Sympathy Pains

The saga of the Indian GI bugs continue... I mentioned in my last post that on Sunday morning I was feeling not so bad so I boiled up some chicken livers that we had bought for Mira and Chaya the previous day. After they had cooled down Eric chopped them up and let the girls have a feast. They have had them before, it is one of the treats that we give them in addition to their regular food. In the early afternoon while I was moaning and groaning on the sofa we heard the unmistakable sound of cat vomiting. We both got up to see who it was and found Mira throwing up all of the liver that she had eaten. We weren't really concerned because, well, cats puke a lot. At least ours do, which isn't surprising based on what we find them chewing on. Their favorites include paper (paper bags, boxes, mail, newspaper, whatever), our mop, our broom, our fingers, less frequently toes, ants, lizards, cockroaches, furniture, toys, really just about anything. So when she puked we didn't think much of it, just cleaned it up and moved on, nothing to see here. Well, later that afternoon I was admitted into the hospital and Eric came back home for a bit to gather some things for our overnight stay and tended to the kittens as we figured that they would be just fine if left alone for the day. He left plenty of food and water and cleaned out their litter so they were set.

When we arrived home on Monday afternoon we had about half a dozen surprises waiting for us. There were big piles of vomit in just about every room and we found signs of kitten diarrhea in the litter. Later that afternoon Mira puked a couple of more times so we figured that she was the culprit. She was definitely not acting her normal obnoxious self so we were concerned. I called up the vet and he said to bring her in the next morning. So Tuesday morning we packed Mira into her basket and took her to the vet where she was also diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis. The vet, a very nice guy, Dr. Pawan, started to explain what gastroenteritis is and I told him not to worry, we were well acquainted with it. The vet tried to give her IV fluids as she was also severely dehydrated, but she was having none of it so he had to slightly sedate her to get the IV into her. She also received a bunch of antibiotics to try to kill the bug and then we took her home armed with a couple of prescriptions to pick up for her. Just for reference, the cost of the vet visit was $7.50 (including the IV and antibiotics and her prescriptions had to be around $.50). We were instructed to keep her on a liquid diet for yesterday and today and introduce her to solid food slowly and a bit at a time. Yesterday she was still feeling so badly that she wasn't that interested in food at all except to sit by her container of regular food and whine to make me feel as horrible and guilty as possible. I broke down (I am a weenie) and wet down solid food in plenty of water so that it was mushy and gave it to her, and she just drank the water. Today has been more challenging, Mira is a very fussy eater and she has been snubbing anything and everything that I have put before Her Highness. I spent about 45 minutes making a very nice chicken liver stew for her (and burnt myself and managed to spray chicken liver stew from the blender all over the kitchen in the process, disgusting, I have a bad history with liver) and she won't even touch it! Luckily Chaya is like a garbage disposal and pretty much eats whatever Mira won't bother with (which probably explains why Chaya is looking more and more like a furry piglet rather than a kitten). Mira is beginning to get back to her normal self, and hopefully the McCoy/Ziegenhorn household will manage to be GI bug-free for the next few days at least!