woolymonkey | State of the Fruitcake

Short version: not good.

On Thursday morning Fruitie took her pill like a good girl so I gave her gushy fud, which she hoovered up in record time. Most unlike her, but I thought it was a good thing. However...

On Thursday evening she threw it all up. She's eaten almost nothing since then. The vet said the best thing was to keep giving her the pills and bring her back if she wasn't eating again after the weekend.

We still had a (shortened) monkey weekend away in Sussex, thanks to the wonderful

tamaranth , who came and sat on the fruitcat on Saturday, pilled her, coaxed her to eat cat treats and homeopathic doses of sardine and gushy fud. As it became clear Fruitie was getting worse rather than better,

tamaranth and

bugshaw spent the evening with her and tamaranth spent the night in the spare bed, heroically comforting sick kitty until our return on Sunday evening.

Have now been back to the vet who says it's not looking good, but has given her different thyroid pills just in case it was a bad reaction to the first ones. We are all trying to be as nice to her as possible, which means company when wanted but also lots of leaving her to sit outside in the cold. Seriously. That's what makes her happy.

All monkeys are sad, especially squirrelmonkey. Fruitcake was never part of the family the way Zil was, but it's hard to see her fade away, especially so soon after Zil. I'm sure missing Zil is a factor in her sudden decline.

Luckily, we also have good cat news. Or rather, kitten news. We'd arranged to stop over in Colchester on the way to Sussex to check out a litter of kittens and possibly pick one to reserve for later. We have picked two. At the time, we were thinking they'd be company for Fruitcake, though now I'll be (pleasantly) surprised if she lives long enough to see them.

Against all my stated intentions we will shortly be the minions of two males, one ginger and white and one black and white, ready to collect on March 6th. I'll do a separate, happy, post full of kitten pics and details as soon as I have time. It feels quite odd to be excited about the new ones at the same time as nursing Fruitcake through what looks like the last few days, but it's really comforting to know the new cat regime is on its way.

Must go now as monkeys need things to do.