Apologies everyone, this will likely be a long post.
As some of you might know from this thread me and @MartiDavi lost our sweet Olivia this morning, we had to put her to sleep after 4 incredibly challenging days of an uphill battle against bladder pain and her not getting enough food, which left us this morning with no other choice.
Both me and Martina had something like 6 hours of sleep in total in the last 2 days, on top of the worrying and all the crying we've done, even before losing Olivia this morning.
Martina has now been sleeping for a few hours bless her, I on the other end have laid down and tried, but too many images and thoughts come into my mind and haven't closed eyes because of them.
I realize now that unfortunately there's been a lot of events to process and I just didn't have a chance, since I spent the last 4 days living minute by minute looking after Olivia, so I thought it would be beneficial for me to just tell a bit of the story of the last 2-3 weeks, it can help my brain process the events and I could get some much needed answers on some of the things that have happened.
A little premise: Olivia showed first signs of crying when urinating I think around 1.5 years ago I think. She had an amazing vet at the time, who performed all possible tests (urine test, xrays, even ultrasound) and ruled out basically everything, leaving only a sterile cystitis as the source of the crying. She was put on Gabapentin twice a day ongoing. This vet at the time said it was likely she would have been on gabapentin her entire life, but that the medication was very safe and well received.
Eventually we thought the approach was successfull as Olivia stopped crying completely for a long time, don't remember exactly how long but probably close to a year.
Fast forward to 2 weeks ago: me and Martina came back from a holiday finding Olivia had lost a lot of weight. We think she might have not have enough food from the boarder so we start support critical care. At this point Olivia is eating normally and she starts putting up a bit of weight again.
After 3 days, we see her crying and peeing blood, deep red viscous blood. We rush her to her exotic vet (a new one she's been seeing for a year or so, as her previous one left), who did an xray and says there were no stones but "tiny crystals of calcium" in the bladder. Olivia also peed some blood clots, which was very scary to us but the vet did not consider this a big red flag.
He gives Olivia some Metacam to take on top of the gabapentin, and says that Olivia should pass these crystals with urine and with the help of the painkiller, and that the metacam should reduce the inflammation in the bladder.
Around 10 days ago: after a few days of the treatment and ongoing support syringe food, Olivia stops bleeding completely and regains all her weight from before our holiday. We go to a checkup with the same vet and he tells us the bladder is now softer and 3 times smaller than a week before. The inflammation has reduced drastically.
Exactly a week ago, on the evening of Thursday April 2nd, we see Olivia pee blood again. Me and Martina have a flight booked for the next day to spend the Easter break with our families in Italy. We've been told the bleeding was part of the process of her passing the crystals, but I don't like the fact that she was doing fine and suddenly there's blood again. This happens 30 minutes before the pet boarder arrives to pick the girls up. In that short timeframe, I decide not to go to Italy the next morning, to keep Olivia and Ginny with me and to try to book an appointment with the vet on the next day to have her checked.
On Friday April 3rd (good friday) our vet was open and working regularly, they manage to get me an appointment. I bring Olivia and she gets another x-ray. Her usual vet is on paternity so there's another exotic vet examining her. After looking at the xray I am told that Olivia's situation is stable, the xray doesn't show changes since the previous one and that the episode the evening before did not represent anything not in line with the other vet's assessment, so to continue the treatment and go ahead with the plan.
With all my family waiting for me for Easter, and reassured by the vet checkup and second x-ray, I decide to fly to Italy on Sunday 5th. The pet boarder picks the girls up on Saturday lunch time.
On Sunday the 5th the only flight I could get was an exhausting 5am with connection, and delayed by an hour, so I arrive in Rome around 2pm. As soon as I arrive I get a call from the pet boarder who weighted Olivia and she lost 100 grams since I left her less than 48 hours before. I ask her to step in with full dose of critical care, but the pet boarder tells me she's away from home the entire day and will be back at dinner time (I'm not gonna play the game of blaming her, but knowing very well that Olivia needed extra attention, this was full on irresponsible. She should have at least told me that she had such plans of leaving her unattended for that long).
I don't like the sound of it all and start looking for the earliest flight I can book to run back to Birmingham UK asap, and I'm home again on Monday the 6th after lunchtime. The pet boarder brings the girls back to me at 4, and that's where it became very challenging. Olivia is not herself but not full on lethargic, I start doing critical care, then I see her poos are very soft and mushy. I go on the forum and I read that this means she didn't have enough hay/fibres in the last 48 hours, so I keep going with the critical care, but Olivia is not collaborating much and we end up doing I think around maybe 20ml in a day? At this point she's still eating but I only give her the occasional small piece of parsley/lettuce to stimulate her appetite. Martina is still in Italy so I end up feeding her around the clock with 2-3 hours of sleep in 1 hour chuncks. My tiredness definitely doesn't help.
