All of you regular readers know by now that I have two cats; Aang and Cloud.

They’re littermates that we brought home when they were six weeks old and have flourished in to two-year-old panthers. They’re both very chatty with strong—very different—personalities.

Tuesday morning, I woke up to find Aang laying on the mat in the bathroom. This isn’t unusual. It’s a very soft mat and the bathroom is probably the darkest, most quiet spot in the house when no one is using it. What was unusual is that he didn’t respond when I gave him a pet good morning. Normally he’ll roll over and show me his belly or at least give a little chirp. He just laid there.

I thought he might just be tired. We’d had company over the weekend and the cats are usually quiet for a day after the extra activity. I left for my workout.

When I returned he was still laying on the bathmat. Still not responding when I pet him. Not even lifting his head. I mentioned it to Dean, who said he had cleaned up cat puke while I was gone. I asked him what it looked like. He said, “cat food.” Our cats aren’t overly-pukey, as far as cats go, but they will vomit from time to time, so this wasn’t alarming on it’s own, but coupled with Aang’s stillness it bothered me. I kept an eye on him the rest of the day.

Cloud was normal. Perhaps slightly quieter than usual, but still demanding food, running around, and being his vocal self. Aang stayed on the bathmat. I started to get worried.

Then right before I left to bike to my physical therapy appointment, he got up and ate some food. “Yes!” I thought, and left.

As you can see, when relaxed, it’s belly-up around here.

When I came back, he was laying in a weird spot at the base of the treadmill. There was cat puke in the bathroom. In the bedroom. In the living room. He had gone to the one room where there was no cat puke. I cleaned it up and he was back on the bathmat. I started to get for real worried.

I began texting people. I called my vet. They said that they couldn’t see him today, but I could either take him to the emergency vet or monitor him overnight and call first thing in the morning. I informed Dean that I may need the car in the morning. He said if he needed to, he would take off work and bring him. But could it wait until morning?

I cannot adequately describe how unsettling it was for him to lay still and quiet on that mat.

I remembered that Chewy.com offered an online vet chat for free to their auto ship customers. I logged on and talked to an awesome vet. I told her I had no idea what he could have gotten into, but that his brother was fine, and if Aang came across any kind of bug, he ate it as a snack. My big dilemma was: emergency vet now, or normal vet in the morning.

This is the picture that I sent to my chat-vet.

She asked me to get some baby food (with no onion powder) in specific flavors and see if he would lick some off my finger. She said I could also try chicken broth and wet cat food. If he was interested in any of those, that was a good sign. She said if he threw up again, or seemed to be in pain if I tried to hold him, then I shouldn’t wait. I told Dean to get all of those things at the store on the way home.

I went into the bathroom and immediately picked Aang up and held him. He didn’t try to get away and didn’t seem to be in pain, which encouraged me. When I put him down, he went to sniff his food bowl, although he didn’t eat. (It could have been because Cloud pushed him away, because Cloud is an asshole around food.)

When Dean came home, it took Aang longer than normal, but he did blearily make it to the door to greet him. That made me happy. Then we tried the baby food. Aang sniffed at it as if he was interested, but did not try and taste it. (Cloud, however, would have knocked aside a crowd of pregnant ladies to get at it.) We tried the (very expensive organic) chicken broth next. Neither of them cared for that. Then we got out the wet food. They both went bananas. They ate all of it, they were shoving each other out of the way to search the other one’s plate for leftovers, I was beyond thrilled.

Best of all, he kept the food down.

He was still quiet and a little slow that evening, but we felt we could comfortably monitor him until morning. And in the morning, when I met him in the bathroom, he rolled over, trilling, to show me his belly for pats. No puke was to be found. We were out of the woods.

This is how Aang waits for us to come home.

This may seem like a big post about nothing, but that day was filled with anxiety for me. This is also a shout-out to that Chewy.com vet messaging service. I never thought I would use it, but I’m so glad it was there. That vet spent at least fifteen minutes texting me, having me describe Aang’s symptoms, going over what he could have gotten into, looking at a picture of him laying on the bathmat, etc., basically triaging my cat via chat. By the end of the conversation, I felt like a had a roadmap to follow. Like I was no longer flailing in panic. Neither dragging my cat to a $$$ emergency vet when he already felt shitty nor leaving him to die of something completely curable because I hesitated too long. It was peace of mind, and I highly recommend it.

Also, does anybody need some baby food?

Kitty Health Scare