Ellie's at the kitty hospital My poor Ellie!

Okay, so here's what happened.

Saturday night - He was acting normal. I gave them their daily wet food. An hour or so later, he barfed it up. And then barfed up some clear stuff. Kitten pukes on a semi regular basis, but he never does so I thought that I definitely should keep an eye on him.

Sunday morning - puked up a tiny bit of liquid by my bed, then drank some water and puked that up. I brought him into bed with me, he laid his little head down and I could tell he was under the weather, then he crawled under the bed.

Sunday night - I checked for him under the bed but he was gone! I yelled outside and he didn't answer. He usually does.

Monday - he didn't come home all day. Monday night I yelled every hour so (Chris enjoyed that) and at about 3 a.m. started crying because I was very worried. Ellie does the disappearing act every once in a while, but I needed to make sure he was feeling OK but didn't even know where he was. I retreated to the office for some kitten therapy and when I came out, he was calmly sitting under a side table. Was he outside or hiding under the couch the whole time? I have no way of knowing.

I locked the house down at this point so no one could get out without me letting them.

I immediately gave him some wet food and he ignored it. Not like him. I figured maybe his tummy was still upset so decided to just keep a really close eye and if he wasn't eating Tuesday I'd take him in.

Tuesday, however, he spent under the bed. Would not come out. Not unusual for Ellie, but still. Grr.

Tuesday night I texted Chris before bed (our version of a note) to let him know if Ellie was out to please lock him in the room where he couldn't hide under the bed or get out. He was under the bed, however... When *I* got up, came out to say hi, so I put him in our bathroom with a litterbox, food, and water. He didn't touch the food so I called the vet, unsuccessfully as they were closed for lunch. I decided to just drive him there and if I had to wait, I had to wait.

I kinda felt like it was a just-to-be-safe visit (had one of those last month for Piper; $50 and 3 hrs for nothing! but better relieved than worried).

Then they moved his ear to look inside and it was YELLOW. His skin was all yellow, like someone had rubbed him down with iodine. I had been holding him that morning and hadn't noticed, but now. I wonder how I could have.

So the whites of his eyes and skin were yellow.. I'm not going to even go into all the stuff the vet said it COULD be, but the gist of it was that he has a 50/50 chance to live. There are a whole bunch of things it CAN be, but to find out exactly they'd have to open him up and do biopsies which obviously is not going to happen, for they treat for everything and just hope it works and that it's not something like cancer.

At age 4, he's young for cancer but it's POSSIBLE. Chris looked up jaundice in cats and it sounds as if it's usually 50/50 because if it's this ONE thing (which is what it is in half of cats), and they're caught in time and given lots of fluids and food, they'll usually be OK. If it's something else, they're usually not okay.. hence 50/50.

Apparently his IV line got kinked at some point during the night, so he wasn't as well hydrated as he could have been, but they've given him extra all day. He ate some overnight, then not today at all apparently until I came in and then he started scarfing his food down, both wet and dry. I would think that they had just put it in there, only he was just laying on his bed when I walked in, sooo... Him eating because I was there brought tears to my eyes. I was so happy for him.

I was feeling pretty awful last night but today and pretty optimistic. We don't know at all what's wrong, but he's getting the care he needs and he was eating today. He was a really healthy cat, too, until Saturday when he puked... Maybe that's what set off the not eating. Then he'll get better. But if he puked for some other reason than the food agreeing with him? Not sure.

We declined an ultrasound today for him because it didn't sound as if it would do any good; it could basically tell us if he had liver flukes, which we're already treating for, or tell us he had gallstones, which is highly unlikely, and it could tell us if he had something bad and basically untreatable. So we said let's plow ahead with this 3-5 days treatment and see how he is.

He didn't even squeak today.. he just opened his mouth and a whisper came out. Poor baby. I wish I could have him home and take care of him here SO BAD. He was doing happy paws when I was sitting with him, little cutie.

I haven't had a health crisis with any of my cats or dogs before (aside from Maggie's attacking Gretchen). It's NO FUN. Blah.

Wish Ellie luck!!
  ¶ 11:33 PM