Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...
some of you may know a bit about my non-RA related life. i'm currently interning as a drug and alcohol counselor, working toward getting training certification from new york state. you may also know that i have three cats, one of whom was recently diagnosed with kidney failure and has a bum tooth that needs to be extracted.
after a lot of back and forth crap with the vet, who wanted to do things i don't want to do and wouldn't approve me doing what i wanted to do, i called for a referral to the only vet dentist on long island. my current vet seemed really pissy about giving me the referral, but that's their problem, not mine. so this monday piglet will have her consultation and as long as the dentist thinks it's safe to operate, she'll have the bad, icky tooth removed. it's a canine tooth and i feel so bad that she won't have it any more, but it's been causing piglet pain. and now she won't be in that pain and we can really focus on treating her kidney failure.
of course, the surgery will be somewhere around the $2000 mark, which i'll be auctioning things off to help raise money for.
an aunt of my husband's died early this week - she was older and it was not unexpected. we have a funeral to go to tonight, which is a bummer. but we'll deal with it.
and i just got a call about an hour ago letting me know that the agency i intern for has pushed through approval for me to start working as a paid counselor NOW instead of waiting until later in june for my internship to be over! i'll be working as a paid counselor 19 hours a week and do about 10 hours a week toward my internship for the next few weeks. so excited about that!
after a lot of back and forth crap with the vet, who wanted to do things i don't want to do and wouldn't approve me doing what i wanted to do, i called for a referral to the only vet dentist on long island. my current vet seemed really pissy about giving me the referral, but that's their problem, not mine. so this monday piglet will have her consultation and as long as the dentist thinks it's safe to operate, she'll have the bad, icky tooth removed. it's a canine tooth and i feel so bad that she won't have it any more, but it's been causing piglet pain. and now she won't be in that pain and we can really focus on treating her kidney failure.
of course, the surgery will be somewhere around the $2000 mark, which i'll be auctioning things off to help raise money for.
an aunt of my husband's died early this week - she was older and it was not unexpected. we have a funeral to go to tonight, which is a bummer. but we'll deal with it.
and i just got a call about an hour ago letting me know that the agency i intern for has pushed through approval for me to start working as a paid counselor NOW instead of waiting until later in june for my internship to be over! i'll be working as a paid counselor 19 hours a week and do about 10 hours a week toward my internship for the next few weeks. so excited about that!
$2000 to take out a tooth? Unbelievable. Does that include a little gold kitty crown for her? Makes the human dentists look like pikers when it comes to writing up a bill. We've had a lot of cats over the years. At a certain age, both the teeth and the kidneys start to go.
the dental issues can contribute to kidney issues, but her numbers are high enough that even if the tooth is contributing, piglet will still be considered in kidney failure. i'm ready to deal with it - we've dealt with it before. and we've tried purina and iams k/d and she hates both of them. i know all cats are finicky, but piglet is the pickiest cat i've ever met. so we're feeding 'regular' foods that i've researched a lot. they have high quality protein sources (meat, not by-products or peas/potatoes) and lower phosphorous.
Piglet is lucky to have such a dedicated cat mama. Wishing good thoughts for the procedure.
it's like with our bodies - i did so much research into what is 'good' for me and what isn't. i'm the guardian for these cats; they can't go to the shops and pick out what they think is suitable for them. so i have to do the best i can by them. our cats are part of our families (and possibly child-replacements) and we try to treat them as such.
except we can lock them in a bedroom or leave them alone for hours on end without someone calling CPS on us ;)
Good luck with Piglet on Monday.
sherrie
~Marti
Kidney failure is pretty serious for a cat -- at least it was for one of mine. He was always somewhat aloof so he got really bad before I discovered the problem. I hope you've caught yours in time.
take my new, part-time position: originally i was hoping to get hired 5 months ago before we realized how much new york state had changed the credentialling process for the position i'm looking at. then my rheumatoid disease really took off - maybe that was a good thing. by not getting that job and only interning, it gave me the flexibility and the time to really, really focus on me and take care of myself.