I have a patient in the ICU right now named Muffin. She is a 10 year old cat who was left in a house in New Orleans East during the hurricane and did not eat anything for over 1 month. When she came to the Veterinary School she was diagnosed with a disease called hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver syndrome (common in cats that are stressed and don't eat). She doesn't want to eat anything, so for the past few weeks I have been feeding her through a tube placed into her stomach (sounds kinda scary, but it's really not). To prevent her from messing with the tube, she was fitty with a snazzy yellow "sweater" that fits over about half of her body. Muffin is super sweet, and super cute, but she always seemed really weak and lethargic to me. She wouldn't really move, and if I took her out in the mornings to weigh her, she would just fall sideways off the scale if not supported. I was concerned about this, so I decided to talk to my clinician Dr. Ryan (super cool internist whose practice in Mandeville sustained quite a bit of damage, so he's currently working at LSU). Dr. Ryan immediately knew what I was talking about, when I explained Muffin's signs to him. He introduced me to the phenomenon of "sweater paralysis." In his infinite wisdom, he explained to me that cats don't really like wearing the sweaters, so once you put them on, they freak out and don't move anymore. Hmmm...and all this time I thought it was because the sweater was yellow, and that just wasn't Muffin's color! So anyway, I decided to take the sweater off Muffin over the weekend, and now she is bouncing around her cage! The sweater paralysis syndrome-seeing is believing.

We also had a major breakthrough today-Muffin ate on her own for the first time in 6 weeks, meaning she is on her way to recovery...She'll be ready to go home soon.

We also had our picture taken today by the local newspaper. She and I might become famous yet :)

Labels: pets