My longhaired grey beast, one CAT-5, has come down with a severe lack of appetite, weight loss, and hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver. His body fat converted so fast the liver became overwhelmed, so his liver is having issues clearing out the resultant bits. A few hours at the vet yesterday got him some fluids, some anti-nausea meds, and a very mild case of the sulks. Also a poor prognosis: he is not in great shape. While I'm characterizing this to myself as 50/50, the truth is that if his food consumption doesn't come up, he's likely fucked.
With him back home, I'm under instructions to feed him as many stinky things as he'll take. Cans of tuna. Flakes of bonito. Liver treats. Essentially, anything nontoxic to cats that he'll take in. Perhaps unsurprisingly, even with the anti-nausea meds in him, he's not gulping anything down but the bonito flakes, which aren't exactly a solid diet. This morning it's been a scant few tablespoons of tuna and gravy. On the bright side, he's drinking water on a regular basis again. Small wins.
Five is a former feral: one of a pair of two long-haired grey kittens abandoned too young by their mother and thus rescued by oakling and partner. He's spent most of his life avoiding human contact. He bonded with my older CAT-6, who passed back in 2019, and slowly became accustomed to hanging out with me. Over time he's decided to accept, then demand, pets. He'll never be on good terms with a brush (hair or toothbrush) or being picked up, but he's still a sweetheart compared to where he used to be.
Prior to Six passing, I used to comment to friends that the correct cat got the diabetes: Six was amiable to being shot up, somewhat accepting of blood tests, and overall, not a huge challenge to care for. Today I'm still happy about that: while I need to give him 0.3 of Buprenorphine twice daily, it's simply shot into the mouth and absorbed through the mucous membranes, meaning he needs neither needle or to swallow the damn stuff, just to have it in his mouth.
Still, it's a weight. This strange, twitchy, magnificent beast of grey fur and frequent hiding has come to trust me in the last year, and now he may well be on the way out of my life. It's the the way of things: cattle die, kinsmen die. But I think in his way, if only through finding a way to live happily, Five has done well.