Cat tale

My cat Orange had some kind of health crisis today and we rushed him off to the vet. He came through the cat door and started wailing in this terrible low throaty yowl, over and over, even after we came in to see what he wanted, then staggered about ten feet and flopped down. He kept licking his lips but would't eat or drink or do anything, just lay there. Eventually he got up and staggered and fell again, so we took him in, making it through rush hour just in time to get there before the vet closed. Orange is a very old cat--we have no idea how old--and clearly arthritic in the hind legs, but we thought maybe he was having a stroke or a slipped disk or some other horrible thing. By the time we got there he was a bit better, still not walking well. The vet took his blood pressure (had to shave a little of his tail fur--if you're not scared to death, it's pretty funny to see a little kitty blood pressure cuff around a tail, especially on a dignified old cat)and he was fine. She poked around and looked at his stomach and paws and legs--nothing wrong that she could see. She gave him some kind of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory stuff made from milk, said she thought the problem was something to do with his spine, probably some nerves maybe pressing against a vertebra. Ouch. But she said he wasn't in extreme pain. By the time we got home, he was walking ok, and can now jump up on chairs.

We don't dare let him out the cat door, and he's very frustrated. But did deign to use the litter box, which we put right in front of the locked cat door to make everything clear. Incarceration won't be too hard on him since he sleeps 23 1/2 hours a day, taking only very brief food, bathroom, and purr breaks.