Dear Ellen DeGeneres

Dear Ellen
I have a story to tell of love, compassion, courage and heart. This story begins with one and extends now to increasing hearts, spirits and lives.

Bear with me please, while I craft the journey. In order to see and feel the story, I must start at the beginning.

I am a veterinary nurse, and have been so for 30 years. I have worked with the finest veterinary neurosurgeon on the west coast, the best emergency vets and fine feline and exotic doctors.
March back in time 12 years. I had crossed paths with a kitten, tiny, feral and injured. Caught by a dog at 4 weeks old, the rest of his litter killed. He was brought to a veterinary hospital by a good Samaritan, and one of the technicians their had been caring for him. He was paralyzed from the bottom of his ribcage down. In the real world for a cat this means he could not walk, and more importantly had no ability to empty his own bladder. The lifespan of these cats with this sort of injury traditionally is 2 months.
I had dropped by this clinic to give a friend a ride and the technician who was caring for this kitten was sitting on the doorstep sobbing her heart out. I asked her why and she said she was putting her kitten to sleep after her shift, because he would never recover.
The world stopped. The sounds of the cars and her voice fell away. Birdsong grew louder and the sky grew brighter. I heard a sound, like thunder in the mountains, but I understood this sound to be a voice. This voice (within myself or some cat guardian spirit I can not say) said “Kadeth, take him. He will bring you great gifts.”
I offered to take the kitten if she so chose and she said to come back at the end of her shirt, she’d think about it. Many veterinary technicians are very honorable and ethical people, and passing on a doomed kitten to another is in a way ‘not right’.

I returned, and she was gone. But the kitten was sitting in his cage with a note saying ‘thank you thank you thank you!” Beside the cage the syringe with the euthanasia solution was drawn up, she had decided at the last minute to give him up.

Once again, traditionally these cats live about 2 months, dyeing of complications such as ascending bladder infections, limb damage from dragging and so on, or so I was told over and over.
I thought, people who are paralyzed do not die in 2 months why must a cat?

So began my journey with ‘Boogar’.

On April 1st he turns 13. I have for 13 years emptied (expressed) his bladder by hand 3 or more times a day, wrapped his feet, loved him and taken him everywhere.

Boogar is on the internet.

4 years ago I met ‘Pumpkin’, who was shot off his fence by a cruel person with a pellet gun. The commitment of his owner was such that he hunted for anything that could help his cat, as the surgeons who removed the pellet from his spine said he would never recover.

]Pumpkin’s dad heard of me through the veterinary surgeons and searched until he found me. He has become my best friend, my adopted big brother…

2 years ago I built a website, and put a page on care of spinal cord injured cats up.

Slowly letters came in begging for help. My cat was hit by a car, my vet says put him to sleep but I do not want to, what can I do? My vet says you can not express a cats bladder long term, but you have done it for more than 10 years, can you tell me how? Please help. Over and over. Canada. West Africa. India. Texas, Minnesota, Oregon, Ohio. Over and over, please help us.

So I did. I do. I write long emails to people. I coach them one on one over the internet on every aspect of cat care that I can that applies to their situation. I promise to be there for them, and I am. Please be assured this is a ‘free’ service, when people have a newly paralyzed cat they have vet bills that break them. I can not ad to that.

And I have a dream.

I dream of having a rescue/ learning center for spinal cord injured cats and their owners. These are pets with extraordinary medical needs and the people who choose to care for them are extraordinary owners. Lives are restructured to care for these pets.

I dream of a center, where these cats can come to for care, with their owners. Where owners can be taught hands on to care for them, where a vet can asses them who has a positive outlook, who can give heart and hope. Where referrals can be made to local specialists that will provide positive assistance rather than the chant ‘these cats don’t recover, euthanize’ that so many vets with their innocent lack of experience with these cases say in good faith.

I have the vet. I work with her. She is my associate and friend and has worked with Boogar and Pumpkin, the 2 paralyzed cats who began this journey for years. She is willing to work with others. I have the specialists locally to refer to, the surgeons who know of me, who worked on Pumpkin and Boogar. I have the skill, I have the heart. I even have a small handful of dedicated animal lovers who would come to staff such a place.

And I have people who need it. ‘Stick’, paralyzed 1 month ago, his two 19 year old owners have taken out loans, taken on extra work and have both learned to express his bladder, but they may need more help than I can give online.

This is where I come to you. I do not know what to ask for, I do not know the path of your heart. I ask you though to look at the links, read the blog, and think.

I can build this place. I need a patron. I have everything else.

Boogar turns 13 years old this April. He is paralyzed from T-8 down. All around the country he has brothers and sister, all around the world he has brothers and sisters. These people are my family of heart in their commitment to their pets.

Please consider my story, and consider talking to me and choosing to participate.

Kadeth Pozzesi, RVT.

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/

Please, those of you who come to this site, write Ellen at the link above. Send her your stories, your photos, let her know you need a patron saint, patron goddess a good person to help fund a research and rescue place for our pets. I have the people. I have the heart, and I have all of you who need it. Write her!

Love to all of you

Kadeth

Trudy, who had an abcess.....

There are many things that can paralyze a cat. Most people think of cars, guns, dogs, accidents and so on, but what many do not realize is that a bad tail base abcess can do the same thing.

