We've Had a Few Great Days

I'm happy to finally bring forward some good news.  Weasel has been upbeat, happy and eating everything we give him for 3 straight days now.  His energy levels seem to be high too which is wonderful.

The secret? Well the current regime is to feed him only his Halo wet food with no herbal remedies added during his regular meal times.  Every night he receives a snack - either a small amount of a fresh salmon cooked for him and his brother or sardines which he loves and I add a tablespoon of Essiac Tea along with some Omega-3 which is almost unnecessary but he loves the flavour of it, his Amino B-Plex and 5 drops of the Life Gold.  He eats it up very quickly thankfully.  Today I tried to give him a similar snack - salmon based with sardines mixed in but I added the Milk Thistle drops and Black Cumin Seed Oil to see if he would finally take those remedies which are fairly important.  He ate 1/4 of it and walked away so no luck there.  Perhaps all I need to do is remove the milk thistle.  The Black Cumin Seed Oil is more important anyway.

I've unfortunately had to give up on the tactic to spread the Vitamin C on his paws.  I could see that it was causing him to become depressed.  In addition, his ability to groom it off seemed haphazard at best.  The Vitamin C was one of the most powerful 'tools' I had in my possession to fight the cancer so it's frustrating that I have hit a wall with it.  I'll try experimenting with adding it it to some food but he really doesn't like the taste and probably now associates it with the grooming he disliked so much.

I can sense that Weasel's discomfort has increased so my vet prescribed Tramadol to ease his pain.  The downside of this is that a) It's not available in a cream or liquid version and b) administering a pill to Weasel is pretty much impossible.  In fact, I bet he would make the top 10 for 'hardest cat to give a pill to' category.  I even recently purchased the 'Buster Pet Piller' which has a soft rubber end and allows you to shoot water behind the pill.  It's the best piller on the market and even that didn't work.  We've wrapped him in towels, held him in different positions, etc. It's stressful on us and him.  I did however manage to get one of the capsules down yesterday (by sheer luck) but unfortunately it didn't generate the best outcome.  Shortly after, Weasel's pupils became dilated and he was very quiet for the remainder of the day.  On the label it states to administer 2 times a day but the one capsule was evidently an overdose.  The other issue with Tramadol is that it's an addictive drug.  The last thing we need is to give my cat an addiction while battling cancer.  The only alternative liquid based drug I can give to him for pain is Metacam which, after researching online scared me completely.  Supposedly cats can die on this.

My current concern is how I can control the fever he seems to have each day.  His body is so warm and his ears are hot. The Tramadol cannot help with this.  I may start giving him the Yunnan again which I stopped administering while attempting to give Tramadol as it was becoming too traumatic for the both of us.  It's possible that the Yunnan will be an effective treatment for this.  I'll call the holistic vet tomorrow to find out what our options are.

I've had to start taking a new perspective on this situation, enjoying each day we have together and not obsessing over the negative ending to this saga.  It's really the only way one can stay sane in such a grave scenario.