Shmobie Update

Hi Folks,

Last week Shmobie started to plummet and stopped eating and started to look like a bag of cat bones. I knew for sure he had not eaten in at least four days. I had an appointment for him to go to the vet on Friday but he went and hid for the entire day and did not surface again until late Saturday, albeit worse looking than ever before. Locking him up for Sunday, I got in with the vet on Monday morning to figure out what was going on.

I told the vet he had basically stopped eating and that was it. No other symptoms were showing other than having the abscess a few weeks prior. Then the Vet examined him and weighed him and came back to tell me, "Sometimes when cats get stressed (i.e. the big abscess in his rear) they just stop eating. They don't exactly know why but that cats and mini-horses can do this and it is baffling. After the stressful event is over they just keep declining even though they are technically healed."

She said his liver was being eaten by his body since he was in starvation mode. His gums were whitish-yellow and he was obviously deteriorating rapidly. Then she said, "If you can get them eating again, they can bounce back."

So with what seemed like a gallon of fluid pumped subcutaneously under Shmoe's skin and a pill for an appetite stimulant we headed home carrying a six pack of high calorie wet cat food.

Shmoe has been on total lock down in my office and does not seem to mind much. Every few hours I mix wet cat food and water and suck it up in a syringe and squirt it down his throat like a meat smoothie. Today he has gum color again! Yeah. Pink has come back in a lot of areas where his gums were white. So with my attention going to nursing Shmoe and my feeling of stress about the situation, I am a bit behind in visiting folks.

I am hoping for the best and that Shmoe will start to eat again. He made a few attempts at licking food this morning too so that is a good sign. Wish me luck. I just want to infuse him with the will to live again.