First Me, then Miss Molly

For almost as long as C and I have been together Molly has had a, well, digestive problem. Those of you who have read this blog for a while know it’s a vomiting problem - a chronic vomiting problem I’ve been trying to fix forever. But in the past two months I’ve started talking to my Vet on a weekly basis and trying every option (aside from a medical procedure) to come up with a solution to make Miss Molly’s tummy settled and to keep C and I from killing each other.

I’ll admit it (I can’t believe I’m doing this) C was right (sort of) – I was in some denial that what was happening with Molly was a problem. All cats vomit right? Sure they do, only mine would do it several times a week, for no rhyme or reason, and without any pattern to help us figure it out. She’d vomit if she scarfed down her entire bowl of food, she’d do it if she only ate two pieces. She’d do it when she ran around too fast, or when she was just chilling. I couldn’t win. To make matters worse it’s not even like she has hairballs because she doesn’t.

I tried it all. About two months ago I switched her food to a formula specifically for digestive care. While that minimized the amount of vomiting, it did, however, make the consistency worse. Instead of hard little food pieces to pick up it was now porridge. (I’m sorry I guess I should have put a warning on here that this is not for the weak stomached).

Not only that but there’s nothing that can prepare you for the experience of having your cat high up in a window overlooking your bed who vomits in the night and you have to get up and clean it. Let’s just say the past two times it happened, not only was Molly tossing, so was I.

I tried elevating her bowl – which seems to have also helped a bit – I started this late last week and she hasn’t (EVERYONE KNOCK ON WOOD) vomited since last Thursday. Course she also knew I made a vet appointment on Friday and I think it was her way of telling me “I told you so.”

This brings us to Monday, I left work early so C and I could take her to the vet. I had to have C come because basically (and I’m owning up to this, too) I have no credibility when it comes to the cat. In fact C calls me F. Lee because of my tenacity of proving she’s not doing anything wrong (even if she is).

Basically the back story is when I called the vet a while ago she told me to try myriad things to make it stop before bringing an essentially healthy cat in for a very expensive appointment. But time is running out (we have to order new carpets for the new house and can’t have her vomiting all over them) and our options had basically run out too.

We spend an hour and a half at the vet Monday night where they poked, prodded, drew blood, drew urine, x-rayed and pretty much scarred my pet for life. There’s absolutely no way I’m ever getting her back in her travel case to go back there – ever. Period. The initial tests Monday night proved she was slightly dehydrated so they gave her some IV fluids and that she has a small heart – even by cat standards, but Dr. Hayes said it’s not something she’s overly worried about because just like the fact Molly has always had low blood sugar, she could have always had a small heart.

What they were doing Monday night was creating a baseline on Molly and to try and rule out anything that could be determined by that battery of tests. They even gave her a dewormer just in case that was causing the problem – they figured it couldn’t hurt. And they gave her a shot of Pepcid. We hoped and hope this would help us rule out anything serious or show us something that can be treated otherwise the vet wants me to schedule an endoscopy for my poor little kitty so they can go in and take a really good look at just exactly what’s going on her tiny little tummy.

Well Dr. Hayes called me back last night to tell me everything was fine, her thyroid was good, etc… and that her calcium level is slightly high – not in the range the would indicate a lymphoma, but close enough. So for the next two weeks I’m to give her a quarter of a Pepcid every night (just like my mom gives the family pup) and see if anything changes. If it does then we’re all set. If it doesn’t then we have to do the procedure and while I have no problem with that – the more I think about it the more I do not think I’m going to have it done at my vet’s office by their traveling surgeon. I’ll bring her to Angell-Memorial in Boston and have my dog’s vet – Dr. Kaye - do it if he can. He’s great and it’s a big hospital and I trust them more with my baby girl.

And that’s the crisis of the week. Hopefully next week NOTHING happens good or bad – I could use a few days of just the status quo.