Toodle the Pooper

Culture results from the liquid inside of her sinus are back: negative for anything interesting. At this point we are at a loss for what to do beyond treating the bone inflammation we saw on the CT.

Toodle will be on Clindamycin (an antibiotic that is effective against bone infections, just in case there is something we didn't see) for a month and a half, L-Lysine (an antiviral supplement to boost her immune system) ongoing, and an antihistamine (to reduce the amount of mucus she is creating naturally in case this is a drainage issue due to her sinus malformation.

We're going to finish out the antibiotic course and continue the other medications and just monitor from here on out.

If her issue recurs, the only thing we can really do is put her through surgery for a bone biopsy to see if there's something we've missed, or some rare fungus or something that's jacking up her structures.

Think good things for our baby, please. A lack of concrete answer is driving her person a little wild.

Surgery went well and she's back home now, eating food and snuffling like her normal self. They flushed a bunch of crap out of her nose and now we wait for results of the culture that they collected from inside of the bone itself.

Thank you all for your love!

We're here waiting for them to take her back. :(. Poor little thing. I have my fingers crossed that all will go well with her today. She is so loved.

My anxiety is through the roof.

Sorry for no update until now, y'all. I have been kind of digesting and have also had a very chaotic week.

Toodle apparently has an abcess inside of one of the bones in her skull on the front side. This is what has caused her seizure and ongoing uri issues. There isn't a polyp or even much of a bone malformation. The vet thinks it is most likely caused by a penetrative trauma at some point in the past. She has some changes to her skull that have been caused by the chronicity (long duration) of infection, but otherwise nothing too strange in there.

Treatment for this involves trephanation of (popping a hole in) the bone and flushing out what they can get. They will re send the culture with the material they gather from inside of the bone to see if they get a positive bacterial result this time.

We're hoping that that will handle it, although we're uncertain. It's possible the body has walled this infection off in multiple areas of that sinus, so the debridement (strong flushing) of the sinus will be pretty thorough.

She runs the risk of aspirating or losing the sight in one of her eyes as a result of this procedure, but we don't have much choice. I am obviously very much on edge and worried about this, but am trying to remain hopeful. Praying for 'one and done'.

She has surgery on Tuesday. Our funds may or may not entirely cover this. I'm hoping they will. Please remember that if you'd like to donate to her care, the easiest way to do so is to send funds to [email protected] via PayPal.

I will post the invoice from her most recent trip here for you. This was for the CT scan that we had this past Tuesday. I also included a picture of when I first got her back from the specialist that day, and she was all loopy and wrapped up in her little blanket. :)

A certain someone doesn't understand why she couldn't have breakfast and why I had to put her in The Evil Carrier this morning again. It breaks my heart to do it, especially given that she was rubbing all over my face this morning to wake me up. Sweet little thing :(

Her cryptococcus test came back negative, which means that for the moment we have no idea what is going on with her.

They will put her in the scanner around noon and hopefully we will have results and interpretation by this evening.

Thank you for all of your love, and please keep your paws crossed for this baby!

Such a beautiful little face! We go back on Tuesday for the actual CT and nose scoping. Hopefully by then we will have the results of her cryptococcus test, which will tell us for sure if she's got a fungus growing in there or not and causing her troubles.

Thank you again for all of your help! Y'all make her life and treatment possible, and we love you so much for it!

If you would like to donate to her care, you can do so most easily through PayPal ([email protected]). All the love!

I thought you all would enjoy this. Here's Super Toodle (aka Bad Baby) along with her partner in crime fighting, Cat Ren! :)

This beautiful art was done by D.E. Simon (Instagram ).

I love her little boots! :)

In case you were wondering what her bill today and what the expenses on Tuesday might look like, here are the receipt and estimate.

The only reason she's able to get care currently is because y'all have helped us. Right now we have about $1800 in the Toodle care fund, and probably every penny of that is going to be used on Tuesday.

We are so grateful for all of your love and support. If you're interested and able to help us further, you can send funds to [email protected] on PayPal. We also have a venmo at Aaron-Simon-27. I can and will release records of all donations (without names of donors of course) on request.

Thank you!!

Hello all! We have returned from today's appointment without a CT.

Turns out the specialist we're seeing likes to do consult meetings first before jumping to diagnostics (which is reasonable). While he was examining Toodle today, he said that he may have felt an abnormality in her skull right around the area of her sinus. This means that she very well may have some kind of congenital deformity there.

He brought up the interesting point that this may be cryptococcus with an odd presentation. If you aren't familiar with what cryptococcus is, it's a yeast-type microorganism ( a fungus ) that can infect cats through their sinus cavities. It can cause swellings, bone loss, seizures, and other things. Her presentation isn't perfect for it and so he's sent out a blood test for it.

If she does have cryptococcus, the good news is that she could hypothetically be placed on antifungal medications and have her issues resolve ***IF*** she doesn't actually have a huge structural defect in her skull and ***IF*** the body hasn't walled the fungus off and created a large mass there that will have to be removed.

Some of the other things we discussed today were that she may end up needing surgery either way depending on what her sinus actually looks like inside. The gold standard of care is to debride (clean out) the problem area, and that would entail opening it up to flush. They could then either make a hole to connect it to the other side of her sinus or close it up.

All of this is still wildly hypothetical though, and we aren't sure what she's going to need specifically. All of that hinges on the results of the bloodwork we just sent out for cryptococcus, the results of the ct scan, and what her rhinoscopy (if it's needed) show.

We're going back on Tuesday for her to have those done.

Either way, it looks like things are going to continue to be expensive over here. Our nugget is keeping good spirits, though! She enjoyed some whip cream from McDonald's on the way home and was quite happy to get to finally have actual breakfast once we got back. :)

Just for interest's sakes, here are some old skull rads of her from the first time she had the head-bubble issue, in January or February of this year. I'll make sure to show you all the CT images when we get those back after Tuesday, too.

Thanks for loving her and for following us on this journey! We love y'all!

Here are some old rads of Toodle from before she got her butt fixed. She was maybe six weeks old when we shot these, and you can pretty clearly see the backup of stuff in her intestines. Very grateful that she's conquered the atresia!!

Today's the day! In two and a half hours or so we'll be at Toodle's specialist appointment.

She's not allowed to have food this morning because if she's going to get scanned they'll need to sedate her (and they don't want her to vomit under sedation and aspirate). Poor Sherby is being so very helpful and keeps constantly reminding me that it is time for food, haha. He's been meowing all morning.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

What's your favorite kind of bag to sit in? I prefer plastic because it crinkles and I can attack people through the sides. 😺