My World of Walter

Well....I'm throwing in the towel on the holistic stuff..bring on the steroids!!!

This all comes with an 'episode' that happened last night. Needless to say, Walter scared me half to death and I was all ready to throw him in the car and head to the emergency hospital.

I had just sat down to a marvelous dinner of fettuccini and shrimp when I heard a God awful sound, a very strange coughing noise. I immediately knew it was Walter, I found him in the bathroom, crouched down with his neck extended and his belly trying to heave something out. It almost sounded like a reverse sneeze of a dog, a hacking cough, but deep...you could hear some fluid, but his mouth was closed and he wasn't bringing anything up. At first I thought he was trying to hack up a hairball, but that didn't seem right. Then I thought back to a cat we had in the clinic last week suffering from an asthma attack.....yep, that was it. I sat next to him, tried to calm myself down to try to calm him down. He coughed for about 2 or 3 minutes or so and it was done.

He looked up at me and started meowing, his voice was a bit hoarse, and he went to lay down in bed. 5 minutes later he was running around the house, hunting his toys like nothing happened. (Come to think about it, it's not the first time ithis happened, but the lightbulb has thankfully gone off in my head)

Ugh....into the clinic we go again this morning. Between the x-rays and the description I gave the vet, we decided to diagnose and treat for asthma. But just incase he had some funky parasite (knowing my cats, he probably would...from where he would get it, I have no idea, but that's the joy of adopting animals) we started treatment with a few dewormers.

So tonight, I started him on steroids (which if he as Inflamatory Bowel Disease, that will help as well...something I was trying to get away from in the beginning), gave him a topical dewormer, and then an oral one (which I think I wore most of it....can't blame him, it tastes awful, but now at least I know I'm dewormed too...thanks Walter) and picked up an Advair inhaler from the pharmacy.

**I must reiterate the importance of pet insurance as I just spent $200 on the inhaler!!! Most of which will be reimbursed, thank God**

Anyways...that's the World of Walter for now. Stay tuned as everyday seems to get more interesting and thus...more expensive.

*Note: Feline Asthma occurs in about 1% in the population of household cats......what are the chances that it's mine.....

www.felineasthma.org