Late last week our cat Molly turned very ill.
The girls just had their annual a couple weeks ago and everything was perfect, as it should be, since they are not even 18 months old yet.
Last Thursday was going fine, the cats ate, and played much of the morning. Shortly after my lunch, as I was getting ready to go to work, I gave them their lunch. The cats ate but about 10 minutes later Molly threw up her food. I didn't think too hard into this as she's done this on occasion in the past. She's the piggy of the pair, or as the vet calls it, the dominant one. She will clean up her dish as quickly as she can and then try to squeeze into her sister's dish and finish up. We have to watch them eat, especially the wet food, to ensure this doesn't happen. So ya, I wasn't overly concerned, even when she did a second projectile vomit across the kitchen floor.
I texted Angie about this happening just so she was aware for when she got home. This was just more of a warning for my wife to not step in anything as I didn't think it would continue. Well, Molly threw up a few more times throughout the next couple hours... on the new bedding, on the new carpet in the basement. As frustrating it was that she chose these places to throw up, it wasn't nearly as upsetting as knowing there was something really wrong with our crazy girl. This continued over the next 24 hours, couldn't keep anything down.
When an animal gets sick, there's a lot of wondering about what is going on because they simply cannot tell us. We look at everything, over-analyze till it hurts and come up with a huge list of possibilities, and none of them may be right.
The next day she went to the vet. Extensive testing was done especially since Molly is the type of cat who will put things in her mouth, she plays with the oddest stuff, finds things in the house we never knew were lying around anywhere. I swear no matter how many times we've gone through this house since these 2 came to our home as tiny kittens, Molly still seems to find something she shouldn't. She knows it too, when she has one of those things, because she will trot right past us, proud as a Peacock with her discovered treasure, her new toy for the day.
We've gone overkill with kitty proofing the place. Cheap curtain rods across our kitchen cupboard doors, items in tupperware and not bags, all dishes are rinsed after a meal and not left sitting, no food left out, lids on our garbage cans, bird seed of any kind is not to be found as she's taken a few mouthfuls of that in the past (which once made her quite unwell too), and the list goes on.
All tests came back normal. Good blood work, nothing in the x-rays, vitals fine.
Despite everything saying she was fine, she was not. She didn't want to eat, didn't want to drink, and was just a lethargic pile of multi-colored fur. One thing we learned about x-rays is that they don't show everything, stuff like paper won't come up in an x-ray. Paper can sit in an animal's stomach for a long time, just swelling due to fluids. Yikes!
Since we had no answers and she was just a shell of a cat, we spent the weekend in a tizzy of concern, over-thinking, under sleeping and that wasn't good for any of us. She wanted to sleep and we'd keep checking in on her every hour or so. It was the not knowing that was killing us.
Through all of this, her sister Merry felt it too. Her best pal and play mate didn't want anything to do with her. We were so focused on Molly, that Merry was not given the attention she craved.
She really let us know after a couple days that she was in the house too. Her voice was heard, her pleas did not go unanswered. Merry and I having a little time outside on Sunday.
But like during Molly's illness, we're going to push her off to the side in this blog.
What was wrong with Molly? It's stunning how fast an animal can go from perfect health to seemingly deathly ill. This was her on my lap a day earlier, killing my motivation to go to work.
Food sensitivity was brought up but after 5 days, we've ruled that out. Did she eat something foreign? That was our biggest fear. Our vet was almost certain that was the case. Molly slowly started eating again, and having bowel movements. So thankfully there was no blockage. If she did eat something, it had hopefully passed one way or another.
The only thing left if we weren't seeing any improvement was to get an ultra sound. Our vet, Dr. Allen, told us to wait this out a few more days. His motto is "let's look for elephants before we go looking for zebras". We love our vet and trust his advice, he's not steered us wrong in the past, or had us do anything unnecessary. I do believe if Molly saw our vet initially, that a number of the tests that were done, would not have been prescribed. But it was that moment of worry and we took the recommendations of the first vet we saw. We don't regret it even as everything came up negative to a list of ailments and a slight drain to our bank account.
It was a long weekend at home just being with her, watching over her and trying to keep a level head, get some rest, etc. We would see an improvement, then a set back. Whatever was happening to her was going through the motions. I don't know where or who told us this would be over in 48 hours, if it was some kind of flu bug. As I think about it, we get sick, it can take 7 to 10 days to get over it, and sometimes even longer. There is no bug out there that lives on a clock and when the hours are up, the bug just leaves our body.
Here's some of our weekend at home through images.
Merry missing her crazy sister. They play hard some days, and for lengthy amounts of time. But this was suddenly gone.
Yes, the morning coffees were very quiet over the weekend. I am overwhelmed with peace when I watch Molly sleep. Of course as peaceful as it was to watch her, worry for her hung over my head.
I'd never seen a cat be so ill like this with no reason.
We had some highs through the weekend.
Some time outside, enjoying the warm afternoons, and chasing the Squirrels that passed their kitty walk.
Look how bright eyed she was Saturday night.
Then there would be hours of this. Sure she has long sleeps, she's a cat; but there are certain sleeping positions they have that point to an unwell animal. Plus we know our Molly. She was not herself.
After the weekend, there was more signs of our old Molly coming back. But then other weird things started happening like her visiting the water fountain almost hourly and then the litter almost as much. What the hell?!?! Diabetic? This lasted about 36 hours. Then it stopped and went back to normal with only a couple drinks throughout the day, and a couple pees. Our vet could not explain that since she was tested for diabetes on top of many other things. He said it may have been part of the process in her healing, the body flushing whatever out.
Tuesday we could not get a purr out of her for anything even when it was her coming to us.
But day by day, she is getting better. I am confident it won't be long till our mischievous, make us pull our hair out and sternly say "MOLLY!" kitty will be back.
We will drink to that day, in rejoice and her making us need one. LoL!
It's funny, I know I love these cats, they are our "fur kids". I just didn't realize how much until this happened. Molly may drive me bonkers some days with her crazy antics, all the "Molly proofing" we've done in the house, but she's a part of the family. Everything in Molly's world is big. Her playfulness, her happiness and unfortunately her sickness too. Hmmm, sounds a lot like her mommy, her biggest fan.
Yesterday, the 15th of September, was my birthday. I took Molly in for a follow up. The last 24 hrs had us seeing her springing back to her old self so if nothing else, this would be a consultation with our vet, and hopefully the last. He too noticed a huge difference in her overall and felt we were in the clear now. PHEW!
Last night we were *ahem* blessed with a 3am wake up from Ms. Molly. Yes, there she is. Wheeeeeeeee!
As so many said through their social media support... GO MOLLY!
