the hidden place and the other time

Juniper is home! The 7am check noted that he was "fractious on being handled", which means that he was feeling sufficiently good to orient to his surroundings and decide that He Did Not Like Them, Sam He Is. I brought him home, took off his bandage (from the IV), and...he's fine, happy, requesting snuggles.

What's wrong with him is still a mystery, but it may have to do with 3 years of daily prednisone, so he's off that for the moment. It may be that we switch therapies for his IBD to a less-effective "pulse" therapy conisting of another drug given 10 days at a time. We have an appointment with the regular vet tomorrow afternoon. Unknown at this point if we're seeing a respite and he'll have another episode, or if it's an adverse drug reaction and discontinuing the prednisone will mean whatever was wrong with him heals, or what.

He is an old kitty, and he has multiple problems. But I'll take whatever good time I have with him left.

(And the emergency vet bill...came to exactly the amount of money I had earmarked for defraying new laptop. Oookay. Wonder if it's time to hang out my photography shingle sooner rather than later?)

I came home this afternoon to see Juniper, who had been fine less than two hours before, stagger out of my bedroom and collapse, panting and drooling heavily. He was only barely responsive to me, his gums were almost white, and he was cold. In pretty much any mammal, that's shock.

Considered panicking. Didn't. Checked for wounds; didn't find any. Eyes were still shiny but dilated. Called my regular vet. Called the emergency vet. Called Laura to confirm that he had been hale and hearty and wanting snuggles earlier that day. Tossed Juniper into the carrier and was disheartened at his lack of fight at going in. Drove to Tacoma.

They triaged him, did a workup on him, and what we have now are a bunch of possibilities and nothing clear to point at any of them. The suddenness with which this came on argues for either something acute or an abrupt exacerbation of something chronic. His kidneys are fine for the moment, which is the first thing that generally goes on an old cat. His heart, lungs, and liver look fine on xray. (In fact, if anything his heart is small for his size and age, which is unusual.) His bowels look inflamed and lumpy. He has a slight heart murmur, which he may have had for years since the normal vet can never actually listen to his heart and lungs. No xray evidence of internal bleeding. All we know is that he is severely anemic, has very high blood sugar, and was severely in shock when I brought him in.

He was doing a little better after a couple of hours in the oxygen tent, and they're going to run fluids into him and see if they can get urine sample and a solid diagnosis of diabetes and maybe ketoacidosis. We may just have a complicated case of diabetes on our hands. Or what I think is more likely is that he's bleeding internally somewhere that's not showing up on xray, probably from somewhere in his bowel.

I got to go in and pet him in the oxygen cabinet before I started home. Poor pumpkin. He managed to work up a little purr for me, but otherwise he didn't seem to really know or care where he was. He hates the vet, and the fact that he wasn't trying to climb up on me to escape and wasn't howling his head off is a good measure of just how sick he is.

We'll know more tomorrow morning, see if he stabilizes or deteriorates overnight. My poor babycat.

Edit: trace ketones and no sugar in his urine. He's not diabetic, very likely. This is *weird*.