On the morning of Tuesday the 7th I rush her to the vet. Same vet she had seen 3 days earlier. He tells me the bladder is now hard and big again, so the inflammation is back. He proposes a Buprelieve opioid injection, alongside fluids and an anti-nausea drug injection that should act as an appetite stimulant. Olivia is not in gut stasis. The plan is to ease the pain with the opioid and get her to eat/drink again on her own (plus cc), but it goes very wrong as Olivia is completely knocked out by the opioid, she is just extremely sleepy (but not in pain).
I can barely feed her anything, until Martina comes back around 6pm and we start taking turns. Martina is shocked by the state Olivia is in, again I am positive this was still drowsiness from the opioid and the pain had not kicked in yet.
We got to the vet again the next day (yesterday). The vet says the situation is challenging but Olivia is not in gut stasis, and she's still able to swallow. He proposes another buprelieve injection, but we explain how badly she took it the previous day and opt for an oral opioid instead. From this point, it went completely downhill, no effect from the painkiller and we were left this morning with the only option to let her go.
If you had the patience of reading through everything, I can only give you the biggest thanks I can
Each one of the moments I recalled here riddles me with guilt, with things that could have been done differently, with mine and other player's responsabilities in the turn that things took.
Please understand for the last 4 days my life has been minute by minute looking after Olivia, sitting on the floor in front of the cage. I had barely any sleep or food, I had only one goal which was to get her to swallow the next drug or critical care. This on top of reorganizing my trip at the last minute, only to decide to cut it even shorter once I arrived.
I did get one good day with my family in Italy on Sunday and I'm thankful for that, don't get me wrong.
But now that the fight is over and I am dealing with the emptiness that Olivia left, my brain has got plenty of ammonitions to target me.
As some of you might know from this thread me and @MartiDavi lost our sweet Olivia this morning, we had to put her to sleep after 4 incredibly challenging days of an uphill battle against bladder pain and her not getting enough food, which left us this morning with no other choice.
Both me and Martina had something like 6 hours of sleep in total in the last 2 days, on top of the worrying and all the crying we've done, even before losing Olivia this morning.
Martina has now been sleeping for a few hours bless her, I on the other end have laid down and tried, but too many images and thoughts come into my mind and haven't closed eyes because of them.
I realize now that unfortunately there's been a lot of events to process and I just didn't have a chance, since I spent the last 4 days living minute by minute looking after Olivia, so I thought it would be beneficial for me to just tell a bit of the story of the last 2-3 weeks, it can help my brain process the events and I could get some much needed answers on some of the things that have happened.
A little premise: Olivia showed first signs of crying when urinating I think around 1.5 years ago I think. She had an amazing vet at the time, who performed all possible tests (urine test, xrays, even ultrasound) and ruled out basically everything, leaving only a sterile cystitis as the source of the crying. She was put on Gabapentin twice a day ongoing. This vet at the time said it was likely she would have been on gabapentin her entire life, but that the medication was very safe and well received.
Eventually we thought the approach was successfull as Olivia stopped crying completely for a long time, don't remember exactly how long but probably close to a year.
Fast forward to 2 weeks ago: me and Martina came back from a holiday finding Olivia had lost a lot of weight. We think she might have not have enough food from the boarder so we start support critical care. At this point Olivia is eating normally and she starts putting up a bit of weight again.
After 3 days, we see her crying and peeing blood, deep red viscous blood. We rush her to her exotic vet (a new one she's been seeing for a year or so, as her previous one left), who did an xray and says there were no stones but "tiny crystals of calcium" in the bladder. Olivia also peed some blood clots, which was very scary to us but the vet did not consider this a big red flag.
He gives Olivia some Metacam to take on top of the gabapentin, and says that Olivia should pass these crystals with urine and with the help of the painkiller, and that the metacam should reduce the inflammation in the bladder.
Around 10 days ago: after a few days of the treatment and ongoing support syringe food, Olivia stops bleeding completely and regains all her weight from before our holiday. We go to a checkup with the same vet and he tells us the bladder is now softer and 3 times smaller than a week before. The inflammation has reduced drastically.
