Dodo’s taken a turn. He hasn’t really eaten since Wednesday, which is the last time I filled his food bowl. Normally, I wash and refill his water bowl and replenish his food bowl every morning. Sometime I’d even have to do a small refill in the evening on the dry food just so he has enough in there until the morning. Wednesday evening, his food bowl was still full. Thursday morning, Friday morning, same thing. The water bowl hasn’t dipped much, either, but there was more a dent in that than in the food. On Thursday, I gave him some regular canned wet food that I’d stopped giving him due to his kidney disease requiring him to be on a special low-protein diet. He somewhat eagerly licked off the gravy, but ate very little of the morsels themselves. What he did lick up, he threw up later. Friday, same thing. This morning, I called the vet and brought him in. (Meanwhile, Mr. W took Allie and the stepkidlet hiking.)

He’s lost a lot of weight since February’s weigh-in, but I suspect he weight was mostly lost this week. My formerly robust 14-pound cat, whose weight has been steadily dropping, is now only 5.9 pounds. He’s all fur and bones. A new-to-us vet was on duty, and she made a few suggestions of things we could do on this visit. I authorized her to do them all. Dodo had an enema to clear out his intestines (he hadn’t had a bowel movement since prior to Wednesday and was already constipated as a symptom of his kidney disease, so he’d have a hard time if we didn’t help), blood work to see what his kidney values are, extra fluids injected subcutaneously to help alleviate his dehydration, an appetite stimulant pill administered, and a prescription for anti-nausea meds. Upon being returned to his carrier, Dodo promptly threw up a lot of liquid yellow bile, so the vet technician readministered the appetite stimulant pill. I made a follow-up appointment for Monday morning and went home.

I did as the vet tech recommended, and fenced Dodo in with the baby gate in just the tiled section of our bathroom, because the enema could cause him to release his bowels at any time from then to an hour from then. I opened the door of the carrier and Dodo strolled out, went straight to the litter box, and the enema did its job. I still kept him fenced in, and left the carrier in there with the door open so he could have a soft private place to rest (the carrier is lined with a folded bath towel). I then went out to fill his anti-nausea prescription, which I was told to administer half an hour before laying out food for him so that it’d already be in his system when the appetite stimulant kicked in and he started eating, so he wouldn’t throw up everything he ate. I went to 3 different pharmacy chains before I found one that had it in stock, and the one that had it was down to their last 15 mL, which is what I needed. Mr. W and the kids even beat me home. I went to check on Dodo right away, and he was resting in his cat carrier. The food still looked untouched, although he did take a few licks of his water. He had enough fluids in his system to pee twice in his litter box, but still didn’t eat either the fresh wet or dry food. I had dumped out the old dry and put in just a few tablespoons of new dry so I’d know if he ate some. At least he didn’t throw up again.

Tonight, he again licked most of the gravy off the wet food without eating the morsels, and I increased the dose of the appetite stimulant. The instructions were to give him a quarter to a half a pill as needed, and I gave him half. It was the first time I’d given him a pill successfully. Okay, I’d never tried. It was a struggle to get him to open his mouth wide enough that I could drop the pill in. I basically had to wrestle it into his mouth and then hold his head up with his jaw closed until I saw him swallow. His medication cocktails are getting pretty crazy. Mornings, he gets 1 mL mineral oil to help his constipation, 1 mL potassium, .3 mL amlodipine for his high blood pressure (also a symptom of his kidney disease), .25 mL fantomidine (Pepcid) for his excessive stomach acid, and now .5 mL of the anti-nausea med and a pill for the appetite stimulant. Evenings, same thing minus the mineral oil. My poor little baby cat.

He was so miserable at the vet today that he stood on the metal table and tucked his face into the crook of my arm against my chest. He’s not usually that kind of affectionate; he liked attention and he liked being petted, but didn’t like being up on people. He let me put my arm around him today while we waited, his face hidden against me. I hope he feels better soon. The vet said that the anti-nausea med is a regular medicine cabinet item for owners of pets with kidney disease; they use it as needed when they see that their pet has been unusually vomity in the past couple of days. She said our goal is to get him over this hump, whatever this is, and get him back to eating well and hydrating well, by using meds to control he symptoms. So crazy. Each of a bunch of natural body mechanisms that a living creature is supposed to have on auto-pilot is starting to malfunction so we’re taking each function in hand and artificially recreating it with pharmaceuticals. But there’s no cure for the actual problem, i.e. fixing his kidneys. 🙁 Kidneys can’t filter properly to keep potassium in the body? Dose him with extra potassium. Kidneys having problems regulating outgoing fluid? Sub-q fluid injection and mineral oil so the overly dry poop passes more easily. And so on.

It’s an odd feeling when one of your babies is doing so well and the other is taking a dip downhill. It’s like my heart doesn’t know whether to be rejoicing or breaking.