Buddy – Page 17 – Pain In The Bud

Update: Buddy Is Doing Well!

Budd’s feeling much better and he’s back to his usual Buddinese antics!

Name: Buddy the Cat
Date: Oct. 13, 2023
Status: Very handsome

I just wanted to post what I hope will be the last update regarding Buddy’s recent illness and let everyone know that he’s doing very well, hasn’t had an incident since he got sick again on Sunday, and is back to his old antics.

I couldn’t be more thrilled. The little guy is energetic, talking all the time again and even pestering me for treats, which means his appetite has recovered as well, thanks in no small part to the prayers and support from all of you.

Dr. Buddy — “It is my professional opinion, as an expert in meowdicine, that I should be put on a regimen of regular snacks to, uh, recover my snackolyte levels and help balance my catesterol. This script says you should feed me moist treats in the afternoon, a post-dinner treat of crunchies, and a late night snack of my choosing. It’s very important that you don’t skip a dose!”

It’s still not clear exactly what happened, and hopefully I get a clearer picture of Bud’s overall health via a regular veterinary appointment.

In the meantime I’m glad to have my best friend back, and I’m especially thankful the ordeal is over for both of us. It was very frustrating to see him so clearly suffering and having no way to help him except trying to comfort him and giving him catnip, which worked surprisingly well to soothe his stomach. (If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, which I hope you do not, and your cat doesn’t typically eat catnip, try putting some in a pill pocket or finding another way to get kitty to eat it. All the online literature says it works best if ingested.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, Bud wants to nap and he’s demanding a lap to sleep on…

buddyoct2023_cropped — “Time to be my sleeping substrate, human. If you need to use the bathroom, go now, for I plan to sleep at least four hours.”

Update: Monday, Oct. 9: Step Forward, Step Back, Step Forward

Bud had a rough Sunday but he’s okay now.

Apologies for the lack of updates.

Buddy was improving for two days. Although he still wasn’t eating much, there were really encouraging signs: he was trilling and meowing more, he was more active and he even gave me a light warning bite while I was tossing and turning in my sleep, sort of a “Dude, don’t forget I’m here! Careful with those feet!”

On Sunday he ate a little more, then got sick again and was crying, vocalizing loudly in distress. I gave him some catnip and he settled down after a while.

Hopefully this is just a blip. He’s on my desk right now, rubbing his head against my hands as I type this. He seems fine. Although cats are creatures of habit, I’m going to try to give him smaller meals more frequently for at least a few days.

Also, Bud’s gotten wise to the meds and is trying to eat around them but I think he’s gotten most of the medication because it’s mixed pretty well in there. Another positive sign: He’s been drinking quite a bit.

I apologize for the intervening radio silence. I wasn’t sure what to write and it’s frustrating not having control over the situation. Obviously it was upsetting to see him hurting again and there’s a feeling of helplessness when that happens, but he seems better now.

Update II: Bud Is Feeling A Little Better!

Signs of Bud’s usual personality are returning!

First, thanks again to everyone for their well wishes and for advice on how to get a cat to take medication. I was finally able to get Bud to take his meds by crushing them and mixing them into a small amount of pate, so he had to take the meds in order to eat. When he ate the first small bit with the crushed medication, I added a little more food.

The little guy still isn’t eating much, especially compared to his usually bottomless appetite, but the fact that he is eating is an encouraging sign. I’m making sure he’s eating wet food and frequently replacing the water in his bowl so it’s fresh and he stays hydrated.

He has also vocalized a bit, which is very encouraging! He’s not offering the usual Buddesian play-by-play of his activities and he’s not yelling at me for snacks/better service/etc but I’ll take what I can get.

Today is very encouraging because he was still lethargic yesterday and he got sick again last night. Thankfully it was only once.

That’s about it. At times like this we all wish our cats could talk. Failing that, I’ll take a raised tail, a meow here and there, awareness and seeking affection/comfort.

Strangely, Buddy is still not really purring. I felt a small vibration at one point yesterday when I was scratching his head and talking to him, but nothing like the buzz of his usual purr. Hopefully that starts to come back too.

When he feels well enough to terrorize me again, I’ll throw a party!

Update: Still Not Himself

First I want to thank everyone for their concern and encouraging words. There are regular commenters here and I’m extremely appreciative of their feedback, but I also know only a small fraction of readers leave comments and I can see from the stats that lots of people in many different countries — a surprising number of them — read the blog. I don’t know who you are, just that you’re out there, so it’s nice to hear from some of you and to see new names for the first time.

Buddy and I are appreciative of all the well-wishes.

As for Bud, he yowled quite a bit on the way home and made it clear he didn’t enjoy the veterinarian, which I took as a good sign. If he’s complaining, he must feel at least a little better. It’s the laying motionless with eyes half closed and not saying a peep that’s scary.

One of the first things the vet said when she examined him is “I don’t like the way he looks,” so I’m glad I brought him in. There is no question that he needed help.

When we got home, Bud didn’t need an invitation to leave his carrier. I put down fresh wet food and water and he ate a very small amount, the first time he’d eaten all day. A good sign.

