If fried chicken is what it takes...

A few weeks back this cat name Gorby came into the clinic for some gastrointestinal issues. She's going thru her sweet sixteen, and she's seen her share of problems. She's a cancer survivor (fibrosarcoma), has inflammatory bowel disease, and hyperthyroidism - at least those are the dieases we know about. We have some difficulty keeping her gut disease under control, and every now and then something strange will throw things out of wack. So, a few weeks ago, she's having some vomiting and diarrhea, and we start our workup trying to isolate the issue. Pretty soon, we see on the abdominal ultrasound that there is an obstruction in her intestines. Of course, one of the last things we are considering is that she would have eaten something she shouldn't have. Young silly kittens do things like that - not old pros like Gorby...right? So of course we are scared of cancer, and we move in late Friday afternoon to see what we can find surgically. Sure enough, it was a tiny plastic ball; the kind you would find in a cat toy. Good to know she's still having fun at her age.

So it's now about 7 pm Friday night, and we're feeling pretty darn good. Not only did we find the problem and find it easily correctable, the owners are going to have her transfered to 24 hour care to make sure her recovery is smooth. This is great for me, as I know I won't have to drive up to the clinic at 3:30 am to be able to fall asleep without worrying about how a patient is handling it's post-operative time. As the days go by, we find her electrolyte problems are returning to normal, and she seems more comfortable - only one problem - she's not too keen on eating. Early on, the question was asked if Gorby could be fed fried chicken after her surgery. Uhhhh, no! Last thing we want to do with a cat with GI disease is then to go anger its pancreas. So another few days go by, and I'm starting to sweat. Gorby should be trying to eat more cat toys in my mind, but instead she's being moapy and not wanting to eat. So again, the question is asked.

Turns out Gorby was driving with her dad several years back, and a visit was paid to the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gorby seemed game, so dad picked up some extra spicy for himself and original recipe for the princess. She could have cared less for the blend of seven herbs and spices, but loved the spicy stuff.

Well, I had run out of options short of placing a feeding tube and an order of chicken was placed. As it turns out, she loved it, and ate like a champ. Two days after that she was asking for her regular cat food as well and has made it past one more bump in the road. But don't think it's ok for anyone else to start feeding their cats fried chicken.