George Update (family post)

Hi guys.  I’ll go ahead and say, this is a post mostly so I can update my family on the condition of our cat.  I have a lot of family who live all over the place, so instead of telling the story 100 times, I’m just going to post it here.  Please feel free to skip right over this post–unless you’re worried about our big little George, too!

Tuesday night, George started complaining.  I thought he was telling me that he was hungry–so I checked his food and water, and both were full.  I immediately realized something wasn’t right because that boy can plow through his food.  I watched him for a bit, and he was heaving but only vomiting saliva or nothing at all.  He was very, very vocal all night long.  He was laying under our bed when I got home, which was not a typical spot for him.

Wednesday morning, after a long night of getting up every hour or so because he was crying, he didn’t seem any better.  He was laying in a usual spot, but just very sad looking.  He also sounded pathetic–his poor little cry.  I left for work kind of nervous.

I was worried what I’d come home to Wednesday night.  I love George, but I was mostly worried that something awful would happen while J is gone.  He’d be devastated.  So I called J and just warned him that I felt like something was really wrong.  He said he’d come home, but I advised to wait and see what the vet says.  I just wanted to find out if his vitals were okay.

The ER took forever.  They took his vitals right away, and since those were good (thank God), I assume we were triaged into the non-emergency category.  I was a little reassured also because as we were walking into the vet’s office, George busted out of his crate hulk style.  So he obviously had some of his strength, which was good.

The vet finally came in after nearly 2 hours of waiting.  She poked and prodded him a bit and suggested a blood panel.  That was going to cost a small fortune, and not that George isn’t worth it, I was just hesitant to jump right to that option considering the last time he had these symptoms (back when he lived with MIL), it was dehydration.  I asked if that could be it, and the vet said it could be.  So we decided to do fluids (where they inject h2o between his shoulders like a camel back–I told J he was his mascot for the night–Go Fighting Camels).  They also gave him an anti-nausea medication.  The vet is a 24 hour facility, and if we return within 24 hours, it’s considered the same visit, so we wouldn’t be charged an examination fee again.  If George didn’t improve over night (or if he got worse) I’d just run him back up there for additional tests.

George did much better last night.  He slept through the night.  He seems much more like himself this morning.  He’s still resting but not complaining.  He hasn’t vomited or dry heaved since we’ve been home.  The fluids seem to be helping!  If I can’t get him to drink on his own today, I’ll bring him back up to the vet to determine if we just need more fluids or if they want to dig deeper.