I called the veterinary office on Monday morning and talked to the doctor, and he said Dinah's problem could be several things, it could be thyroid, or kidneys, or liver. He said he'd like to do bloodwork and a urinalysis, and I should just drop her off, so I got dressed, shoved her into the carrier, and took her over and left her there.
She was a poor pitiful little thing, making little mewing noises instead of her usual lusty cries. I didn't hear, and I didn't hear, and I was getting worried that I wouldn't hear anything in time to go pick her up before they closed, so I called at about 4:00. He said he didn't know anything yet, that they hadn't been able to do a urinalysis because she wasn't producing any urine. He said that if I wanted to pick her up, I could, but that if I left her overnight he would give her subcutaneous fluids and be able to do the urinalysis either later that night or the next morning, so I told him I'd just leave her there.
When I left her that morning, he told me to bring some of her food so that she had something familiar, but he said that she hadn't eaten anything at all. I asked him if she was okay, like, I don't know, is she at death's door, or lying there whimpering or something, and he said she was okay, she was sleeping.
He called the next morning and said that some of the bloodwork had come back, and she had an infection that he compared to irritable bowel disease or Crohn's Disease in a person. He had given her a 2 week antibiotic injection and a steroid injection, and he said, "she's a whole different cat." I went to pick her up, and I could tell she was feeling better immediately, by the sound of her voice when they brought her out.
As soon as we got home and I opened up the carrier, she dashed out and ran to her food bowl, yowling for breakfast, and she's been eating well ever since. Over the weekend she only wanted to sleep, either in the basement or in the chair in the bedroom, she really didn't want to have anything to do with us, and she wasn't eating at all. Now she seems pretty much back to her old self, although she's still skinny.
She weighed less than 8 pounds when I picked her up, and that was with the extra fluids that they gave her. We're just working now on fattening her up. I'm supposed to take her in on Saturday for a follow-up, but it looks like the medication is doing the trick, and she feels 100% better. As do we.
