Jamison Update 1/6/17

Hi, everybody! It’s me – Noodle! Guess what?! I got to see Jamison today. I don’t know if he was happy to see me but I was happy to see him. It was weird to see him so sleepy and, well, not being mean to anyone. Not that he’s mean to me in a I-want-to-kill-you way but sometimes he bites my leg and other times he jumps on my back in a big brother look-what-I-can-do-to-scare-you way. He’s really scary!

Anywho, I was a good little brother and I didn’t use this opportunity to get revenge or anything. That wouldn’t be very nice. Plus, I don’t need him storing that kind of info for months while he gets better. He’d plan some serious revenge-revenge. *shudders*

Okay, here’s Mom with the details you want. Bye!

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I’m happy to say that I have more good things to report today than bad.

It started first thing this morning after I woke up. I went in to check on Jamison, taking the top of the carrier he’s in off . He sat right up in a regular seated position, bowed he head down, reached it towards my hand and rubbed on it! It was the most cat-like thing he’s done since the attack.

This video was taken shortly after:

I think the worst thing about today was medicating him, as usual. In the morning he gets 2 pills for pain, a liquid antibiotic, and a drop of milk thistle extract. Then he gets a pill for pain in the afternoon. Finally, in the evening he gets the 2 pain pills, a pill to stimulate his appetite, 2 liquid antibiotics, and another drop of the milk thistle extract.

If you’ve ever pilled a cat before, you know how tedious it is. I can’t trick him with food. I can’t trick him by crushing it and mixing it with anything. It just has to go down the hatch by hand. You’d think this would be easy since he’s lethargic. No. He saves ALL of his energy for this moment. Because we can’t mix it with food and I’m sure it all tastes horrendous, this process leads to him drooling EVERYWHERE! It’s traumatic for all involved.

As a peace offering, I took him out of the carrier this afternoon and put him on the bed. I am so happy to say that the blanket trick worked again! He reached for it, he purred, and he actually closed his eyes for a few minutes.

That blanket has magic powers.

In other news, I spoke to the vet about Jamison’s upcoming surgery regarding pain during recovery. Jamison will be sent home with serious pain medications. None of this weak stuff he’s on now.

All day I’ve been thinking about the surgery and him potentially suffering for months. The vet reassured me that the pain medications will help tremendously. I’ve also tried to think this out as logically as possible:

• Jamison may not even make it through surgery if he’s not strong enough.
• Not doing the surgery is a certain death sentence.
• Euthanasia is also a certain death sentence. (Genius, right?) It would also be me giving up on him when he’s clearly still fighting.
• The vet may find that there’s less necrosis than there was originally though to be and be able to stitch him up, reducing healing time drastically.

Most important of all:

• If a person had traumatic injuries, their recovery would take months and be filled with physical therapy, pain medications, and other medical care. The only difference between a person and Jamison is that a person would go to an in-patient rehab facility and be cared for away from home. We don’t stop treating people because they need serious medical attention or because the recovery is going to be hard. We help them. We stand by them and try to make them as comfortable as possible during the process.

That was one of the biggest things with Mya, our dachshund who passed away in 2015. She was diabetic, blind, and a senior. Any time she started having problems with irregular glucose levels, would stop eating, or had a UTI or ear infection, people would say, “Why are you letting her suffer?” Seriously? Do we just go out an euthanize all people with diabetes that suffer from complications? I don’t think people think things through when it comes to animals.

If Jamison were undeniably suffering with no chance of resuming a normal quality of life, I would not go a single step further. I will NEVER make my animals suffer out of selfishness or for any other reason.

Please know this is not directed at any of our Blogville friends. I’m merely venting and thinking “out loud”.

Thank you all for your POTP and comforting comments. Please add to your prayers that Jamison’s surgery is not as complicated as expected.

Love,

Samantha