In Which Dexter Goes to the Vet

So here is a bit of bad news: There is something wrong with Dexter. He has not been himself for the past week or more, and has experienced a big change in his eating habits. He also seems lethargic. Yes, cats do sleep a lot, but in between naps, he sometimes runs around like a crazy kitty. But not lately.

Typically a voracious eater, who nags us for up to an HOUR before each feeding time, now he no longer nags, and he no longer scarfs up every bite. He has left Fancy Feast on the plate, and turned his nose up at fresh chicken.

Last Thursday morning, Dexter refused second breakfast (chicken), and I suddenly became very worried. Of course, it is a thing we all do: to google what our symptoms mean, much to our own regret, for the Internet will fling all kinds of horrible information at you in such situations.

I resolved at the time that I would keep an eye on the cat over the weekend, and if the situation continued, I would make arrangements to take him to the vet. And the situation did continue. So Monday morning, I called the vet, and I was grateful to discover they could get us in early in the afternoon.

It is Covid time, so the procedures are different now. You cannot go along in to the vet's office with your pet. Instead, you hand off the pet carrier in the parking lot, and communicate with the vet and the vet techs by cell phone (if you have one - we don't).

So it was that my husband and I found ourselves standing around under a tiny tent in the parking lot, doing the Dexter hand-off in the rain. We had a lady vet, one I had not met before, and she was really great.

She asked all kinds of questions. Yes, he's been eating some, mostly just Fancy Feast at this point. Yes, he's been drinking fine. His bathroom habits have not changed. He has not been vomiting. He does not seem to be in any distress. Yet there is the change in eating, and the lethargy. He seems somehow slightly lesser than before, if that even makes any sense.

So they whisked him inside and examined him and updated his rabies shot and took blood to run some tests. The results should be back in a day or two. He weighs 15.8 pounds (he weighed 15 pounds on his prior visit, down 5 pounds from the vet visit before that, where he bit the vet).

The lady vet reported that Dexter seemed fine on all the normal indicators, and he even purred for her. "What a beautiful cat!" she exclaimed. And she promised to call us as soon as she had any news.

So we are now in the phase of waiting for bloodwork. I figure there are three possible outcomes: 1) they can't figure out what's wrong based on the data we see, 2) there is something wrong that we can fix with some procedure or medication, or 3) there is something awfully horribly wrong.

Of course, as is possibly the case with overprotective and overinvolved pet parents (hey, I don't have any kids of my own and Dexter is my baby, in case you hadn't noticed!), my brain goes straight to choice number three.

So if you have a stray beam or prayer or good thought, please send it our way, that the results give us information we can act on, and that Dexter recovers and we get a Scooby-Doo happy ending! So for now, we are living in the house of hope.

The soundtrack song is this one: Toni Childs, with House of Hope.