This story was originally published on my vet school blog, “Wet Cleanup on Aisle 5.”
Alternate title: Polyphagia + Pruritus Sucks
So Cat Mandu’s head is healing, slowly, from the previously mentioned eosinophilic-crapola-flareup. Yay for steroids.
The downside of steroids is that one of the side effects can be polyphagia, a fancy word that means “I want food. All. The. Time.” Granted, one of Cat Mandu’s great loves in life is whatever food she can get her paws on, so this isn’t entirely new to us, but lately it’s gotten more insistent and annoying.
Couple that with the pruritus (fancy word for itching) from her eosinophilic-crapola-flareup, and you have a downright menace to society. Why? Because she knows that if she starts scratching a lot, I will stop whatever I am doing and put salve on her itchy spots. And her reward for sitting through the uncomfortable salve-slathering treatment is usually a little piece of freeze-dried salmon.
The past few nights, she’s been using this technique to wake me up right about 2 a.m. She’ll hop on the nightstand and then start scratching the bejeezus out of her e-collar–it’s impossible to sleep through that racket. Even though I suspect strongly that it’s psychosomatic itching, I still drag myself out of bed and stumble to the kitchen & put salve on her head. After which she stares longingly at the refrigerator.
My choices:
1) Toss cat outside. Upside: no more noise. Downside: no more cat. I live in the Colorado mountains. She’d freeze or get eaten.
2) Toss cat outside bedroom & shut door. Upside: no more noise for about 1/2 hour. Downside: she’s very adept at making more noise outside the bedroom door than she would if she were in the room, and earplugs don’t really help. In other words, she’s on to me and my bedroom door tricks.
3) Shut cat in bathroom. I tried that a few times. Not pretty. Clearly, the cat is smarter than I am.
4) Assume cat is really uncomfortable and put salve on head, then go back to bed without dispensing salmon treat. Upside: no more itching for about 1/2 hour. Downside: loss of sleep, sudden onset of itchiness in 1/2 hour increments.
5) Assume cat is really uncomfortable and put salve on head, then dispense salmon. Upside: no more itching for the rest of the night. Downside: minor loss of sleep.
Conclusion: I am a 2 a.m. salmon dispenser.
