There's Blood On The Floor!

So we finished the last round of antibiotics for the cat's pneumonia nearly a week ago.  After three rounds of shoving pills down kitty's throat, he really did seem a lot better.  He's back to sleeping with us and hanging around the family all evening rather than hiding out in the laundry room.  Dan was commenting last night that it was good to see him grooming himself again.  Went to bed at 10:30.  Cat hops off the bed at 11:00 and starts making a lot of noise.  Is he trying to hack up a hairball?  Doesn't that breathing sound an awful lot like his distress breathing??  Upon turning on the light we find him at the foot of the bed with blood dripping out of his mouth onto his paws and the floor.  He tries to walk away from us, but his back legs slide out from under him.  It is exactly the same as before his surgery, only now with blood.

Our vet is still on vacation, so the emergency service sent us to some 24 hour place near the airport.  I call them and attempt to explain again that he had surgery for a ruptured diaphragm and has since twice had pneumonia only I don't really know the German words for diaphragm or pneumonia or surgery or breathing.  The night shift is not multi-lingual.  So I'm back in the cab with the dying cat off to some other part of town where there's someone awake who might be able to help.  This time I've brought a book.

Two hours and 217 euro later, he's shot up with more antibiotics, we have copies of the x-rays, and we're on our way home again.  The pneumonia is back.  This was my best case--was terribly afraid the rupture had torn again and she was going to have to reopen him.  We go in on Wednesday to our local vet, and I'm seriously considering hauling him into the office every day for injections of his antibiotics rather than have to give him more pills that are clearly not working (could he be palming them?).  Fifteen pounds, 65 stairs, a one and a half km walk every day or more pills?

So we're tired, and yes, I know I've been switching verb tenses.  I'm sure by the time you read this Dan will have already gone through it and edited them.  Then again, he's tired too.

because every post is better with pictures