u/Phaeophyce

I've got a 16 year old cat with some water issues and stage 1 CKD.

In May, she spent 3 weeks with my parents while I was traveling. When I brought her home, she would no longer drink from her water gravity bowl. I think maybe because it was old and plastic and hard to clean. So I set out another bowl to keep filled for her and she was drinking from that. Then one day I picked her up and set her on the bathroom counter for funsies, which turned out to be a mistake since she rediscovered the bathroom sink and likes to drink the water from that over anything else.

In the middle of that argument with her, I took her to the vet for a senior cat check and bloodwork. The vet said she was dehydrated (I think due to our ongoing argument over water source) and that her urine was dilute, so she suspected kidney disease. We left from that appointment planning to talk more after her test results came in and I was told to work on her hydration.

So after that I gave in to her demands for sink water until a fountain I ordered arrived. She seems to like it and will use it, and her usual bowl, but will still demand sink water - often quite loudly and early in the morning too. I was also giving her some wet food with extra water in the evenings and she was eating that, so I felt pretty comfortable with where we were at with her.

Had a call with the vet on Monday and her lab results were all really good, normal values except for one slightly elevated, and the urinalysis so she's got a diagnosis of stage 1 CKD. We discussed switching her diet and adding some HydraCare for hydration. I got that new food on Wednesday and have been slowly mixing it in to her usual kibble. And also supplying some small amounts of wet food in the evening.

She won't touch the HydraCare btw. She seemed good on the food mix for 2 days, and also with using the fountain, but now for the last 2 days she's regressed and keeps waking me very early with cries for sink water and is barely eating her food (though she does eat), though she is also drinking from both her fountain and her water dish. She won't even touch wet food, but she will eat a little Churu or Weruva wet treats. I've scaled back on the food mixing in the meantime to just get her to eat her usual food normally again before we continue with the transition. I'm hoping it's a bit of a phase we can work through and she's just being stubborn on the sink water issue, otherwise I'll check in with the vet next week, but I'm not sure how to push back and get her to just use the supplied water and stop begging for the sink. But if anyone has suggestions on how to wean her off the sink and to her fountain, that would be great!

Edit - I seem to have stimulated some appetite this afternoon by giving her a catnip toy and playing with her for a few minutes.

I started off playing a solo PbP with someone that was advertising such. Once we’d had a sort of session zero discussion on expectations and playstyles, we started off with my character on the road to a small town at night after a long day of travel and it was made quite clear that I needed to get somewhere to safely rest so as to not risk exhaustion.

Real quickly I ran into NPC #1. I tried talking to him but he revealed himself to be unhinged, likely to shift hostile if the wrong thing was said, and he spoke in euphemisms. He staked a claim on something/someone out in the forest amid his ramblings. OK, cool, whatever then, I'll mind my business and stay out of yours then, no problem. We parted ways.

Hours later, someone else (NPC #2) ran across my path and she was pursued by two others on horses (NPCs #3 and 4). It seemed to be an escaped fugitive or slave situation and it also sounded like what NPC #1 warned me about not interfering with. So I stood by to watch from a hiding spot as NPC#1 showed up. But before the first round was even half-way over, it was clear that NPC #1 (who the DM had now dubbed "murderhobo") was in a poor situation, so I joined the fight. Seemed the thing to do, the readily available plot hook dangled in front of me I should respond to, that sort of thing, you know?

At the end of round 1, NPCs #1 and #3 were both down and it was me and NPC #4 fighting a battle of attrition and dice luck. NPC #4 was threatening to either kill me in various explicitly grotesque ways or enslave me and clearly was the type to get off on violence. While this was going on, NPC #2 ran in to give me an advantage on an attack but then got downed in one hit. By sheer luck, I took out NPC #4, but had like 2 HP left myself.

As that fight was winding down, the DM got very upset with me and we had to break for an argument. He had NPC #4 constantly running her mouth throughout the fight, and he was upset that the only time I spoke back to her was when she asked who I was, and I snidely told her that's not for her to know. He felt frustration that I "wasn't engaging properly with the NPCs" and that he didn't like I was playing a "quiet character". I pointed out that there wasn't anything for me to respond to other than the combat as I have no context for what's happening between the various NPCs and she's clearly too hostile and violent to answer any questions, so why waste any breath on attempting such? We're in a fight, not a negotiation or a casual conversation, anyway, so wtf is there to talk with her about mid-fight? And taunting her back just seems really dumb. The DM countered by pointing out that by design, I'm not supposed to have context for the situation and her ranting is meant to provide some. OK, but she's still a psycho (DM agreed) and there's no logical basis for banter or attempting to question her during this fight, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to "properly engage with" this kind of NPC besides keep fighting her.

So anyway, the fight ended far from how the DM intended for things to go, with me barely standing and 4 downed NPCs around me: 1 probably friendly, 2 clearly hostile, and the remaining one likely hostile but not entirely confirmed as such. And despite this being a higher level start, I only had starting gear, a healing potion, and like 10 gold. I was playing a race that could do a little healing once a day though, so I used that ability on myself and still considered the priority to be to get to town and rest, with even greater urgency due to how that fight went down and how badly injured I still was. The situation I walked into? No clue what's going on, but I've got nothing on hand to help NPC #2 and based on everything I know about NPC #1 (the designated murderhobo), he'd probably attack me. I tried to get some information or supplies off the dead NPCs #3+4, but rolled low, so got... nothing. Not even a single gold coin. I tried to at least remove the manacles from unconscious NPC #2, but didn’t hit the DC on that and the DM decided that meant my thieves tools were now broken (and it wasn't even a crit fail, let alone a roll under 10, so no idea what was up with that). So I decided to quit wasting time, my very scant resources any further, and the impending threat of exhaustion and get to somewhere else for rest and to take care of myself.

