busybee fluffy rambles

When we moved to White Center it was like a huge new burst of energy for him. He was playful again, he loved exploring, even liked going on occasional walks outside. But it didn’t take long for him to get lethargic again.

He’s also been getting progressively more feeble and uncoordinated, and his litter box senility has gotten way worse. He’s also been occasionally pushing his head against the wall to brace himself while pooping.

A few days ago he also started vomiting yellow bile daily… then twice daily… then three times daily… so I took him to the vet. (Which I wanted to do much sooner, but… well. That’s best left for a different rant, or a Yelp review.)

Anyway today I finally took him to the veterinary hospital and they were able to see him right away. They put him on the scale and he’s lost 40% of his body weight since his last checkup; I knew he’d been losing weight over the last year, but I didn’t realize just how much.

I made it clear that due to his age I only wanted to do palliative care and just wanted to make sure that he isn’t in pain. So they did a bunch of bloodwork, and found that he has an elevated white blood count, but also that one of his liver horomones is elevated — by a factor of 30 over the normal range.

There’s definitely something wrong with his liver, and the vet thinks that it could just be a simple infection, or it could be gallstones. The only way to tell if it’s gallstones is to do an ultrasound, which they only operate on Thursdays and it’s incredibly expensive, and even if it is that, then the interventions are (depending on severity) either giving him intravenous fluid infusions daily, or doing surgery on his gallbladder.

Neither of those seems like a good time for him, and he’s incredibly unlikely to survive surgery anyway.

For now he’s just getting painkillers and antibiotics, and if he doesn’t improve in a week, as the vet put it, “it might be time.”

He’s also getting wet food every day now. Not under the vet’s orders, I just want him to be as happy as possible.

He’s been such a good boy and I’m glad to have had him around. I knew the end was coming for him at some point. I’m amazed he’s lasted this long, and I’m grateful for all the time I’ve had with him.

I just wish this wasn’t how my birthday decided to be shitty this year.