About Grayson's Edge ("Boo")

Outside enjoying the warm morning

Boo passed away at approximately 10:15AM Eastern time on 08/02/10. We are all very heartbroken but appreciate your kind words and sympathies. Thank you all for caring so much <3


Boo came from a backyard breeder at 6 months old from a town a few counties away. My father purchased him for me and is basically the last thing I have from my father, who passed in 2001 from liver failure. 

March 15, 2010: I had been noticing for several weeks that Boo's spine was becoming more pronounced. I noticed he had lost a bit of weight. His appetite was fine, he was peeing and pooping, though maybe peeing more than usual. He was drinking more water than usual, yowling at the tub every couple of hours. It became nerve wrecking, and while I tried to put it off as his getting older, more frail, finally it came to me that all of these things could be connected to one thing: Kidney Failure. I took him to the vet on this day, and when the Vet came back with the results he had already photocopied a page out of the cat health book about Renal Failure. I was heartbroken. Boo had been withering away for nearly 3 months and we were all completely oblivious. His BUN level at that time was 131, and from my little knowledge I figured it was his last go-round with medical procedures and he was done for. The vet calmed me and told me there were things to manage it, but for how long, we didn't know. 

Since that visit we started him on Lactated Ringer's Solution, 200mL/day, and tried to switch him to K/D wet from C/D dry and wet, which was immediately refused. Having to get him to eat anything, we resorted back to C/D until we could find something. Hi-Tor Neo was heaven-sent and with that his BUN dropped to 77. 

His anemia (Hct* (%PCV) ) was at 11%, then up to 13% around this time. As of 06/24/10 it has gone up to 19%. We have Epogen to give him but are waiting to see what his anemia numbers will look like over the next test or two. Once you start Epogen injections you cannot stop, or the cat can become immune to the medicine. His anemia was so bad a month ago that he took to eating his clay litter, got constipated, then had bad diarrhea. A mistake was made in medicine that was given to him, and a decision was made to switch vets. 

With this new vet, new info, new meds, lowered fluids (100mL/day, lowered because of the beginning of heart failure and/or congestive heart failure, an admission that he was being given too much fluid, and a prediction that he would not last two more weeks) and a seemingly higher anemia number, we are hopeful that we can keep him in a quality life for a considerable amount of time. He is active, does not collapse from exhaustion, does not breathe heavy, is eating well, drinking well, taking his fluids like a champ and is most interested in going outside every day. In fact, he has started to demand with yowling to go outside. I oblige him most of the time, but not for too long as the heat is becoming unbearable. 

Recently an ultrasound was done that showed his right kidney was enlarged and had 2 stones in it. Example: if his kidney is a bit bigger than a tennis ball, you could say the 2 stones are about the size of lima beans. Since he is doing so incredibly well and feeling so well, I have decided against any biopsy of his kidney or surgical removal of the stones. In his condition, my vet and I did not think it appropriate, though it was my decision that made it final. Boo has been through a lot in his 13 and 1/2 years: Nearly getting hanged by the neck by falling off a porch and getting hung on a post, a struvite crystal blockage that ended in a Perineal Urethrostomy (PU) (Removal of the penis and allowing the urethra a larger opening), a bladder surgery from an ER clinic that tore his catheter out and left a piece inside, conjunctivitis, tooth extraction, a dental scraping, sanitary clips... etc. 

He nearly died because of the struvite blockage, and had been eliminating in every other place than his litter box. I took this as his being a male and being unhappy about something, knowing as little as I did about cats and urinary tract infections. I'd never had a "sick" cat before. A swollen cheek from a cat fight, an abcess here and there, but never, ever any crystals in the bladder. Finally, he peed in the kitchen. This was the only place where I finally saw the blood in his urine, and we took him immediately to the ER vet. He was on the edge of death. The very edge. If he hadn't peed in the kitchen that night, he would've been dead by morning. 

Needless to say, this cat has been a lifeline for me, and he is very intelligent. He is one of the most unique cats we have ever had, and is more of a human to us than a cat by the way he acts, tries to talk, and points things out to us. 


He is one tough cat.


Boo has a page of photos here, but I keep most of them on photobucket. If you'd like to see more of Boo and the rest of the family, see my photobucket account here: http://s873.photobucket.com/home/valaeona/index


I also have videos I have put together of them here at Vimeo.com: http://www.vimeo.com/snickerdoodle

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