Erik

[cellio]

Last night I attempted to water Erik, following the instructions (and demo) given to me by the vet. The results were... unfortunate. A skinny cat is sad enough; a soaking wet skinny cat looks truly pathetic. Poor guy. And once he got away from me, he wasn't having any towel action lest I use it to confine him.

I concluded that, at least until I get better at it, I need three hands. So tonight Dani helped me by operating the valve while I held (1) the needle and (2) the cat, and that worked much better. Erik was unhappy about the needle, for which I do not blame him in the least, but we were able to get a full dose into him.

Also tonight, for the first time this week, he ate canned food. He actually seems to have lost interest in the canned tuna; I gave him some earlier tonight and he picked at it, but when I later gave him canned food he wolfed it down. I hope that continues; he hasn't been eating as much (in sheer volume) of the tuna as he had been of the canned food, so I was getting worried. (Oh, and he's still not interested in baby food, though he'll lick it off his nose and glare at me for the affront to his hygeine.)

Early this morning I was woken up by him making vomiting noises, but there was no actual output. I guess that's one way for the anti-nausea drugs to work, but it's not the one I anticipated. :-)

Comments

[madfilkentist]

As you probably know from an earlier post of mine, Paul and Virginia were giving their cat IV fluids for most of a year. It always took both of them; they'd have to bring someone else in when one of them was away. (Fortunately, they never had to drag me in, even though I had experience with needling a cat.) I don't envy you. Perhaps they'd be able to offer you some tips.

[cellio]

Thanks. I have high hopes that this is a short-term problem. I'm glad Dani is able to help.