Ajani - diagnosed!
During all of Sorin’s health travails, I have also been concerned about Ajani. He also cut back on eating and seemed somewhat unwell. Since Sorin’s passing two weeks ago, Ajani has been highly stressed and has barely eaten. He’d been to the vet several times - she had me discontinue his allergy pill, and another time they did a whole series of blood tests and determined that he didn’t have anything obviously wrong, including diabetes. We assumed that he was depressed and anxious about losing Sorin, and certainly that has been part of it, but he’s been eating less and less.
Yesterday I went to trim his nails, and the claws on his left front foot seemed torn, with dried blood, and it was painful for him to have me touch his foot. It seemed that if he had something physically wrong, it would complicate his mental stress, so I wanted the vet to see him today. We had four questions - what was wrong with his paw? Has he lost more weight? Is there anything keeping him from eating? And… why does his white nose look darker and slightly scaly, which is downright strange?
It was not wonderful to have to set my alarm for 7:55 am so I could call the vet’s office on less than four hours of sleep, and even more non-wonderful for the receptionist to tell me that I was going to have to wait to hear how the vets would triage our situation, since some other pets might have some problem more urgent than a possibly torn claw. Fortunately, the vet who works with Ajani definitely wanted to see him, so the office called back at 8:22 am and I could then get a few more hours of sleep before it was time to bring him in.
The vet and the tech fussed over Ajani quite a bit - his temperature was fine, his respiratory system was fine, his mouth looked fine, his heart sounded fine, etc. etc. She concluded that it most likely really was still just the stress from the grief and change, and we discussed ways to work on getting him to eat more. Then they took him off to a room with better light to do his pedicure, and I waited in the exam room.
hen all at once the vet came rushing back in. She knew what was wrong with him! She was so glad I had brought him in! When they examined his foot, they discovered that his claw folds were all tender and filled with pus, a symptom of an autoimmune disorder! She used her microscope to confirm it, and they gave him an antibiotic and prescribed steroids, which he’ll be on indefinitely - but it’s very easy to give him pills, thankfully. If the steroids work properly, he should have a normal lifespan.
I had just trimmed his claws a few weeks ago, so presumably the full onset of this symptom has been from the stress of the last few weeks, but maybe the other aspects of the disease have been affecting him for a while. She can’t easily specify which autoimmune disorder it is, but I saw online that the most common one that affects cats’ feet is known as “PF” (pemphigus foliaceus) and it can also affect their faces (like his nose, maybe). Anyway, the vet will see him again in a week, and it’s quite possible that with the prednisone, he’ll be eating more normally very soon. He did take more initiative to eat this evening than he’d done lately.