Cat photo of the week -- the "poor Ubbi" edition

I'm always late with Meowy Monday these days so I guess no ones missed it. However, there was a special reason I missed it this week: all time and energy has been put into Uggi, who fell in on Friday. Playful, vigorous Ubbi was gone, all that was left was tried, indifferent Ubbi. At first it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just an upset stomach and a refusal to eat due to that, but what was less than ordinary was that time and the usual tricks didn't solve the problems. He got worse and we were really worried, even after it got a bit better last night and this morning. It may have been just a few days, but trust me, it felt like weeks.

At last, we got an appointment at the vet's today and he's now got medicine, a nutritious paste to boost his appetite (he loves it!) and a round of iv fluid to hydrate him. Oh, how he hated that, but not as much as he hated getting his temperature checked! Poor sweetie! And to that a sunny, relatively hot day in and old car without modern ac to cool him down. But hopefully this horrible ordeal will have him back to his old self real soon. (Same can't be said for my wallet, but you can't put a price on a pet, of cause -- and it could've been worse in terms of cost.)

So all in all, he's tired from the stressful afternoon today, but after a good rest he'll hopefully keep getting better and better (and his poo less and less stinky; right now the stink level is biological warfare). I can already see signs that he's more interested in food and he loves his new paste and the egg yolk part of his diet. We should've been more observant regarding dehydration from the beginning, especially since dad has often shown us the severity of the issue the last year or so, but cat symptoms are often somewhat hidden and we saw him drink -- just not enough to balance the loss of fluids in the beginning of the illness.

I've been really stressed, upset and worried, but today I'm just relieved. Tired and relieved. He started showing signs of getting slightly better even before going to the vet today and now with the meds I just feel safe knowing he'll soon be back to this:

Jinja might not agree, not with that particular kind of "back to his old self" anyway...

PS! Because of all this, I'm also running late on my schedule for the Challenge of Travel, which will be revealed on saturday. Or should be, I should say as it might be a matter of racing against the clock while caring for a sad little cat at the same time. But I hope to have something to show at one point or another during the weekend.