Poor little kitty. Earlier this week, she was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure (more commonly and simply known as kidney failure).
On Sunday evening, I noticed that she hadn't eaten anything since Saturday morning. Over the course of the night, she vomitted 5 times. As you can imagine, I was quite freaked out, so I scheduled a vet appointment for Monday. While at the vet, they chose to run some blood tests. The results were as follows:
BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen) - normal range is 14-34; Zulu was at 136
Creatinine - normal range is .6-2.3; Zulu was at 11.7
Even after doing some research, I'm not able to articulate exactly what these numbers mean - but I'm pretty sure that anything 4-5 times where it should be, is bad.
As a result, they recommended that we bring her in to stay at the hospital to receive 1-3 days of subcutaneous fluids and conduct some additional tests. During these last few days, they've discovered that she is only using one of her kidneys. In addition, today they advised that her creatinine levels have dropped; however, her BUN number has increased to over 140 (where the measurement ends).
So, instead of Zulu coming home today, she has to stay another day and have x-rays to see if there is a kidney stone partially blocking her functioning kidney.
On a positive note, she is eating well and is enjoying the attention she's getting from the vets - even giving them head-bumps, which is her sign that she likes someone.
We'll get the results of the x-rays tomorrow morning and will then know what the next steps are. If she has a kidney stone, she'll receive medication to help relax the muscles and allow the stone to pass. If she doesn't have a kidney stone, then it's back to the drawing board as to why her BUN levels aren't dropping.
Either way, she's a warrior at heart...named after the great Shaka Zulu and all.
I'm certain she will power through.
Amandla!
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