Maya is finally on the mend. She’s not quite back to her old self yet; for the past week she’s been doing little else but sleep, and we’re still syringing high-calorie cat food into her to make sure she gets enough nourishment. But it’s been a long ordeal for all of us.

When Jen left for New Brunswick on the 3rd I was left to look after the cat myself for the week. I was pretty apprehensive about this — I’d never, for example, given a cat a pill before — but was reasonably game. I mean, hell, I’ve pulled retained eyecaps off water snakes. How bad could it be?

On the 4th, I tried giving the cat some high-calorie cat food. MRWAWR!

Okay, maybe not. You have any idea how stressful it is to try to hold down a cat that makes noises like that? I’d rather restrain a rattlesnake. Let’s just say that some upset calls were made to Jen’s cell phone that week.

Getting anything into Maya’s mouth was beyond me, so the consensus was to leave her alone. And indeed, she spent most of the week hiding under the kitchen sink. Her vomiting disappeared for a few days, but began coming back. She still did not appear to be eating or drinking. Nor was she using the litter box. Nor, for that matter, was she sleeping, from what I could tell: she just seemed to sit there and look uncomfortable.

So back to the vet, for the third time, on Thursday the 8th. The vet concluded that the cat was still nauseous, and emphasized the importance of getting the pills into her, and gave me some more; fortunately, Jennifer would be back the next day to donate blood to the cause. Maya wasn’t dehydrated, at least. More high-nutrition food was given to her, plus an injection of the anti-nausea medication I wasn’t able to give her in pill form.

Jennifer came back the next day, pills and food were administered, and Maya began to look better. No further vomiting. Appetite began to return. But she was exhausted — enough that while she would eat, she wouldn’t eat enough because she wasn’t awake enough, and she wasn’t making it downstairs to the litter box. Wet stains that I assumed were vomit because they didn’t have that tell-tale ammonia smell — yeah, they were urine after all. A litter box was moved upstairs.

So, yeah, she’s better, but she’s not exactly perky. She sleeps all the time, which must be a good sign.

Previously: Sick cat; Sicker cat.