12 year old house cat, prior to this has been 100% healthy. I've been at the vet twice this week and we've had some success but of coarse with the holiday, this screws me and is making me wait until Monday as I now think I know what the issue is.

Noticed this past weekend that she haden't been eating much when I realized her food bowl was still almost full. Usually she chases me around to fill her food bowl and that's every 2-3 days. I remember thinking to myself a week ago about is she lighter all of a sudden but thought it was just me. She gave absolutely zero indication anything was wrong with her; still wandered around the house, didn't hide or act weird, hoped into bed at night, played, etc.

The day I noticed the full bowl she had also vomited 3-4 times where it was undigested food. This happens once a week or so and has forever, but never multiple times in 1 day. Seeing as the vomit was just undigested food, didn't think much of it.

So that's what I noticed up to Saturday. Sunday was the same, acting normal yet just wouldn't eat. Even with a can of tuna, she'd at most lick the juice off it but won't eat or drink anything. Only odd thing I noticed about anything was that from 1-2 days ago there was a darker than normal stool in her litter.

Monday went to the vet. He did a full CBC, thyroid panel. Did notice she's lost 1.5lbs since they weighed her 6 months ago. When they called me that evening, they said absolutely everything was totally normal. Told to call in the AM with an update and he'd proceed from there.

Tuesday I called when they opened to let him know nothing has changed. He scheduled me to come in for a B12 shot and X ray. Also prescribed her prednasone to get her to start eating while we figure this out. The good news was that while at the vet for the x ray (had to leave her there for 2 hours) they fed her a can of prescription type can food (really mushy, next to no texture) and she ate 3/4 of the can. This led him to try and look into her mouth as best he could with an awake cat to see if she had something weird going on like a cracked tooth or weirdness on her gums but he saw nothing. He did mention that he also can't rule that out but he didn't want to knock her out to get a better look as we didn't know what was wrong yet. The X ray was totally fine; no masses nothing weird except she had a bit of a gas pocket in her stomach. I get them to give me 10 cans of the food and took her home - shes been nibbling on it here and there so she is at least eating, albeit not what I would call full blown eating. She still doesn't drink any straight water yet will pee in the litter box.

Today I get up and check her and the cat box. Pee'd once, pooped twice. And here is where I think we may be onto the real problem; unless the B12 shot or her not eating can do this, the poop is again VERY dark, almost black. This points to some kind of oral/GI bleed that can come from a tumor, ulcer or some kind of infection. I'm going to guess the not eating aspect has to do with pain associated with eating/drinking by either something oral like an abscess or cracked tooth or GI like an ulcer or some sort of foreign object causing havoc and causing a bleed. That's my unprofessional diagnoses at this point.

For the vets:

- Since the CBC and x ray are clear, yet she's eating minimally and not drinking; does a bleed of some kind make sense? This wasn't apparent because she didn't have a BM for a few days so the fact she had black stool wasn't a known thing until really today.

- What's the next step you'd take? Knock her out and check mouth and/or scope her?

- Would a GI issue or any issue causing melana make the cat not want to eat/drink?

- Is giving prednasone and making her want to eat more, going to actually make the problem worse?

My cat would be at another open vet, and I’d be paying whatever holiday price they charge. That’s all I know.

Is there anything about a fecal occult on the bill?

No because she haden't defecated since around Thursday. Friday/Saturday is when I realized what was going on as far as not eating because she was 100% normal otherwise. Makes me wish they could talk. lol

Initially with the CBC and X ray  they were trying to narrow down organ disease, thyroid and tumors/growths. The poop being dark wasn't until she came back after testing and finally ate something at the vets office and then went to the litter box. Like I said I noticed she had one darker than usual poop in the box when I cleaned it on Thursday but didn't think too much into it; the 2 in succession post vet trip/eating is what now has me pointing towards GI bleed.

The only vet around here open currently is the after hours place which I went to once on another occasion and is a total waste of time. It's basically an urgent care for animals where they'll do whatever at 5 times the price to get your animal to live long enough to get to the normal vet in the AM. It's shitty luck that all of this is now coming with Thanksgiving tomorrow and basically everyone makes a 4-5 day weekend out of it.

If she was lethargic, crying, hiding or in pain I'd take her anywhere that was open right now. It kills me to have to wait right now.

You can’t drive to a badass vet far away? I know Utah has some serious distances to cover, but there has to be some serious vets.

I'm in southern Utah. Before making the post, I called the other vet offices locally to see if they can get me in and explained the situation; all were either closed, I got their call service which directed me to the 'emergency vet' or if they were open Saturday, they were booked solid.

This sucks, but she's eating and drinking now at least. Otherwise she's totally normal; if this were something life threatening, I'd go to the ER vet as well as get the lady I personally know at my vet to get the vet on the phone and tell him I don't give a shit that the office is closed. But I don't want to use up that card until I need to.

Just because the stool is dark doesn't mean she has melena.  I suspect the change in food is what is causing the color change in the stool.   Melena has a tar like consistency and has a very particular smell that you can't mistake for anything else.  Generally with melena you are also going to see anemia on the labs so this makes it a bit less likely as well.  If it does look like this you may want to try to get in sooner.  Since everything else looks OK on the labs my main concerns would be pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel disease and GI lymphoma in a cat this age- keeping in mind I haven't actually examined the cat.  You are probably going to need to get an ultrasound done.  The fact that prednisolone was started prior to this may obscure the findings somewhat but it may also make her feel better- that's the treatment for IBD and GI lymphoma.  As an aside fecal occult blood tests aren't reliable in animals.

Hey thanks for the info.

You're right about the stool, there were 2 that were odd and then yesterday/today they looked completely normal. She's also gained some weight and has been drinking water again as well.

As far as an ultrasound, would that find/rule out all 3 of the causes you mentioned? Or if nothing is found on an ultrasound, then what?

It should probably find or rule out all the causes I listed depending on the skill of the person doing the ultrasound, the prednisolone can sometimes make it difficult as it will sometimes decrease the intestinal inflammation.  If they don't find anything then you have to start looking for really rare things.   If the prednisolone is making her feel better than maybe you don't need to do anything.