Exactly a week ago, on the evening of Thursday April 2nd, we see Olivia pee blood again. Me and Martina have a flight booked for the next day to spend the Easter break with our families in Italy. We've been told the bleeding was part of the process of her passing the crystals, but I don't like the fact that she was doing fine and suddenly there's blood again. This happens 30 minutes before the pet boarder arrives to pick the girls up. In that short timeframe, I decide not to go to Italy the next morning, to keep Olivia and Ginny with me and to try to book an appointment with the vet on the next day to have her checked.
On Friday April 3rd (good friday) our vet was open and working regularly, they manage to get me an appointment. I bring Olivia and she gets another x-ray. Her usual vet is on paternity so there's another exotic vet examining her. After looking at the xray I am told that Olivia's situation is stable, the xray doesn't show changes since the previous one and that the episode the evening before did not represent anything not in line with the other vet's assessment, so to continue the treatment and go ahead with the plan.
With all my family waiting for me for Easter, and reassured by the vet checkup and second x-ray, I decide to fly to Italy on Sunday 5th. The pet boarder picks the girls up on Saturday lunch time.
On Sunday the 5th the only flight I could get was an exhausting 5am with connection, and delayed by an hour, so I arrive in Rome around 2pm. As soon as I arrive I get a call from the pet boarder who weighted Olivia and she lost 100 grams since I left her less than 48 hours before. I ask her to step in with full dose of critical care, but the pet boarder tells me she's away from home the entire day and will be back at dinner time (I'm not gonna play the game of blaming her, but knowing very well that Olivia needed extra attention, this was full on irresponsible. She should have at least told me that she had such plans of leaving her unattended for that long).
I don't like the sound of it all and start looking for the earliest flight I can book to run back to Birmingham UK asap, and I'm home again on Monday the 6th after lunchtime. The pet boarder brings the girls back to me at 4, and that's where it became very challenging. Olivia is not herself but not full on lethargic, I start doing critical care, then I see her poos are very soft and mushy. I go on the forum and I read that this means she didn't have enough hay/fibres in the last 48 hours, so I keep going with the critical care, but Olivia is not collaborating much and we end up doing I think around maybe 20ml in a day? At this point she's still eating but I only give her the occasional small piece of parsley/lettuce to stimulate her appetite. Martina is still in Italy so I end up feeding her around the clock with 2-3 hours of sleep in 1 hour chuncks. My tiredness definitely doesn't help.
On the morning of Tuesday the 7th I rush her to the vet. Same vet she had seen 3 days earlier. He tells me the bladder is now hard and big again, so the inflammation is back. He proposes a Buprelieve opioid injection, alongside fluids and an anti-nausea drug injection that should act as an appetite stimulant. Olivia is not in gut stasis. The plan is to ease the pain with the opioid and get her to eat/drink again on her own (plus cc), but it goes very wrong as Olivia is completely knocked out by the opioid, she is just extremely sleepy (but not in pain).
I can barely feed her anything, until Martina comes back around 6pm and we start taking turns. Martina is shocked by the state Olivia is in, again I am positive this was still drowsiness from the opioid and the pain had not kicked in yet.
We got to the vet again the next day (yesterday). The vet says the situation is challenging but Olivia is not in gut stasis, and she's still able to swallow. He proposes another buprelieve injection, but we explain how badly she took it the previous day and opt for an oral opioid instead. From this point, it went completely downhill, no effect from the painkiller and we were left this morning with the only option to let her go.
If you had the patience of reading through everything, I can only give you the biggest thanks I can
Each one of the moments I recalled here riddles me with guilt, with things that could have been done differently, with mine and other player's responsabilities in the turn that things took.
Please understand for the last 4 days my life has been minute by minute looking after Olivia, sitting on the floor in front of the cage. I had barely any sleep or food, I had only one goal which was to get her to swallow the next drug or critical care. This on top of reorganizing my trip at the last minute, only to decide to cut it even shorter once I arrived.
I did get one good day with my family in Italy on Sunday and I'm thankful for that, don't get me wrong.
But now that the fight is over and I am dealing with the emptiness that Olivia left, my brain has got plenty of ammonitions to target me.
If only our love could keep them going by itself they would live very long lives 
. You truely did the best you could for her. Your love and care was able to extend her life…and give her the chance to live her life to the fullest possible with her illness. It’s so easy for us to blame ourselves and question “ what if”. It’s mental torture but a natural human response. 
. 
