Sick Kitty (3 comments)
About two weeks ago, Wash began vomiting about every other day. It was clear fluid, and didn't seem to bother him at all, so we didn't think much of it until a week had passed and it hadn't stopped. We asked the vet about it and brought him in for a check up which didn't reveal anything. X-rays showed a blockage in his intestines that was moving, but not nearly quickly enough to be healthy.
That brings us to last Friday, when our vet closed shop for the weekend. We took Wash to the emergency animal clinic for overnight observation and an all-fluid diet. Saturday morning, he was still throwing up, so we talked to the doctor at the emergency clinic and decided to let them open him up and have a look inside.
The surgery went well and they found that his small intestine was inflamed and harder than it should be. As a result, it wasn't able to push food through itself like it's supposed to, explaining his blockage. The cause of the inflamation wasn't obvious, so they took a biopsy and sent it off to a lab for testing.
We got to bring him home after that. It's annoying for us that he has to eat especially bland prescription food, since it means we have to feed the cats separately and police them while the food's out so they don't eat each others'. But it's more aggravating for him because he has to wear a collar to protect his sutures. For the first few days, he had trouble jumping onto things; his front paws would push into the collar and when he landed, he'd pull his own head down and often fall off of whatever he'd just jumped onto (usually our bed). He also seems to much prefer to use the litter box without the collar, presumably because it inhibits his ability to see where he's digging/covering.
Possible causes for his symptoms range from food allergies to cancer, so it was a nice relief when we got the call yesterday reporting that the biopsy testing showed it was simple food irritation -- probably the most benign of the possible causes. I'm really hoping that in the long run, switching the cats back to science diet will fix things, but in the mean time, he's eating the special food and we get to drug him twice daily.