The ballad of Sherry-bones

Sherry napping on my arm

Lord Sherringham all skin and bones:
Well, Mr. Bones isn't well. He's been eating less and less for a few weeks now, until the last couple days where all I could do was coax him to eat a few tablespoons of chicken broth. When I say coax, I mean I had to hold it up in a spoon for him.

I thought it might be his teeth--because the worse scenarios would be hyper-thyroidism, kidney disease, or cancer. Having an appetite, but not eating anything, and weight loss, usually points to those three things. He's 14ish now, so that's the "right" age for it.

I took him to the vet today, and it's not his teeth. They look terrible to me, but she says it's just tartar, not rotten. She says a cat's teeth have to be really bad before they'll stop eating. And she came up with the same three possibilities as my googling/cat books --> thyroid, kidneys, cancer. But she couldn't tell which, so hopefully his blood tests will tell us more. Won't know til Monday. If there's no clues there, then it'll be x-rays.

One thyroid feels slightly bigger, but not a lot. And she couldn't feel any tumors in the abdomen, but she can't feel the organs behind the ribs. And he doesn't hold his head up right, which can be kidneys. On the other hand, there's no other symptoms -- he hasn't been throwing up, or drinking and peeing too much. She said best case scenario is the thyroid, which is most treatable.

In the meantime:
I'm feeling a little better because she gave me:

1. Food for him, and he ate some there at the vet, and twice since coming home. I've been trying to feed him a variety of foods, and he hasn't taken to any of them more than a couple times, except the soup. So this is good. If he keeps eating it, I'll feel better. The only problem is if the carbs in it are too high, then he'll probably get a colitis flare up, and stop eating again. That's the problem with Sherry-bones. He LOVES carbs, but can't handle them. So the food he's more likely to eat, is eventually makes him sick.

2. She gave me appetite stimulant pills.

3. And a syringe, for force feeding.

So at least I can keep him alive! And she says he's not dehydrated, so she seemed less worried than I was feeling. And he still has his old heart murmur, but she didn't seem to think it had worsened.

Haley & vet visits
Once Sherry's treatments are underway I'm going to make an appointment for Haley. Just a checkup. We've never taken her because of Sherry's "Foreign Cat" aversion. When we used to bring Nombly home from the vet Sherry thought it was a strange cat cause he didn't smell right. He'd hiss and almost get into cat fights and we'd have to lock him up and reintroduce the cats slowly.

So we weren't crazy about bringing anyone to the vet, so as not to stress Nombly. And once Haley came, we could only imagine the hell that would break out. She dishes out a lot of hisses, but doesn't take them from other cats.

But now Sherry's really slowed down, so he may not react as strongly. She gave him a couple hisses when he came home today, but he didn't react.

Haley loves Sick Sherry because I've been trying all kinds of different foods, and she gets to eat what he doesn't eat. So there's more frequent feedings, and lots of interesting things.

Momentary vegan short circuit:
And now I'm stuck eating tuna fish sandwiches. I bought some cans of tuna because Sherry enjoyed the fish water that came from some cat treats I bought; but when I got home I discovered it was packed in oil! When did this alarming trend of packing fish in oil begin?? While my vegan back was turned, they put oil into the tuna cans!! Yuck. So Sherry didn't drink much of it (soybean oil blech) and I wouldn't want him to anyway, cause too much will give diarrhea.

And the Fernando doesn't eat fish, so it's down to me and Haley. But it's interesting to eat non-vegan food once in awhile.

I used to LOVE tuna fish sandwiches, and worked long and hard to find a recipe that mimics the taste. And now that I'm having tuna again, I've discovered that my Tuna Replacement (chick peas, mayonnaise, carrots, sweet pickle, lemon, green onion, and a seaweed) tastes better to me. The tuna is so dry.

So eating Old Missed Foods is good sometimes, because the reality doesn't live up to the memory.