Thanks, guys. This morning, Willie was comfortably stoned. I will go see him again at lunch if they have no procedures going on. The U/S tech should be in some time today to give us a better idea of what is going on. He's refusing to urinate, so they are somewhat concerned about a blockage in his bladder also, but he's had a PU so that is very unlikely. He has always refused to urinate while at the vet, so I'm not really surprised. They've poked and prodded that area way too much for him.

It's just hard to believe that a month ago, his vet was proclaiming him the strongest, healthiest almost 16 year old cat he had ever met. At that time, he went in because he was vomiting every time he ate. The vet said he had a bad tooth and it would need to be extracted, and to feed him softer foods in the meantime. He stopped vomiting when we switched to mostly canned food and figured we'd have the tooth extracted after vacation. He's had bad teeth as a result of an experimental medication to help line the bladder after he had the PU done 10 years ago. The pet sitter never indicated that there was a problem while she was with him last week.

Took him to the vet again on Tuesday because his rear legs were suddenly very weak, he went from limping to just falling over. He had lost 2 lbs in a month and the vet decided he likely had an abscess under the bad tooth (nothing we could SEE though.) His recommendation was fluids and a shot of antibiotics and sent him home with the instructions that if there wasn't a vast improvement in 72 hours to bring him back in. Of course, at the vet, he had to put on a show of "I'm just fine and let me mask these symptoms so they stop prodding me." So they didn't really see how bad he was.

Last night, I got home from work around 530pm and he was just laying on the floor. I tried to get him to eat some canned food and he refused. I moved him to one of his beds and he didn't move from there. I debated and debated what to do...give the abx more time, take him in, wait until morning... In the end, I decided to take him in because he wasn't drinking water either and I knew nothing was going to improve if he was dehydrated. I also knew I wasn't going to sleep out of fear of him dying during the night.

The ER vet did not think it was tooth-abscess related at all in her first look. She did xrays and ran labs right away. Organ function is still perfect, which is surprising and great. His band cell count was really high, indicating inflammation, so they put him on another antibiotic and pain medication until the US tech comes in and gives us a better idea of what is going on.

When the vomiting started a month ago, he initially puked up some balloon ribbon. Normally, I keep any balloons the kids get up on top of the entertainment center where they can't reach. One night, I totally forgot and he chewed some of the ribbon off it. I pray that is all it is and they can get him healthy again. The xray doesn't look like a typical blocked intestine and that is why there is still concern about other things (plus the lesions in the chest cavity) His intestines and stomach were completely empty though, I'm guessing he ate nothing while we were on vacation He was so healthy when we left and we had a very good pet sitter, so I wasn't concerned. I guess this is all just extra difficult when he took a turn for the worst and I was driving to the pet ER exactly a year to the day after my dog passed.