What happens is that the infection invades the nerves that branch off of the spine and send signals to the bladder, bowel, rear legs and tail. This shuts down the nerve signals.

Typicaly this does NOT invade and enter the spinal cord itself, neither does it ascend up the spine. It hits the nerve roots.

This sort of abcess requires immediate and agressive treatment. In an ideal world, the abcess is opened under anesthetic, drained, debrided of infected and dead flesh, and closed bask up as much as the injured skin permits, with drains in place to allow infected matter to still come out. Cats are put on antibiotics, and the wound is flushed and hot packed several times a day. The would also may be cultured to identify the infecting organisims.

Well, not every cat gets agressive treatment. Not every vet will look at a cat, see the infection and resulting paralysis and think 'I can fix this for this cat and these people'. This is what happened to Trudy. Paralyzed from an infection, her vet suggested minimal treatment to see 'how she did'.

OK, these cats do not do OK with minimal treatment. An infection that affects feeling and mobility is a huge infection. Trudys mom persisted and insisted on more agressive treatment.

Slowly Trudy healed.  She relearned how to stand and walk, and her mom learned how to empty her bladder and take care of her colon. When I last checked in, Trudy was beginning to use her litter box some...

Beautiful Trudy...

So, can my cat feel his bladder or not? At least right now....

Can my cat feel his bladder?
The difference between reflex and overflow urination vs ‘I can feel & I need to pee’ and what that all means.

The bladder has several systems in place to insure that it empties. The one we all know about is the pressure sensors on the inside of the bladder that signal ‘gotta pee!’, and that signal goes from the bladder to the spine, up to the brain and tells you to start looking for a bathroom, or if you are a cat, a litter box or other convenient cat pee place.

When this is working right, we all have an idea of how much is in our bladder and sorta when we need to be thinking about it. It’s a conscious thing, we KNOW when we need to pee and how long we can or can not ‘hold it’.

This system includes a send back from the brain that says “Gotta Pee!” and when there is a place to do so, it also sends a ‘contract & empty signal.

When the spine is damaged or severed, the signals from the bladder don’t go where they are supposed to go. The signals from the brain do not get to where they are supposed to go either.
This means the bladder sits, and fills, and does not notice. Neither does the brain notice the feeling of fullness. There is NO signal ‘gotta pee’, neither is their a signal that says ‘time to pee so squeeze’.

The spine however is not just a tube that signals go through. It has layers. It is like the most complex highway, with stop and go lights, intersections, detours at times and lots of cars…. Only layer upon layer of these highways all bundled into a cord.

When a cat has a lower spinal cord injury, what ‘kills’ them if they survive the initial injury is the inability to urinate combined with the difficulty of training an adult cat to allow it’s bladder to be emptied by a person.

Vets in general do not expect clients to be willing to take on the task of learning to express a bladder, so at this point most vets will say ‘euthanize’.

You don’t have to.

Now, what is important is learning to tell the difference between a bladder that a cat can not feel at all, and one that it can, but can not get to work…yet.

Guidelines

1) Cats who do NOT feel their bladder do not dig in a litter box. Exception, some cats think a clean liter box is a great toy and will dig and roll in it. Boogar does that. But it’s different, it’s play. You can tell by watching him, he’s goofing off.

2) Cats that dig a hole and squat CAN FEEL their bladder, but they may not be able to squeeze enough to get the urine to come out. This is because of several things.

a. The bladder has several sets of muscles, and push out set and a keep in set. Sometimes the keep it in set is stronger than the push it out set.

b. The nerve signals may be going from the bladder to the brain with the ‘gotta pee’ signal, but the signal from the brain to the ‘pee now’ system is not coming though enough.

c. Both systems are starting to work but are weak.

d. Both systems are working, but the muscles are weak, or there is residual pain from injury interfering.

3) NONE of this is overflow urination. Overflow urination is when the ‘gotta pee’ and ‘pee now’ signals are absent, the bladder fills up to overfull, and drips. In some cats this drip will be in combination with a stuck on ‘squeeze now’ signal and their bladder will be small, in some cats this will be with no signals, and they will have a huge, flaccid bladder. Neither of these cats will dig in a litter box and squat to pee, although a few might attempt to pass poop in this way (not typical).

4) Reflex urination is entirely different. It is when there are no ‘gotta pee’ signals going to the brain, no ‘pee now’ signals coming back from the brain but the internal pressure signals from the bladder are working partly. They send the ‘gotta pee’ signal when the bladder is hugely full (this is a failsafe & why you will pee eventually if you are unconscious, but will not leak) to the spine and the spine sends back a ‘pee now’ signal. This is a failsafe reflex. With this signal the cat will pee, but not in a box. It may pee in it’s sleep, on the floor, anywhere and anytime, or just on itself, when the bladder gets so full it sends this signal.

Basic understanding of feeling vs. no feeling is important.
Cats do not groom what they do not feel.

Cats do not dig in a litter box and squat if they do not feel their bladder.

Cats can be taught to know they are full, come to you to be squeezed, and those that do feel their bladder enough to know they are full, some of them can be put down in a litter box where they will either reflex urinate (no digging) or dig and go.

Thanks to Stick and his people for starting this question. Thats Stick up above :)

Hope to be getting EVERYBODIES stories, bios and pictures up bit by bit.

Kadeth & Boogar