Worried.

I've been worrying about something for some time now that I haven't mentioned here. Our eldest cat sucha may be sick. A couple of months ago she stopped grooming herself properly and we thought it was just that she was getting old and having a hard time reaching her back to groom.

Well, after observing her, she certainly seems limber enough to me. She doesn't hesitate to jump up on chairs or to run up or down the stairs and she still curls up into a tight ball when she sleeps.

But her behaviour HAS changed. She's demanding water more often, and prefers it running. She's taken to going upstairs and sitting in the bathtub to get water to drink. She used to do similar things when she was a kitten, but hasn't done anything like it for a decade. She also yowls for attention at all times of the day and night, which she didn't do before. Lately she's also taken to drooling after she eats. Something she else she never did before.

A week ago taxlady found what looked like a combination of cat saliva and blood on the floor, but it hasn't happened again. We assume it came from sucha.

Now maybe she's just getting old and senile. The cat is getting close to 20 so its certainly a possibility. It maybe something more. I've been worried that if she had a mouth infection or something, she wouldn't want to groom, and it might affect her eating.

Its hard to know though. She won't sit still for a mouth inspection, and we can't afford to take her to the vet to have him check her out. That's the worst part. Right now we're just getting by. taxlady has a new client that should be bringing us significantly more income next month, so by this time in September we might be able to afford to take her.

I just don't know if we can really afford to wait that long. I'd hate to take her to the vet in a month and find out that we couldn't save her from some minor infection because we waited too long. But I don't see how we can possibly manage to take her to the vet now. And what if we were to (somehow) scrape up the money and it turns out to be something really expensive to fix?

I've spent a lot of time lately worrying about it and stressing over it, and I just haven't been able to think of anything that we can do but wait another month and hope she can hang in there. But the anxiety its causing is making me feel awful.

EDIT: Thanks for all of the concern shown, and for the offers to help out. They're all most appreciated, but my Mom has told me that she'll pay for us to take sucha to the vet, so we'll be making an appointment today. Hopefully its something treatable.