Brighter days.

The last several days have been pretty tough. I've been essentially a shut-in since Schmoobles left for a 10-day stretch working at nerd camp, which was the worst timing ever since Bela seemed to be taking a turn for the worse starting right around my birthday. His tumor has been really large for a while now, but he hadn't shown any signs of pain or discomfort.

But then, a few days ago, I just noticed that he was throwing up everything he was eating. This wasn't too worrisome since he's always had a tendency to regurgitate from eating too quickly. Then I became alarmed when I would try just feeding him little tiny bites of wet food from a spoon to control his eating speed, but even eating just a little bit of food the size of an m&m would get thrown up within minutes. 

After a couple days of this, I really became concerned that he was losing weight, especially when it seemed like he wanted to eat but couldn't hold anything in. So I did some crazed researching online and went to the store for some catnip and Pepcid AC. I thought, well, medical marijuana helps people who feel nauseous and in pain...so maybe catnip will help Bela? I read on the Googlatron that some vets prescribe a small dose of Pepcid AD to cats that have upset stomach, so I got some. While at the store, I also got some Nutri-cal. 

So on day three, I let Bela get a little doped up on some catnip and then tried to get him to at least take some Nutri-cal so he could get some calories in him. Bela being a cat, he was too finicky to lick it off my finger, so I had the bright idea of smearing some on his paw, knowing that the first thing he would do would be to clean it off with his tongue. I'M A GENIUS! It worked. 

It worked about three times. After that, he got so fed up with me smearing this brown goop on his paws, that he just stopped cleaning himself and began staying away from me.

This scared me. We've been told by our vet that cats sometimes will not vocalize when they start feeling pain, but will instead just start hiding. That night, I realized I hadn't heard or seen Bela in a while and went looking for him. I found him in our walk-in closet, curled up and hiding behind Scott's wall of hanging clothes. He had never hid here before. He looked so tired and defeated. By this point, the only thing he had eaten in three days was a little bit of Nutri-cal. I was doubly devastated, not only because I thought that Bela was preparing to pass, but also because he was going to do so without Schmoobs here. We have resigned ourselves to the reality that this tumor is going to take Bela sooner than we had hoped, but the least we want for our President of the Finer Things Club is to both be there for him when the time comes. 

But Schmoobs was gone for two more days. I was a wreck. I remember staring at my phone late that night, contemplating calling him and telling him that Bela was hiding now. We would both know what that meant. But I didn't call him. I just picked Bela up and placed him in our bed, right next to my head because I thought that if he was going to go in the middle of the night, at least I could be there next to him.

He was still there when morning came. A little groggy, weak, but there. I think I apologized for trying to push the Nutri-cal on him so aggressively yesterday and told myself to just let him be for a while. But a little after lunchtime, I decided enough time had passed since I last tried to force him to take some Nutri-cal, so I crushed up a little bit of Pepcid, mixed it in with a little dollop of Nutri-cal and smeared it on his paw. Eventually, he licked it off. I was encouraged.

A short time later, I decided to try giving him some wet food again. I scooped up a tiny bit on a spoon and held it to his nose. Then he licked at it and eventually ate it. I prayed that he wouldn't throw it back up. And he didn't! Succes. I didn't want to push my luck, so I only gave him similarly tiny bites like once every couple hours for the rest of the evening. But he kept it all in. 

I even opened up our living room windows, and he came downstairs with renewed energy, sat on the windowsill, and watched the world outside. I was even more encouraged!

Yesterday, I started giving him more wet food and he ate it all. More importantly, he kept it all in. I don't know what it was - the catnip, the Pepcid, the small abusive doses of Nutri-cal - and I don't really care. He's starting to get back to his more normal self. 

Schmoobs came home late last night for a short pit stop - he had to go back out of town for more work today, but this time only for 3 days - and we were both relieved that Bela is making a turn around. We also snapped a photo of the fearsome foursome in our new house:

 This was the only shot where Bela wasn't hissing at BB and trying to claw his way out of our arms.

This was more like it. (Good to see that he's getting his energy back, though, right?) Yes, we had a wardrobe change because we snapped a couple pics both before and after lunch, where Schmoobs had a burger juice accident on his shirt. This was before lunch. The sun was too bright.

Anyway, after that rough stretch, I am feeling better that Bela will be with us for at least a while longer. Schmoobs comes home for good on Saturday night and the plan continues to spoil Bela relentlessly every waking hour of every day. Endless wet catfood, open windows, and catnip for everyone! (Mostly Bela.)