Djuna’s Kidney

Djuna had another doctor’s appointment early Monday morning, this time for a sonogram to determine what’s going on with her kidneys. The results were both good and bad, as is usually the case.

There were several people in the room: Dr. Trout the specialist, Dr. VerSteeg her regular doctor, a vet tech whose name I didn’t catch, and myself. Of course, Djuna was the star of the show: there were several comments on how sweet & tiny she is, and how they didn’t have to shave her belly much at all since she’s pretty much bald down there to begin with.

The procedure lasted roughly 45 minutes, with me & the vet tech holding Djuna on her back giving Dr. Trout access to her belly, and with Dr. VerSteeg standing by observing.

Djuna was good for the first 10 minutes or so, but then decided that she was done and we could all go now. She wiggled and squirmed a bit, getting that gooey gel all over. When that didn’t work, she wriggled and squirmed some more and even vocalized a little bit, which is rather unusual for her since she doesn’t normally say very much. By the end of the procedure, she was getting a little bit annoyed with us all to the point where the vet tech was slightly worried that she might actually start growling. Honestly, I don’t think Djuna would ever growl at me, regardless of what torture I was subjecting her to. But you never know…

First the good news: they found the other kidney! It was hard to find, and is a bit smaller than the other one, but its there. More good news is that Dr. Trout thought that the left kidney (the one we saw in the x-rays) is healthy and should function properly now that the infection is cleared up.

The bad news is that right kidney actually has stones in it. Apparently this is quite rare in cats, so I’m glad we had the sonogram to find them. Dr. VerSteeg says she will do some research on kidney stones in cats to try to determine our plan of attack. I’m guessing that surgery is not really an option, but perhaps a change of diet will help.

Djuna got her third and last mega-shot of antibiotics, then jumped back into her travel case and waited for me to take her home. She’ll have to go back one more time in a week or so to get a urine sample taken, but other than that I’m thinking she’s done with the doctor for a while.

Assuming of course that we can get those stones taken care of…