Trying Time

Friday evening, everything was fine with Anna, our older (by six months) cat; she was happy, playful, and wonderfully normal. Saturday morning very early, she began throwing up, and she refused to eat. By Saturday evening, she had developed diarrhea, was lethargic, and quit drinking any water at all. Today was no better; I tried using an oral syringe to give her water, but each time I did, she would throw up soon afterwards.

Anna's a delicate girl; she's very slender for her size, and doesn't really seem to enjoy food very much even when she's healthy. She's light, small-boned, and very wiry, with thin skin and fine fur, and always seems docile and subdued. She's quite different from her sister Mischa, who is robust, hearty, thick-skinned, heavily-furred, with sturdy bones; Mischa loves food enough for two cats, and she's a gregarious, playful cat.

So when Anna quits eating, it's a concern; she doesn't have a lot of extra body weight to hold her over through a few days of fasting. And when Anna, who loves human contact more than anything, doesn't purr when her head is scratched or her back is stroked, then she's feeling very bad indeed.

Thinking back on it, this is the second pair of cats we've had with one strong a robust, the other delicate and subdued. Asia had much in common with Mischa in that regard, while Tisha was a lot like Anna (I still remember when we first brought Anna home to give Tisha some companionshipl; it was amazing how similar the two of them were, although they looked nothing alike).

When your cat is ill, it's hard to think of anything else. So tomorrow morning I'm going to be at Dr. Lane's office at opening to try to find out what's affecting Anna. I'm hoping we have good news by the end of the day.