We took Malcolm to the vet yesterday. He took Mal's temperature (normal), he gave his belly and kidney/bladder areas a good squeezing, he looked into his eyes, mouth and ears. Nuttin. Everything looked good....

He said he didn't know why Mal was barfing everything he's been eating lately.

Poor Mal.

Then, he said that since Mal is 11, we should start thinking about all the really bad things cats can get. Cancer, kindey failure, etc. Gee Thanks. He said that if I wanted, we could get an abdominal x-ray done, and/or some bloodwork. I asked as to the cost. Oh, x-ray would be about $100... I told him that maybe we should wait and see if Mal got worse before I went forking over a Benjamin for an x-ray. Part of my reaction was being cheap/thrifty, and the other part was not wanting to find out anything horrible, and that's all we would have found.

So, we took Mal home, and he was extraordinarily happy to be back! The doctor said to feed him a bland diet (boiled chicken) for a couple of days. I boiled up chicken, but he didn't want any. He did take a little lunch meat, but I worry about the sodium content. He kept what he ate down for a couple hours. This morning, he was starving, but wouldn't touch the chicken. So, I gave him 1/2 teaspoon of canned turkey/giblets and a few sips of water. He kept it down until I went to work. Of course, I had to leave the water dish out and he was drinking from it as I left the house. I'm sure he'll upchuck it...

I'm going home at lunch, and give him another spoonful of catfood.

What I don't get, is the vet gave us an antibiotic to give him twice a day. If the cat if barfing, how's he supposed to keep the antibiotic down???

September 17, 2002