Day 36

I am second-guessing myself like crazy.

Yesterday, Leo seemed pretty good -- he ate loads of food, wanted mucho attention...the only sign something could be amiss was a puffiness developing along the sides of his mouth, some extra thick drool along with his nasty breath...and that he didn't want to lie on me during petting (but he was very happy lying next to me.)

But I picked up a new round of Clavamox antibiotic anyway, thinking I could head off what looked like a developing infection before it got bad enough to make him feel yucky (technical term.)

I gave him the first pill of this round last night -- after he had heartily dug into his late meal (pill is supposed to be given with food, so it all seemed to be working out perfectly.)

When I got up this morning, it looked like he had barely touched the rest of the food (when he's feeling normal he eats it all during the night.)

Then he hardly ate anything today.

"Why is this crazy lady chasing me around trying to force-feed me? "

I may have made it worse by feeding him Nutri-cal (high calorie supplement) midday. I had tried to hand-feed him Whiskas morsels, but he didn't want anything to do with it so I whipped out the Nutri-cal. He eagerly licked a total of about a tablespoon of the sugary goo off my fingers.

Leo then proceeded to look like crap (another technical term) for the rest of the day -- curled up tightly into a ball, with that leave-me-alone vibe.

I think the Nutri-cal may be making him queasy. I've only given it to him occasionally, and he never seems to feel good afterwards (although the other times he was already feeling pretty bad, so it's hard to tell.)

So, to sum it all up, basically I took a cat that was eating great and gave him medication that made him feel crappy.

The only positive is that the extra swelling around his mouth did get better.