here is the latest from this weekend

We went to the vet Saturday p.m. – a new local vet (love them) and saw a lovely young woman – Patricia Doherty .  She discovered that Emil has ulcers on his tongue which, with the fever and loss of appetite, is indicative of Feline Calicivirus or FCV.   The ulcers explains why he doesn’t want to eat as it hurts .  His fever was down to 103.5 (from 105.8 that morning), thank goodness.

Dr D did test for FIV (feline aids) and FeLV  (feline leukemia) and the tests were negative (WHEW).  We decided not to do a full blood work as the symptoms presented are pointing to FCV. 

We are continuing on the antibiotic Clavamox (Amoxicillin + clavulanate) given by the Veterinary Emergency Hospital from our visit on Thursday night and Dr Doherty added two days worth of doses of Buprenorphine which is a pain medication (more effective than morphine) to help Emil deal with the pain from the ulcers and thus encourage his eating.

So back home and settled in and after doses of Buprenorphine and Clavalmox, still no food interest and so then Emil slept.

Around 2 am I decided to try to tempt him with some tuna – he ate several ounces (YAH!) and then ate about a fourth of some Iams can food (YAH).  Still no interest in water, however I had added water to the tuna and he did slurp up some of that. 

So then a nice long sleep til about 9 with me dozing fitfully nearby on the loft bed.  I brought him down after a visit to the litter box (good) and a dose of Buprenorphine, ate a bit of Iams dry food, but turned up his nose at the tuna and the iams wet – oh well, its still food.  and again no water.  fever was 103.7

No interest in staying on the sofa – so he is back in the loft and has the morning dose of Clavamox (not easy to give as he really doesn’t like it – its quite a challenge to does a cat singlehandedly)

A bit later will take temp (rectally – oy the things i am doing !) and hopefully that will be lower than this morning and/or normal range.

sunday’s progress
Emil ate a little bit of dry food during midday and slept a lot – still no water though which is upsetting.  however he seemed a bit more perky (one of the vets at the emergency hospital actually used that).  continued with the medicine and antibiotics.  fever was down to 102.7

this morning we had a milestone – he actually came down from the loft and used the litter box and then ate some tuna and iams can cat food.. and then wanted to go back to the loft to sleep. 

big sigh and fingers crossed for this progress to continue.

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