Not much new

My wife tried to get Stamford into the Iowa State vet clinic, since she got invited to be a guest lecturer in Iowa and was flying out anyway. He might have been able to go so they could see what they could find out, but his vet's office never called Iowa State. I'm not terribly optimistic there is anything that can be done, but I am frustrated that an entire office of 10+ veterinarians couldn't pick up the phone on an urgent matter that may be life and death.

He's pretty much stopped eating, though, admittedly, it's hard to tell. He was never a big eater and it's hard to track the dining habits of three cats -- the other two were easy to tell, since they are both fat. That makes it easier. But we're now giving him the cat supplemental milk for kittens who were weaned too early. He clearly likes the taste of it, but he still has to be force-fed. It makes me feel bad to have to do it, to impose my will on a creature who's giving up on survival and actually has the mental focus to just not eat, but part of me still has a shred of hope. He's seen so many veterinarians (these aren't as second opinions, I'm not vet shopping, he's just had to go to vets in two locales and to two different 7-day 24-hour veterinary ERs, but once he tested positive for the feline coronavirus, every veterinarian just determines that anything that's wrong with him is FIP. Every symptom in the world except good health is a symptom of FIP, and in fact, good health is a symptom of it too.

He can still get around, but he has a lot of moments where he clearly loses control of a back leg or has no confidence -- he's done with jumping, which gives him virtually no opportunity to do anything in the bathroom. Now I've let him out because at his slow rate of movement, he's not hard to monitor, I just try to keep him off the rug. Now, his brother left the carrier that's still sitting out (he had a pre-existing veterinary appointment about the leg issue for Tuesday morning, the ER vet told me to keep it, and given the paucity of space in our apartment, to put it away takes 15 minutes of effort pulling things out of the closet and then putting them back).

I'm not a cat person, though I now have three of them. I have always wanted a dog and will continue to want one, because my job is not exactly amenable to caring for an animal that can't use its own bathroom (which, sadly, now includes Stamford). But I am definitely an animal person, and I can't imagine not having animals in the house. It's just not an acceptable outcome.