, nasty, weeping, bald spot on the front of his neck). Unfortunately, he now has an eosinophilic granuloma (fancy name for an ulcer on his upper lip caused by his immune system attacking normal tissue). Now, this granuloma had not been bothering him until recently when it flared because of the stress of his surgery (he was neutered on Tuesday). Oh, and he is teething so he looks like a shark with his adult canines coming in behind his baby teeth. He's pretty miserable right now between everything. Needless to say, everyone at the vets knows us, and they haven't even met Boris yet who is the most healthy of all the animals (which is really a shock considering where we were when he was adopted...I still have nightmares about those days in intern year).
Now don't get me wrong, I love every single one of these babies. I could not imagine life without them. I do worry about their health. I likely over react in some situations. Sometimes it is stressful having four animals that all need love, attention, and special health needs. I wouldn't give them up for anything. They are sweet and funny and keep us on our toes.
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