A tale of two kitties

How what your Christmas?  Mine was… not great.  For those that don’t know, we have two cats – Merlin and Samwise.  They are both about 5 years old.  The past week Merlin wasn’t eating much and didn’t seem to be doing great so we took him to the vet last Thursday.  They took x-rays and saw something going on in there – they recommended an ultrasound but their guess was that he ate something he wasn’t supposed to.

This is my baby, Merlin.

So Friday we take him for the ultrasound and it turns out the problem is much bigger than we anticipated.  He has something called triaditis, which is an inflammation of the pancreas, gallbladder, and liver.  On top of that he has inflammation in his large intestine, which is ultimately what they are more concerned about (it could be extreme irritable bowel, or it could be some sort of cancer like lymphoma).  But the plan is to get the triaditis under control first.

After his ultrasound Merlin tried to warm his bare belly by the fire.

Ultimately the best way to do that was to bring him in for overnight care.  So on Christmas Eve, instead of getting excited about the holiday approaching, we were dropping our baby off at the vet.  They wanted to keep him at least 48 hours.

But as the post title says, this is a tale of two kitties – and the other one is not my other cat Sam.  It is about another cat who is now named Jovie!  To start: a couple of months ago during the summer I went for a run and came across a cat.  She was very friendly, adorable, but she had an eye infection.  I took her in, we advertised to see if she was a lost pet (no microchip and no one ever claimed her) so I gave her to Jason’s mother in law, who fosters cats.

The new kitty in town: Jovie!

They got her eye condition all under control and she’s a perfectly healthy cat, and a couple of weeks ago it was time for her to be adopted.  I had fallen in love with this cat and wanted to keep her, but Jason was not keen on the idea of having 3 cats.  At this time my childhood cat that my parents owned, Bob, had recently passed away.  So I asked them if they were interested in another cat so soon – and they agreed to take her in and adopt her!

So after dropping Merlin off at the vet we went and picked up another cat whom my family decided to name Jovie (after the character in Elf).  We delivered her for Christmas and she seems to have fit right in at her new home.  She has been cuddling everyone and is pretty much adored by all!  She did one naughty thing however.  On Christmas morning we were all opening our presents by the tree, and Jovie came over and started pooping right under the tree!  I guess she was leaving her own presents for us.

Jovie is so cuddly, no one minds that she pooped under the Christmas tree.

So while we were having trouble really getting into the holiday spirit because of Merlin, having Jovie around definitely made things a little better.  I know she’ll be happy in her new home.

Our visit with Merlin.

As for Merlin, at this point the vet wanted to keep him a third night.  His temperature is going up and down, and while he’s pretty alert and social and is even purring for them, he still won’t eat anything except for cat treats, which is a big problem.  We went to visit him yesterday afternoon and he was super cuddly and happy to see us, but still wouldn’t eat for us.  So just say a prayer or something that Merlin will eat soon.  Right now we are waiting for our next update on him.

Update (12/27/16 9:45am):  Merlin is still not eating and they are very concerned something else is wrong with him.  They want to do a colonoscopy but quoted $3,000-4,000.  If we have to do it we will but obviously it’s costing us a lot of money.  I created a GoFundMe in case anyone is so moved to help Merlin.  No pressure of course but I would do anything to help him, even if it means asking people on the internet for money.

I hope your holidays were better than mine!

What did you do for the Christmas weekend?