...and the vet at the clinic has no explanation for what happened.

They put him on IV fluids and hit him with injected antibiotics (which I understand to be more potent), and he started eating. This morning they said he had eaten "a little"; this afternoon it was "quite a bit" (though they didn't quantify any of this and I didn't think to ask). To my surprise, the vet did not propose exploratory surgery (and attack on the gallstone while in the neighborhood); rather, she suggested sending him home and following up with my regular vet in a week. My vet, in turn, has a surgeon she'll want to have consult. And I'll want to know an awful lot more than I currently know about the probable and possible effects of the surgery on him, short- and long-term. The last one was pretty rough on him but was overwhelmingly successful; I can't assume another surgery would be like that.

I know that in people they can use some sonic doo-hickey to break up kidney stones sometimes, but my vet is unaware of such things for cats at all or for gallstones.

I have a copy of the results from yesterday's blood test and the technicians' log of everything they did to him while he was there. When I got home I called my vet and read her parts of it, and she's confused too. They are supposed to fax her a copy (and if they don't I can). I have an appointment with her for next Monday.

Everyone I spoke with at AVETS described Erik as "very affectionate". Good boy. :-)

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes yesterday and today.

I recently found myself in a conversation about grandparents, and it made me think of one in particular. The grandparent I feel the strongest connection with, even though I had the smallest amount of time with him, was my paternal grandfather. It's odd what I do and don't remember: I don't remember what he looked like at all, but I remember his voice and I remember some of our time together. And while I don't specifically remember the incidents, I know that he taught me to think, to question, and to analyze. He surely taught my father the same things and my father taught me, so his influence carried on after him.

My grandfather came to the US from Italy when he was a child. I now realize that I know very little about his life before I was born. I know that my father was the first family member to go to college (grandpa was smart, not necessarily educated), but I realize I don't know how my grandfather earned a living, what took him to Ohio, how he met my grandmother, and lots of other things. Fortunately for me, my father will know many of these things and I can ask him.

Even with all that, though, I marvel at how close I feel to a man I didn't have nearly enough time to get to know.

Erik has been increasingly lethargic and decreasingly interested in food since Friday. I gave him fluids both Friday and Saturday nights (that usually fixes it), but he was still droopy this morning. When he wouldn't eat, I pushed in some tuna juice via syringe in hopes of at least getting some nutrients in (and maybe getting him interested in eating more). Nope. I couldn't reach my vet (not surprising on a Sunday), so I figured we'd now be seeing her tomorrow.

That's when I noticed that his pink nose wasn't pink -- it was the same color as the rest of him. Jaundice, anyone? So off to the animal hospital we raced.

There was a lot of waiting around while they did tests, and in the end they admitted him. They are giving him IV fluids and injectable antibiotics and trying to get him to eat. I asked about appetite stimulants or IV nutrients and they said not yet (ask again tomorrow). They also said that while he (and his blood) looked a little jaundiced, the bilirubin level was normal. Weird. (His nose was also pinker by the end of the exam than it had been, though not normal.)

Coincidentally, he had an ultrasound earlier this week (looking for the cause of elevated WBC count, and it had been 15 months since the last one). My vet hasn't seen the report yet, but based on what was read to her over the phone, there were some issues there but nothing really urgent. The folks at the hospital probably would have wanted an ultrasound, so we'll just send them that one.

Interesting numbers from today's blood test:
ALT 1076 (1150 in May, 1200 in January or February)
AST 248
ALKP 419
GGT 13
WBC 20,800 (17,000 in May)

I don't know what some of those mean. (Never heard of GGT before, but normal is 1, not 13.) The first four are liver-related; the last is the white-blood-cell count (the high reading that prompted the ultrasound).

Also: pulse 228 (high), temperature 101.7 (normalish), weight 3.2kg (= 7 pounds).

I left a message for my vet when I got home, and she called me back. (Hey, I didn't know that was her home number. I've always gotten a machine, so assumed it was office voicemail.) She will talk with the vet at the hospital tomorrow (or tonight if they want). She also had new information about the ultrasound: the message she had gotten from a staff member said two small "stones" but didn't say where (kidney stones? bladder stones? ?); she said she would have to see the report/images. But yesterday she happened to be talking with the doctor who did the ultrasound, and he said gallstones. Gall, liver... sounds related to me! So I called the hospital to relay that information.

I don't have a favorite hospital (among those available night/weekends). I first called my vet hoping for an emergency number; their message listed names and phone numbers of three emergency clinics. One is the place where Erik had his surgery in 2005, but I serendipitiously learned this week that the doctors who were there at the time are no longer there, so there's no reason to choose them. So it boiled down to: one is known to be hard to drive to if there's traffic (anticipating a trip in evening rush hour tomorrow); one is in a town I've heard of but not been to; one I know how to find and there was a positive article about them in the paper six months ago. So on the strength of that alone, I went to AVETS in Monroeville. If my vet thinks that was a mistake, we can fix it tomorrow.

Now, I guess we wait. Poor Erik! If the problem turns out to be a gallstone lodged in an unfortunate place, I wonder what the least-invasive way to treat it is.

Edited to add: relevant article from VIN.