After a little while I sat down on the couch, Bud climbed up under his own power and he slept in my lap.

However, he did not get up when I turned the TV off and went to bed. I decided to pick him up and bring him into the bedroom. I didn’t want to leave him there by himself. I want to keep a close eye on him and I know if he wasn’t hurting he would have jumped off the couch and followed me immediately, meowing to remind me to put some dry food in his bowl in case he gets hungry while he’s sleeping. (That always reminded me of a line by Mrs. Garrett to Arnold Drummond in Diff’rent Strokes: “I packed an extra lunch for you, in case you get hungry while you’re eating.”)

Once again, Buddy didn’t object to being picked up, which is unusual for him.

He hasn’t made a peep since the yowling in the car, which is jarring because normally he doesn’t stop trilling, meowing and chirping.

“Brrrrrrrt! Look! Birds! Birdies!!! Brrrrr! Brrrrr! Snack! I want a snack! Gimme a snack now! Brrrrrrruuuupppp! Watch me! Watch me run, Big Bud! YEOW!!!”

Bud remains lethargic, he’s not purring even when I rub his head and he’s quiet, but on the positive side he’s not throwing up or yowling in pain.

As Julie B wrote in the comments of the last post: “You worry so much when they age.”

At one point the vet said Bud, at nine years old, was “getting up there” to an age when some problems can begin to manifest.

I was about to interject, to say “No, he’s just a baby!” when I realized she’s right. Nine years old is the equivalent of 50 for cats. That seems impossible, but it’s true.

The other frustrating thing, as Carmen B noted in the comments, is the lack of specificity in diagnosis. All those examinations and bloodwork, and the only thing I know for sure is that a handful of common ailments have been eliminated as the cause. Is this a virus? Did he eat something he shouldn’t have? Are the symptoms indicative of an underlying health problem?

Frustratingly I don’t have answers. Bud’s an inside-only cat, and the closest he gets to the outdoors is laying on the balcony. Could he have eaten an insect that caused this? Could a foreign substance have been dropped from one of the balconies above? There are five floors above me, and it’s not unheard-of that sometimes things drop.

Now we’ll see if I can fool Buddy into taking his meds. He ate about 3/4 of a treat I gave him earlier but spat the 1/2 pill back out twice. (I had embedded the pill in the treat.) Does anyone have any experience with Greenies pill pockets? What about pillers, those plastic needle-looking things that allow you to essentially “shoot” the pill into a cat’s mouth?

P.S. Thanks to everyone who offered to help and suggested a GoFundMe. I know people use GoFundMe for good causes, but I would feel very strange saying “Hey, give me money!” If Bud requires more treatment and it’s expensive, I would consider some sort of Patreon setup where people can tip for extra content. Extra blog posts, analysis of cat-related news, things like that. Or maybe a 2024 Buddy Calendar featuring sizzling snaps of the handsome little guy lounging in a sizzling manner, sleeping and lounging some more. I would never gate the content, so it would remain available to everyone, but it would provide a way for people to tip an amount they choose. It’s too early to really think about that anyway. Right now the most important concern is Bud. I’ll update, hopefully with good news soon.

Little Dude Is Hurting

We are at the emergency vet. Buddy got sick early this morning and threw up, then threw up some more, and some more, most of it yellow bile.

He was vocalizing in obvious pain and distress and while I was able to soothe his stomach a bit with some catnip — enough that he eventually climbed on top of me and slept for a while — I got really worried when we woke up a few hours later, I got out of bed and he didn’t budge. He stayed there for almost two hours.

He never does that. He follows me to the bathroom first thing, always, and then starts meowing for food.

When he finally left the bed he was extremely lethargic, not at all like himself. He wouldn’t eat. His eyes were half closed, he didn’t respond when I rubbed his head, and I couldn’t feel him purring. The local vet couldn’t see him, so I took him to an emergency vet.

The good news is that it doesn’t look like he has anything obstructing his digestive track, a UTI or any of the usual culprits.

He doesn’t have a fever, which is also good, but he’s significantly dehydrated and there were some concerning signs in his blood work.

I knew he really wasn’t doing well when the nurses took blood and gave him the anti-nausea injection and he didn’t even bother to object. Normally he’d try to tear their faces off but this time he didn’t raise a paw. I’m not even sure it registered with him that there were large dogs and other cats in the open floor plan space, where staff hurried between stations with equipment and animals cradled in blankets.

This is not how it ends, not here and now. For that I am grateful. I’m taking him home after the vet gives Bud some sort of subdermal hydration treatment and meds to hopefully get him eating and drinking again.

The bad news is that the visit cost an eye-watering amount, more than three times what I expected in the worst case scenario, and that was without x-rays. Absolute madness.

On the other hand I realize I have a lot to be grateful for. I just watched a young girl crying and holding onto her mother as a veterinarian worked on her cat, who was severely injured and looked like she’d been hit by a car. In one of the private rooms, a family was saying goodbye to their dog.

All this is a reminder to be grateful for the time we have. I will update soon, hopefully with good news.