Mancat Monday with Exhausted Evan

It's Mancat Monday, and all my poor mancat Evan can manage today is a sleepy shot.

Evan had a rough weekend with his intestinal issues. As we've mentioned a couple of times recently, after many months of occasional bouts of diarrhea, Evan has now been struggling with constipation lately. Though, usually that's also strangely accompanied with diarrhea. Then again, perhaps that's not strange at all, as the amount of straining he does is probably causing his intestines to release anything it can. During this weekend, especially the last half of the weekend, Evan was really struggling and straining to defecate. I'm sorry for anyone grossed out by this kind of talk, but from one cat parent to another, I'll share that when Evan finally managed to pass everything through, what he got out was a large, rock-hard piece of stool surrounded by a small pool of diarrhea. This has become a norm for him, despite all fecal, intestinal, and other diagnostics coming back normal.

Unfortunately, the new GI food the vet ordered is not something Evan is all that interested in eating. He'll nibble it here and there, but he's made it clear to me that it's not a diet he wishes to eat regularly. So, what we're trying next is Miralax. Despite the fact that diarrhea often accompanies his hard, constipated stool, the vet and I had a discussion and decided that we at least want to see if Miralax will prevent the hard stools that keep constipating him, hopefully without causing worsened diarrhea.

Poor Evan always ends up completely exhausted after one of his bouts of constipation. Sometimes he strains so hard to defecate that he vomits, and I can't even express how much that breaks my heart. There have been times that getting a fresh dose of the gabapentin and prazosin he takes for his urinary issues seem to calm his whole system down enough that he's then able to more easily pass his stool. This is why I'm starting to wonder if these intestinal issues are just another late-blooming result of his lifelong hind limb paralysis, just like his urinary incontinence and urethral spasms likely are. His vet and I are determined to find some semblance of a solution to eradicate or at least reduce his constipation.

Now that he's cleared his system, as stressful as that was, Evan is sleeping comfortably this morning. I hated having to leave him to go to work, but he had all of his meds on board and was very calm and cozy in his favorite cat bed. When I get home this evening, he'll be getting his first dose of Miralax. We'll let you all know how that works for my sweet Evan, even if it ends up being a bit of an overshare.

Evan and all of us here are wishing you a happy Monday!

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Flashback Doodle of the Day

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Tip of the Day

We've decided to repeat an old series of tips on life hacks for pet parents, especially cat parents. These hacks may be all sorts of random, and some of them may even be repeats of tips from the past. But, we hope these might offer some pet parenting tips for saving money, saving space, saving time, and, of course, keeping your furbaby happy and healthy.

Today's hack is about those windows, which may or may not be open during the warm summer months. We're here today to ask if you know that there is window screen tape on the market. Did you know that? If you are in need of a quick or temporary fix for a torn window screen, especially if there is any chance that the window might be opened and a furbaby potentially escape, then perhaps look into having window screen tape on hand. This tape can be applied to a tear in a window screen, and is meant not only to hold it together, but is also made to look like part of the screen. Of course, this is likely not mean to be a permanent fix, and may not be able to hold up to a determined furbaby. It is of course still wise to only open windows when they are safe and when the furbaby is supervised, but it might not hurt to have window screen tape on hand in case an emergency quick fix is needed.