Athena: Living the Good Life

This post is a continuation of my series on Athena — her diagnosis, treatment, integration into the household, and life after FIP. If you haven’t already, I suggest taking a look at my previous posts on her. You can find them on her tag page.

December

Athena’s December 7 follow-up appointment went OK. Her intra-ocular pressure was 12 for both eyes, which, while on the low side, is still within the normal range. Her tear production, however, was still low: 12 on the left (within normal) and 5 on the right (only 1 up from the last visit). Because she had no other symptoms of an eye infection, we didn’t continue the gel and drops. However, we decided to try artificial eye moisturizer in the form of — I kid you not — eye lube.

The consistency is exactly what you would expect. I had to lube up Athena’s eyes every 6-8 hours. I decided to go with 8 hour intervals to avoid an extended dry time at night. The vet also prescribed an omega oil supplement to see if it would help with Athena’s itchiness. She gets one pump in her wet food every night

We had another follow-up a week later on the 14th. While her left eye tear production was up by 2, her right eye was only up by 1. Athena still didn’t show any signs of other eye issues, though. She didn’t have excess or discolored discharge, she wasn’t squinting a lot, and her behavior hadn’t changed.

To avoid the stress of continual vet visits, our vet decided to take the “treat the patient, not the number” approach, advising me to make an appointment and come back if we saw any signs of issues.

I slowly weaned Athena off of the eye lube, finally discontinuing it completely on January 20 when she showed no signs of issues.

We had a Christmas miracle in the form of a detent between Athena and the younger boys. Ritz actually sat next to her for a while without any complaints from Athena. And, later, Athena allowed Dante to get up close enough to sniff her without freaking out like he was trying to kill her.

January

With the weather getting colder, the kitties all wanted to claim the heating pad we have out. They seemed to have developed a rotation for a while, but we decided we needed to put out the other heating pad the day we found Bumbledore and Athena awkwardly sharing. It was cute, though, and proved that they have a comfortable relationship.

Athena mostly claimed the second heating pad, although the boys will use it if she’s somewhere else. Mostly, though, she’s enjoying laying on it like a lazy little goddess.

It seemed as though the oil supplement helped Athena somewhat, as she didn’t start itching more until the end of the second week after her last bath, as opposed to the end of the first week. Unfortunately, she continued over-grooming, so we have to keep a close eye on her, especially her legs, to make sure she doesn’t get any more patches.

February

Since the oil supplement didn’t give her as much relief as we would have liked, we decided to switch shampoos for her next bath: Douxo S3 Calm Shampoo, from the same company that makes the “miracle foam” we used on her open wounds last year.

It really seems to be helping. Her leg fur is growing back and she made it a full three weeks before she started itching much.

Perhaps because her skin is feeling better, perhaps because she’s a goober, I caught Athena playing with Dante the other evening when I stayed up later than usual. I don’t know how often it’s happening, but if it’s occurring with any frequency, it’s no wonder the younger boys are always trying to play with her.

Vet Visit

Athena’s first quarterly visit went well, although it’s taking me a bit of work to keep my paranoia over her health in check. While her FIP values are staying in the normal territory, she does still have some abnormal values, and they point to possible anemia based on internet research.

I know. I can hear everyone yelling at their screens. The internet will convince you that you’re dying when all you have is a cold. But, after all of her health issues, I’m over-vigilant. After we deal with Bumbledore’s current sinus issues, I’m considering calling the vet and asking if Athena can get an iron shot to rule out the anemia.

Anyway, Athena’s eyes are looking good, so we decided to wait until her next appointment to run the tear production and pressure tests.

Test	8 Mo PC 2/27	5 Mo PC 11/28	3 Mo PC 9/29	1 Mo PC 7/28	O Wk 12 6/30	O Wk 8 6/2	O Wk 4 5/2	T Wk 15 4/4	T Wk 11 3/6	T Wk 8 2/13	T Wk 4 1/26	Ref. range	Unit
Hematocrit	39.7	39.9	35.6	38.7	37.2	39.0	43.1	45.3	43.9	34.9	38	28.2 – 52.7	percent
Neutrophils	1.247	1.152	2.226	4.034	1.739	2.192	2.495	3.295	3.618	2.244	4.560	2.62 – 15.17	thousands per cubic milliliter
Bilirubin	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	<0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.0 – 0.3	milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL)
Total Protein	8.6	8.6	8.6	8.5	8.8	8.8	8.3	8.2	8.9	9.0	8.9	6.3 – 8.8	grams per deciliter (g/dL)
Albumin	3.2	3.2	3	3	3.1	3.0	3.1	2.8	3.3	2.4	2.9	2.6 – 3.9	g/dL
Globulin	5.4	5.4	5.6	5.5	5.7	5.8	5.2	5.4	5.6	6.6	6.0	3.0 – 5.9	g/dL
A/G ratio	0.6	0.6	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.6	0.5	0.6	0.4	0.5	0.5 – 1.2
ALT	30	36	42	32	38	30	35	24	25	26	28	27 – 158	international units per liter

As always, I’ve also updated her FIP Bloodwork Google Sheets file, which includes all of the blood work values that could be related to FIP and her blood work history dashboard.

So, overall, she’s doing fantastic. Now we just need her to get along better with the younger boys. Their relationship is SLOWLY improving, but there have been many setbacks.

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Thanks for reading to the end, I hope you found this update on Athena informative. If you’d like to keep up with her progress, be sure to subscribe to my blog, check her tag page, or follow the AthenaUpdate hashtag on Instagram.