I brought him home this morning. They finally did the urinalysis and
the result is "inflammation of the urinary tract". OK...

Besides the cat, I came home with a case of Hills c/d. Does anyone
else feed this to their cat? Has anyone? I don't remember if that was
on the recall list from last year, since I've never given it to my
cats before, but even though it's been a year since all that happened,
it still gives me the willies. Experiences, caveats or reassurances
welcomed.

I also have some drugs for him - more of the same. There's an antibiotic,
the name of which I can never remember. It starts with a "z", but is
not zithromax. Zin-something. Plus the "cystospaz", which I still think
is the weirdest name for a drug. But if it's just cats taking it then I
guess it doesn't matter. :)

And he has to be off dry food for a few months. Which means, of course,
that everyone else does, too. That's going to be a change! If he gets
better, then I can probably let them have dry again, but not for a while.

I'm thinking that I might have to stop fostering Everett. Partly this
is for my own benefit - it's just a bit overwhelming having all these
cats, and having to isolate them in various ways, and now having to
feed Licky in a separate room because he's on special food. Plus the
mess they all make is driving me nuts. I'm hardly a major clean freak,
but most of the time, the floors and the carpets have kitty litter
scattered all over the place - no matter how much I run the sucky
monster. That's a bit gross, even for me!

Also, though, it's possible that Licky's inflammation got a lot worse
since I started fostering Everett. The vet said that stress is often
the cause of this type of inflammation. Licky is very high-strung, as
we know, so bringing in another kitty might have made it worse, even
though Licky likes him.

I hate to give up Everett, he's a real sweetie. But he's very friendly
and sociable with people, so I think he will adjust to a new human
fairly quickly.

I'm realizing that Licky must have had this inflammation for a while,
though, if not quite as badly. The vet told me there was a fair amount
of blood in his urine. And suddenly, I realized that all the little
brown droplets that I'm always finding on the bathroom floor, which I
thought was somebody's less-than-clean poop habits, are much more likely
to be little drops of blood. Nobody has diarrhea, so why would there be
droplets of kitty poop? Not my finest moment of deduction, I guess...

But if it is blood, then he's had the problem for many months, because
I've been seeing the little droplets for quite a long time now. I've
never noticed him straining before, so evidently it's gotten worse all
of a sudden, which might have been due to a rise in stress over the
additional kitty in the house.

I'm glad he's finally getting treatment. But if he doesn't get much
better with the medication and the special food, then he'll have to
have an ultrasound on his bladder, to see if he has a stone. Yikes, I
hope not!

Thanks for the support and purrs,
Joyce