The Normandy Beach Update

Dear friends. I am excited to say this is a happy post when it could have been a very sad one.

The background: In June of 2001, we were given four tiny three day old kittens to hand feed and raise. We still have three of them to this day. They are brothers from the same litter and they are the best cats. Their names are Normandy Beach, Caronna and Buzz Lightyear.

They are ten years old and Normandy Beach is my baby. He is a black and white long haired feline that loves human food.

On Thursday night we had big plans for Doug’s birthday (which is a completely different post I will do later) to eat dinner at Felipe’s and go back to my house for cake and ice cream. My family met at my house before heading to Felipe’s to leave some cars. My fabulous mother offered to make Doug carrot cake for his birthday. As Doug loves her carrot cake, I was very grateful to her for cooking and delivering her yummy cake. 

When she arrived at my house, she gave me the cake and I placed it on my kitchen table. As we were running late to get to Felipe’s I was distracted and left the cake out in the open.  We all piled into cars and at dinner at Felipe’s. (Thanks Dad for buying our dinner!!) 

On the way home I stopped by the store to get ice cream (Doug’s largest weakness) to eat with the carrot cake. When I got home, we lit candles and sang happy birthday to DB.

After we ate the cake and ice cream, Mom and Dad showed me this picture:

This is what the cake looked like when they arrived home before me. They removed all tongue touched icing, cut off the licked cake and rebalanced the icing to spread over the whole cake. Notice how think the original icing was. Evidently, Normandy Beach AND Hoodrat/Kit (his little brother with multiple names) had eaten their fill of icing - buffet style.

Now, Normandy has a sensitive stomach in general. This might be an overshare, but he vomits quite often so I knew this was not good. He was going to be sick somewhere in my house soon. When I went to bed that night he was still fine so I hoped Hoodrat/Kit had eaten the majority and as he has an iron stomach, all would be well. Alas, that was not meant to be.

The following morning at 4:45 am, Normandy finally gave all the icing in his gut to the carpet in my bedroom. It was terrible. I will spare you the details, but just believe me when I say it was the worst vomiting experience I have ever seen with him. I put him in the bathroom and took away his food and water. He still was alert so I was not too concerned. By the morning he was much worse. He was barely responding to me. We made an emergency run to Hammond to give him fluids and anti-vomiting medication. By that night, he had a 105.6 fever and was brought to the emergency room. He was hospitalized for 2 days and I got him back home on Sunday.

In the words of Ashley, “He looked pretty bad. I thought that might be the end for him.” He really did look terrible.

He did not eat or drink on Sunday, but he was pretty well hydrated from the IV drip over the weekend. Finally this morning he ate and drank on his own! I was so excited. As of this evening, he has eaten a can of food and is resting. He kept everything down and as my dad said earlier, “I think we are out of the woods.”

He is still pretty weak, but will improve each day. Today to display his weakness he tried to jump on the toilet to drink out of it (I know! it is gross…just move on) but was too weak and fell into it. It actually worked out well as he has not been grooming for a few days and needed the bath. I would also like to mention that the Ms. Jan, the cleaning lady, had  just left so it was a clean toilet. No judging. Nothing to see here…keep moving….

I have to take a moment to say a special thanks to my Dad and Mom. I called and woken them up at least 5 times over the weekend. Not to mention the 100 times I called when they were awake. Thank you so much Dad. You really helped  a lot and made it easier. I am sorry I am a crazy mom. Am I a Code 3?!?!?  I love you both.

Also on a side note, Ashley was working a celebrity wedding and kept calling to check on Norm. She called before the wedding, during the reception, and after the wedding. Take that celebrity wedding! Norm is more important!

TONIGHT: I just took this picture of him for you all to see:

He still looks a little rough, but believe me – he looks a million times better than he did Friday. We have to get him back to his normal weight, but I am sure he will not mind as he loves to eat…which is what got us in the predicament in the first place…

Thanks for all the love and support. I was a real mess. A special thanks to DB (who cleaned my carpet and was a rockstar all weekend while I was worried about my baby. Love you db!)

Love, Lizzie