The cytology from Margo's liver and spleen biopsy came back negative for cancer and positive for hepatic lipidosis, pretty much confirming what we suspected – i.e. that when she stopped eating 10 days ago, her liver had to metabolize another flush of fat cells.

Luckily, whatever caused her to stop eating has retreated, and her consumption is inching up again. We bought a rainbow of Fancy Feast canned-food flavors, and for the last two days have been able to tempt her into lapping up about 5 ounces of chicken, beef, liver, turkey, and fish per day, in various permutations and gravies. We’ve also had her segregated from our staff cats for the last several days, and since she gets to sleep with us, she gets lots of attention. The low-stress lifestyle seems to be turning the tide in her favor. Let's hope the consumption upswing continues, since reinstalling her feeding tube is a step no one wants to take.

On my first visit to the villa this morning, I noticed an array of coin-sized amber stains on the nest-floor towels and figured that Minnie had been lapping up Moocher poop… even though we hadn't seen those stains previously. But when I saw that George's butt was quite wet, I realized that Mom had been cleaning up after a kitten with diarrhea.

The weigh-in confirmed that George is fighting off parasites, since he lost weight while all of his siblings gained. And the other Moochers were all clean and dry. After I weighed him, George approached Mom to nurse, so I knew he was still hungry. So I mixed up some kitten formula and got the deworming meds out of the fridge.

When I returned to the villa, I only found three Moochers in the nest. George and TJ were nowhere in sight, and Minnie was pacing around and mewing. I found the deserters deep under the futon, between the pillows, boxes, and bubble-wrap we'd stuffed under there to try to keep Minnie and her kittens out. I extracted the stuff, retrieved the kittens and put them back in the nest. Then I weighed and gave Strongid and a few sips of bottle-fed formula to all five.

Checking in again an hour later, I found George and Mamie had relocated to the site of the original nest, probably with Minnie's help. So now they were lying on loose foam strips under the end table. Was Minnie moving the nest again? Maybe, I thought, because George had had diarrhea in the new nest. I removed the end table, put clean towels under George and Mamie, and transferred their siblings back to nest-site one. Then I threw all the dirty towels in the wash.

After an error-free first three weeks, the first chinks in the armor are emerging today. I scheduled a trip to the vet for George tomorrow, and unless the Strongid resolves his intestinal rumbling, I'll be taking him in and asking for Metronidazole… hopefully enough for all five Moochers. We've seen this kitten-diarrhea movie many times by now, and it's important to intervene early.

filed by: TS