Here’s To Grass Of Several Varieties

Friends, calling for comments please.  If you have any insight into what’s going on with my dear friends Kim’s and Brian’s cat Stewie, we would love to hear.

Meet Stuart.

Stewie is actually a girl.  Never mind why the mismatched name.  This is probably why Kim and I are the best of friends.  ‘Nuff said.

Over a month ago, Stewie started vomiting.  All this time later, she is still not eating normally.  All this long time, my friends have been feeding her with a syringe.

Extensive work-ups have been done.  Much seems to have been ruled out.  Teeth problems, none.  Bowel obstruction, none visible in the films and poop is passing through normally.  No masses.  No hyperthyroid, no pancreatitis.  Thickening of the digestive tract, however, has been noted.  Possible diagnoses: Inflammatory bowel disease or cancer, but neither definitively.

Steroids have been tried and stopped when not of assistance.  Duralactin has been tried and, I believe, continues to be administered.  Homeopathic cannabis-based anti-nausea remedies are in the process of being tried.

Exploratory surgery has been declined; if IBD or cancer is found, my friends aren’t willing to assault Stewie’s compromised system further, just to go the treatment routes for those essentially incurable conditions.

All through these long weeks, my friends have nursed Stewie.  Present diet, as mentioned, is delivered by syringe – it’s home-made, with pure bone-broth as a base.  Yet Stewie has been on a downhill slide.  Increasingly skinny, weak, and apathetic.

Until – two things.

One, Kim has just discovered that she should let Stewie outdoors, closely supervised (no danger of runaway; Stew’s too weak).  Stewie loves this; she perks right up.  And two, once out there, Stewie eats grass.  She won’t eat food, but she’ll eat grass.

And as of this morning, hallelujah, she’s better.  She took more syringe-food than “normal,” she voluntarily took some water, and she ate some treats.

Just because of outside? and grass?

In related news, I fed Bugsy some grass too.  Barney thought it was fun to play with, but Bugsy threw elbows and got down to some serious chowing.

Sure he horked it up immediately.  I don’t care.  For as long as I’ve known Bugs, I’ve been worried that he has had a nonproductive cough and he’s got an unreasonably delicate tummy.  From time to time – maybe once or twice a month – he throws up his perfectly fine breakfast “arbitrarily” (no hairball).

And in case you’re wondering, no dry food for my boys.  They eat better than I do.  Human-grade organic meat, supplemented by sweet potato, oatmeal, psyllium husks, cod liver oil, and BalanceIt powder.

Well, Kim and I are joined at the hip, so why shouldn’t our cats be, too.  At approximately eight years old, Stewie’s got four years on Bugs, but other than that, well, the resemblance is clear!

So let’s talk grass.  None of the usual reasons for eating same seem to apply in Bugsy’s case.  His stomach was empty when I fed him the grass.  There was nothing in the subsequent inevitable hork to suggest that he had anything else indigestible in his tract.  His poops routinely show that hair is passing through his system beautifully.  (Only animal-people, or possibly parents of small children, understand how poop could be thought beautiful.  I will put up a picture of just how beautiful, at the end of this post (to give a chance to avoid it, for those of you who might find this to be oversharing).)

I did find one very interesting snip of info, though, here, about why cats would eat something of which they’d immediately throw up the fibrous portion:

“Much like mother’s milk, the juices in grass contain folic acid. This is an essential vitamin for a cat’s bodily functions and assists in the production of hemoglobin, the protein that moves oxygen in the blood. Think of it as a wheat grass shake for your kitty (let’s hope they like it more than you do).”

Anybody have any thoughts about any of this?  Stewie’s condition?  Her improvement, apparently due to judicious forays outdoors and grass of two varieties, or might this be coincidence, correlation and not causation? Wheat-grass shakes to help Bugsy’s tender tummy?  Anything?  Anybody?

And now, some or all of you may wish to skip this next image, with cellphone to show scale.  But those of us who are truly obsessed find beauty in this.  It issued forth from Bugsy’s little body after I started adding psyllium husks.  And please don’t tell me there’s something wrong with a poop of this magnitude.  I kind of don’t want to hear it.  I’d rather stay a proud mama in denial.

Oh well hell.  If there is something wrong, I need to know.

OK.  Here we go.  Stand back and prepare to be amazed.