Eliza’s Corner

At the end of February and around the beginning of March Tiger developed an inflammation around the joint above her front right paw that we thought was a case of traumatic arthritis because she had injured her foot jumping so we kept an eye on it and I added some glucosamine to her diet to see if would help the swelling go down. It originally did but then it came back a few weeks later. She was acting herself up until the middle of April when she suddenly stopped eating and we got concerned. She had developed a 104 degree temperature and had started losing weight. She is a little cat to begin with so to drop four pounds is pretty noticeable.

I took her to the vet and after looking at her and getting an Xray of the area she determined it was probably a soft tissue tumor or a bacterial infection. The Xray confirmed it was just in the soft tissue areas and hadn’t gotten into the bone so we still should be able to try to get rid of Tiger’s growth without surgery or amputation. The vet actually told me those options weren’t really viable since Tiger is an older cat (she turned 13 this year) and she was afraid that drastic an option would cause a drastic decline in Tigers quality of life. She put her on two antibiotics, Amoxid and Baytril, and Prednisone for the arthritis in the area to help with any initial pain. I started Tiger’s antibiotics that night and we’ve been working on getting her to eat ever since. She finished the first round this past Wednesday so I took her back to the vet and the leg does look a lot better at the moment so she kept her on the Baytril for now and said to bring her back if there is a change, good or bad, to reassess the situation.

I’ve read all of my natural cat books and anything and everything I can get my hands on from around the internet and right now Tiger’s current course of treatment is to continue her antibiotic, feed her a high quality diet that includes canned food, deli meat (she seems to eat the turkey without any problems and right now if she eats it we are trying to feed her so she gets as much nutrients in her a s possible), and raw foods such as chicken legs and a few recipes from my cat care books. I brought home syringes so I could be sure she gets enough water which seems to help with making her hungry so she’ll eat.

I figure if Casper can beat his cancer then with a lot of effort and attention Tiger can beat her tumor.