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Feb. 27th, 2013 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estelracaI think I hate not knowing most out of anything in this profession--and that's saying a lot, because if I never had to deal with financial troubles again I would be ecstatic.
Or maybe it's a subset of financial problems, where finances mean that I can't give people the answer that they desperately need for closure--that *I* need for closure.
I don't know why kitty had a hematocrit somewhere in the 5-6% range. I don't even know what the hematocrit was, not for certain, because we couldn't even afford that testing. I just know that it was super low, blood like water, blood that wouldn't clot. I know that kitty's temp was low and falling, because kitty was trying to die. I know that to save her we would have needed an incubator and an IV and a blood transfusion and several hundred dollars to get it all, and I'm sorry that we couldn't even try.
Even if we tried, with how sick kitty was, we likely wouldn't have gotten very far, and I'm sorry that's the best comfort I can give any of us on that account.
I'm sorry I couldn't tell the desperate, sad, crying, pregnant owner if it was panleukopenia or a rodenticide toxicity or something else. I'm sorry she tried to save a stray, gave it five days of love, enough to get her and the kids attached, and this is how it ended up.
And I'm sorry, other kitty, kitty who is amazing and lovely and who survived two surgeries, one my very first tail amputation, that you have heartworm disease. It's not common in cats--not common at all. You escaped the common stray cat problems, and got this instead, and there's just nothing we can do other than keep our fingers crossed and help with the secondary problems like heart failure and try to keep you breathing all right because the treatment for heartworm disease in cats usually results in a dead cat. But not treating might result in a dead cat.
There's been too much death and cats today.
I've been getting better at dealing with things like this. It usually doesn't slip through my defenses quite so much, but the one-two whammy today just... rough morning. Really, really rough morning.
Or maybe it's a subset of financial problems, where finances mean that I can't give people the answer that they desperately need for closure--that *I* need for closure.
I don't know why kitty had a hematocrit somewhere in the 5-6% range. I don't even know what the hematocrit was, not for certain, because we couldn't even afford that testing. I just know that it was super low, blood like water, blood that wouldn't clot. I know that kitty's temp was low and falling, because kitty was trying to die. I know that to save her we would have needed an incubator and an IV and a blood transfusion and several hundred dollars to get it all, and I'm sorry that we couldn't even try.
Even if we tried, with how sick kitty was, we likely wouldn't have gotten very far, and I'm sorry that's the best comfort I can give any of us on that account.
I'm sorry I couldn't tell the desperate, sad, crying, pregnant owner if it was panleukopenia or a rodenticide toxicity or something else. I'm sorry she tried to save a stray, gave it five days of love, enough to get her and the kids attached, and this is how it ended up.
And I'm sorry, other kitty, kitty who is amazing and lovely and who survived two surgeries, one my very first tail amputation, that you have heartworm disease. It's not common in cats--not common at all. You escaped the common stray cat problems, and got this instead, and there's just nothing we can do other than keep our fingers crossed and help with the secondary problems like heart failure and try to keep you breathing all right because the treatment for heartworm disease in cats usually results in a dead cat. But not treating might result in a dead cat.
There's been too much death and cats today.
I've been getting better at dealing with things like this. It usually doesn't slip through my defenses quite so much, but the one-two whammy today just... rough morning. Really, really rough morning.