Of course then the DM was again mad because things weren't going how it should and we had another big argument. I had to point out that 3/4ths of the NPCs thus far were hostile, so I had to factor that in with dealing with them. Every attempt I'd made to interact with a plot element had just put me into a substantially worse state. We're apparently playing on hard mode and resource scarcity - and that was by surprise rather than mutual agreement - so now I have to factor that into how I'm going to approach things since the DM has just made it clear that any roll that doesn’t meet the DC has hugely negative consequences. So yeah, I'm walking away from this absolute disaster of a situation before it gets even worse since I'm going to have to prioritize survival at this point under these conditions. Then the DM was ranting again about how I can't play a "quiet character" (my dude, who is there to talk to??) and need to roll better to advance the plot (like I deliberately rolled low??) because he can't move this forward without those things happening. I decided I'd had enough and left after pointing out that if the DM needs certain things to happen, they can't be roll-locked or contingent on the outcome of a battle and engaging with apparent plot elements needs to have some kind of positive, or at least neutral, outcome and not just constant loss of items/equipment and application of debuffs.

Took my 16 yo cat to the vet on Saturday for a routine check and was told CKD was likely.

Bloodwork and urinalysis came in this morning and the values looked pretty good to me. The only elevated kidney-related value was BUN. SDMA was 11, creatinine was on the higher end of normal but still within the acceptable range, BUN/creat ratio well within range, phosphorus mid-range, and nothing else on the test panel was out of ranges. The urinalysis looked good to me, save perhaps for the low-ish specific gravity.

Vet said that based on the values, and that my cat was slightly dehydrated at the visit, she wouldn't put much emphasis on the elevated BUN at this time and the main findings are in the dilute urine, and she said we're looking at stage 1 CKD.

We discussed switching her over to Hill's k/d early support. Her current diet is very close to the profile for phosphorus, sodium, and protein in that diet, so we discussed a slow mix in to help use up remaining food and no need for phos binders. Vet also recommended a hydration supplement that I added to my chewy cart. We'll have a follow up visit and check her blood work again in 6 months unless there are some symptoms or concern that something isn't going well.

Hydration has been a bit of a challenge lately since my cat will not drink out of a plastic bowl anymore (not a problem since I have a ceramics hobby). And a few weeks ago for fun I picked her up and put her on the bathroom counter, which made her remember that the sink dispenses water, and now she wants that all the time. I bought a fountain to compromise but she still wants the sink over anything else.

I'm feeling pretty good with this and my cat remains her usual happy and sweet self. Hoping this can stay the course for a while yet.

(Edit - wasn't sure what flair to use, but I feel like the results were good and the outlook is positive now.)

I took my 16 year old cat to the vet today for a standard senior wellness exam with urinalysis and blood work. Now it's looking like she may have CKD.

On the one hand, it feels unsurprising because I assumed developing CKD was mostly inevitable for aging cats. On the other, I didn't go in with any specific concerns and there are no symptoms, so it was a surprise. She isn't drinking more than usual or using the litter more, no vomiting, no unusual bowel movements, no behavioral changes. The one thing is an appetite change, but I wouldn't call it unusual. Every summer for the past 5 years (since the other cat died), she eats significantly less and it correlates with temperature. (There were some vet checks and monitoring in the past, but absent other symptoms it just seems to be a weather/temp thing.)

The vet thinks she has CKD based on the pale color of urine collected from her today, a quick ultrasound of her kidneys showing some changes consistent with CKD, and mild dehydration. I assumed the dehydration had some other causes (I can ramble on that below if anyone wants to hear them) and am not terribly concerned about it right now as I think I can address that in other ways. When I left, we decided to discuss next steps after getting the bloodwork results and those should come in on Monday or Tuesday.

The vet said that based on her bloodwork, we may change her diet and start fluid therapy. Her lack of symptoms makes me feel like the situation isn't so dire that we needed to start fluid therapy immediately, but again, we're waiting on the bloodwork before deciding for sure. I've also been looking into various diets and it looks like she's already on a diet that has pretty low phosphorus and sodium, so I'm hoping that a transition to a new diet won't be difficult for her.

Encouraging bits though: brought my cat home from the vet and she immediately ate and drank, spent 10 min in a safe spot to decompress, then wanted play time before taking a sun nap.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for things to ask the vet during the update call next week, I'd appreciate it. (The pinned Tanya's resource is interesting, but I can't help feel like it's a bit over my head right now too since my cat isn't exhibiting any symptoms yet, but giving me ideas on what to ask and look for in the future.)

I don't use Lyft often, but out of my last 5 rides, I've had issues with 4 of them not picking me up. They'd get within a block, then zip away and go off and get further and further from me. One time they were even driving in the same direction as my destination, despite not picking me up and not marking me as picked up (as a PIN was required). And each time, getting help from customer support is an absolute nightmare and takes forever.

My parents in another city had the same experience recently when they needed a ride.

I'm flying into KEF for a few day stopover in a little over a week. I think my flight is due to arrive about 6am-ish. I'm hearing that the EES system is resulting in long lines for customs at entry points across Europe. What types of wait times are people experiencing these days at KEF?

I have bladder conditions that are easily exacerbated by planes (and cars), so must make frequent restroom visits and it often makes travel a bit difficult as I have to plan carefully around bathroom access. A 45 minute line would be likely do-able, 60 would be significantly pushing it, and more than that impossible. I'm traveling alone, so there's no one to hold a place in line for me during needed breaks, but I also don't want to end up spending hours stuck in the airport due to having to constantly reset my place in line. Does anyone know if there's any airport assistance offices or personnel that I should reach out to in advance?