1.1.2013: At the beginning of December we had a real fright with Lola. She suddenly started vomiting blood stained fluid and I naturally thought the worst. A middle of the night call to the emergency vet didn't help much so I waited till morning and took her to see my usual vet Stuart. By now she was visibly dehydrated and very sorry for herself. Stuart kept her in and put her on a drip and two lots of antibiotics. He also did an ultrasound, which thankfully was clear, and took various bloods including one for the Coronavirus titres. Thank goodness it came back as ZERO. So whatever she had, it wasn't anything to do with the dreaded FIP. She recovered quite quickly and Stuart was happy for us to bring her home to carry on with one antibiotic (nightmare!). We wondered whether she had an allergy to something in the dried food she likes so I have tried to wean her off this but its difficult as Coco loves her dried food and Lola kept finding it no matter where I hid it! I've decided to re-introduce it gradually and have found an holistic, hyperallergenic variety with no additives but I'm also trying to encourage her to eat more wet food. They are both very fussy cats (are there any other kind?!) and don't even like fresh cooked chicken or fish! I even bought her some organic minced beef. I know the latest thing is feeding raw food so I tried to give her a little from my hand (not pleasant for a vegetarian). I often hand feed her when she won't eat but I have to say the raw thing was a bit much for me! Despite my courageous effort she was not impressed and just looked at me as if I were mad. So I opened a tin of Applaws! Anyway, so far so good, she is going from strength to strength and had a really good Christmas with her sister. She's such a little thing I always worry when she is ill and can't/won't eat. At the moment she has just managed to get back to 3kg so I am going to monitor her weight and see if we can up it a bit.
When Lola when back for her check up I took Coco for her next Coronavirus titre test - Lola is so much better in the car when she is with her sister - otherwise she cries the whole time. I put them in one large carrier together and she just snuggled up to Coco for comfort and was really quiet and happy. More good news; Coco's titres also came back as ZERO so we are now a Cororavirus free household and I can give a huge sigh of relief. The last year has been very traumatic; the desperate sadness of losing our darling Dylan and the constant worry that Coco & Lola would succumb to this dreadful disease. So I'm hoping for a few 'vet free' months and a happy healthy new year for us all.
