Sunday Morning Update

I took these two pictures on Thursday prior to taking her to the Vet.

I think you can see how sick she is feeling. This is the way she was acting yesterday. It was a few steps back from where she was coming home on Friday evening.

This is where she is spent a lot of her day. Yesterday was a tough one.

But this morning she was up and she greeted me when I got up. (She gets up before I do and I always let her out of the bedroom when she is ready to go) She followed me as her normal custom into the laundry room where I start cleaning the first litterbox. It is a sign to her to take care of her business and she did. YAY I am happy and I mean that to report a good poop! She had already taken care of the pee so we had good P & P! She looked perky, and alert so I had hopes she would eat as she seemed to be interested in her dry food. She did nibble on about 5 bites which I am taking that as a very positive sign. That's 5 more bites than she did yesterday. I offered her water and she took it so I started putting a breakfast together for her. I heated up some ham baby food for her, as that is one of the things she has been licking off my fingertips. I just got some Slippery Elm Bark which is very very good for coating her stomach and settling it down. If you are a reader of Tanya's website, she has some really great information on Slippery Elm and Sandy the Cancer Cat has also been giving us good heads up on what to do. Thank you so much Sandy's Mom!!! So the first time trying to get the baby food, her old food, and some organic soy plain yogurt (mixed with the Slippery Elm) was modestly successful. She wasn't in the mood to eat much but I got a few fingertips worth of food into her. I tried putting in on her nose and putting in on her paw and believe me I got more of a mess than she did as that approach isn't going to work for her. So I stressed her enough for awhile. With Slippery Elm you don't mix it with medications, and it advises you wait 1-2 hrs either prior to or after using it before medicines. So I let her alone and then it was time for pilling. It went 100% better today and we got it in the first try. She is better today as she was working at fighting us to pill her. If anyone has watched any of the YouTube videos on how they show you to pill a cat, You'll laugh. Because the cats they use just sit there so docile and nice, nope that is not what a cat will do, especially one who is not used to having to take a pill. I had talked to Abby prior to doing it and told her what we were doing and why explaining this would make her feel better and that if she would cooperate just a bit it would be over in 2 seconds. She didn't quite cooperative but she wasn't uncooperative either, so I hope I was able to positively send her the message that this was being done to get her to feel better and it would be over very quickly. So afterwards she jumped up on the Dining Room table (where her dry food is) and since her Daddy bought her a new scratcher she went immediately to her scratcher. Then she let me give her some back rubs which is our little ritual for her to eat some dry food, and she did. She ate another 5 bites, and drank some more water, and for better or worse, I gave her 2 temptations because she normally LOVES those so much. And she ate those too! So I'll see how she does through the day and make a determination if I should take her in tomorrow to the Vet. I hope she continues to improve. I mean the improvements since yesterday is amazing, in fact it amazes me how quickly they turn around.

Thank you to everyone for their kindnesses and concerns. Thank you for your advise and shoulders to cry on. This is truly a great community we have and it is so wonderful to have such a tremendous resources to lean upon.

UPDATE 6PM

I have made the syrup that Tanya CRF {http://felinecrf.org/holistic_treatments.htm#SEB1} site recommended for Slippery Elm Bark and gave it to Abby. (I tried it myself first and honestly it isn't bad, in fact it had more of a non taste than anything) She wasn't happy about it, and because she was fighting me, told me she is so much better today than she was yesterday. After I gave that to her I waited awhile before I fed her dinner, Because this mixture helps coat the inner lining of the inflamed area and I thought it best to wait, and when I presented her "old" wet food to her, she hemmed and hawed a bit, but then she thought about it and dug in. She ate much better. So I feel very relieved. She has always taken water when I offered so that was never an issue. We will just take this day to day and see how things go.

I highly recommend Tanya's site if you are not familiar with it. She did start it out as a CRF website for cats, but it has evolved into much more, and there are so many resources on it.

Thank you to everyone again. I so appreciate the outpouring of support!