LUCY

Our kitten hasn't eaten in eleven days (since we got her). We took her to the vet last week, and they said she had a cold. They gave us a four day supply of medicine which we force-fed her. She improved slightly but still refused to eat. This morning I took her back to the vet with the aid of Halley. She had a 41 degree temperature (105.8 degree Fahrenheit!). The vet said it was possible Lucy has some sickness which would be very expensive to treat. First, they would need to run a test to determine if she had the sickness, which I agreed to. It cost 80 yuan and took about five minutes to conclude that she has "viral gastroenteritis", also known as the stomach flu. The treatment for the stomach flu consists of taking Lucy to the vet everyday for four days to be given three shots each visit. The vet said there's only about a 30-40% chance that the treatment will be successful. If she doesn't show signs of improvement after two days, they will stop treatment, and we'll have to have Lucy put to sleep. They say it might cost about two hundred yuan (approximately $30) for the treatment and 50 yuan to have her put to sleep. I asked the vet if it were her cat, what she would do. She said most Chinese would give up and put the cat to sleep figuring that animals aren't worth the expense. Jessica and I, however, have become seriously attached to Lucy in the last eleven days so we decided rather quickly that we're going to fight the flu. Lucy had her first set of shots today. Now we play the waiting game.