Wendy took Akhenaten to the specialist yesterday (along with Bean, who is going there for weekly chemotherapy). The specialist did an ultrasound of Akhenaten and was cautiously optimistic that instead of being in “kidney insufficiency”, he may be instead sub-clinically dehydrated from his ordeal.
As briefly mentioned in this post, Akhenaten was found unconscious “in the hood” (that’s what his admission notes say) in Hamilton, Ohio. His body temperature was 91 – the same as the ambient temperature outside. (As a reference, normal body temperature for a cat is 100.5-102.5.) It is safe to assume that he would not have lived through the night had he not been found and brought to Wendy. What we don’t know is how long he was outside before he was found… He was certainly skinny, even for a Siamese, so it’s safe to assume that he’d been without food and probably without water for a while.
The distinctive rip in his ear indicates that he was probably a kitty-mill kitty. Apparently, there are several kitty mills in Hamilton, and they ear-tag the animals. The ear-tags are ripped out when the animal is removed from service.
So, based on the specialist’s recommendation, we’re doing subcutaneous fluids. This involves inserting a needle between Akhenaten’s shoulders and flowing Lactated Ringer’s under his skin. In addition to being funny to look at (he looks like a camel with the squishy pouch under his skin!), the extra fluid enables him to wash away more toxins that his kidneys aren’t sufficient (yet, we hope) to deal with.
Doing this will minimize the amount of damage those toxins do, while we wait for his kidneys to come back online (we hope).
We’ve upgraded his status from “bleak” to “cautiously optimistic”. Please keep your fingers crossed for Akhenaten! More updates (and some pictures) soon.
