Here is Azar sporting a rather punkish look after his visit to the vet’s last week. It took several tries on both legs to get enough blood out of him to do the tests, mi pobrecito, and a partial analysis done at the vet’s showed that his urea was a bit high and his glucose a bit low. Then this week Yolanda called me with the lab results and everything came back normal (?!), and so she recommended I bring Azar in again for another blood test as a control.

But just look at him. I thought it was too much and too soon to put him through all that again. Meanwhile, his two main remaining “symptoms” were lack of appetite and not pooping much, and Yolanda also suggested that we do an ultrasound in case he has a “tumorcita” that’s blocking him up. Yikes!

Another option was, since his temperature was also low when taken two days in a row last week, that he might have a low-grade infection going on so perhaps a few days on antibiotics would help. And so – at least for the moment – that’s the option I’ve gone with.

I don’t know if this is a direct result of the antibiotics or just coincidence, but the day after he started on the meds he really perked up, though he still wouldn’t eat much and had to be “spoon fed” (well, I use a syringe and squirt the stuff in, but spoon fed sounds nicer than force fed, and he actually seems to almost enjoy the process). Then – oh joy, oh bliss! – he had a big healthy dump  on Tuesday without crying or complaining in the box, and another one yesterday. And this morning he actually ate some of his purée on his own. So if he continues to improve I may leave doing another blood test for a couple of months, which I think will give us a better idea of any changes in his general health. This really is like his “mystery illness” of last winter except this time the spoon feeding started sooner so he didn’t get quite so floppy. The cause of last year’s malaise was never discovered, so who knows what will happen this time. But for for the moment Azar appears to be on the mend and apparently doesn’t have any kidney problems. Happy.