We will never regret bringing Punk into our home.  That being said, here's the medical history of this sweet little cat somebody dumped in my mother's yard:

• First vet visit -- Doodle gets roundworm treatment, because she probably has them.  She gets all her shots because she probably hasn't had them.  She's sneezing and a little runny around the eyes, so the vet gives us a series of amoxicillin.  The sneezing clears up shortly thereafter.  She also has soft stools, but we put off worrying about that because the vet encourages us to put it off, saying she might take a while to adjust to eating packaged food, if she's been living 'off the economy' for any length of time.  Five and a half pounds for an six-to-eight month cat.  I suppose that might be normal, I don't know -- the only reference we have is Tink, who already weighed at least six pounds when we had her spayed, at four months.
  
• Second vet visit -- for routine boosters for the shots she received the first time.  The front office of the clinic is full, including a couple with a dog that looks like a pit bulldog that barks at every other human being and animal in the place and tugs at his leash energetically the whole time we are waiting.   Doodle still has diarrhea.  She has also been digging at her ears, and there's a little brown goo in them, but we haven't seen any mites; the vet uses the otoscope and says (as we suspected) there aren't any.  He gives us a tube of ear lotion to treat Punk for a yeast infection.  It clears up, but I decide -- on retrospect -- the attending vet was really crappy and dismissive with me when I said she still had diarrhea after almost three months.  Didn't answer my questions about her diet or any environmental problems that might be causing her loose stools.  Shoved a bottle of kaolin suspension in my hand and said, 'this will do it.'  Exit one veterinary clinic (which shall remain nameless).
  
• Find a new vet clinic, with a recommendation from someone on a cats newsgroup.
  
• We don't go to the vet with the next thing, but Doodle develops a 'pouty' chin.  It looks like an allergic reaction, so we change from plastic to stainless steel feeding bowls.  Her chin goes down shortly, and it has never seemed to itch or bother her much, and certainly doesn't slow down her eating, so we let it go.  While we are researching new vet clinics (in the winter, we feel like we can be at leisure to find a good one.  Doodle isn't going to go into heat until the weather warms up), we try feeding her (and Tink, of course, because we can't restrict Doodle's diet otherwise) an expensive "all natural" lamb and rice food at about twenty bucks a bag.  Both of them love it.  Within a week, both of them have loose stools.  Tink has never had a loose stool in her two-year-long life.  We go through two bags of it, hoping once they settle in, the loose stools will pass.   By six weeks, we see one healthy cat and one reasonably healthy cat with diarrhea become two cats with diarrhea.  We decide it would be a good time to switch to Iams.   Within a week, Tink no longer has diarrhea.  Doodle, however, still does.
  
• We take Doodle in for a general exam and ask to schedule her for spaying.  Vet says not if she has chronic diarrhea, since it might be a parasite or some other health condition, he wants to try to take care of it first.   Hallelujah -- somebody who is at least concerned about it.  Says her ears look fine, and she seems to be over her respiratory infection.  He tries a broad-spectrum antibiotic for the diarrhea.  She weighs just over six pounds already, and her coat is much improved on better food.
  
• After the antibiotics are gone and she's been on the Iams a few weeks, the diarrhea has cleared up (woo-hoo!), and we are coming down on the wire for warm weather, so we schedule her spay.  I ask the new vet about the swollen chin.   Vet says it just happens with some cats, might be allergies but if it doesn't bother her, it probably won't be worth treating too aggressively.  I do some research myself and come to the same conclusion -- it doesn't make her itch or cause her to eat less.  The only real treatment, other than what has already been done, is steroids, which will destroy her kidneys over a period of time.  Since the condition is, apparently, chronic and none too serious at this point, we elect to reserve that option for times she really seems bugged by it, if there are any.
  
• We take her in for her spay appointment.  Since I'm not working, Tony drops her off on his way to work in the morning and I pick her up in the afternoon.  Within hours, she's already up and around, trying to jump on our laps.   She eats some steamed fish and rice and promptly pukes it back up on the kitchen carpet, then goes to the kibble bowl and starts eating dry food.  That stays down, and she seems delighted.  She never picks at a single stitch.
  
• Little white crawly things are coming out of Doodle's ass.  We call the vet and get a dose of Droncit (NEVER BUY OVER THE COUNTER WORMERS; many vets will sell you the prescription pills without a visit, if you can get hold of a worm to show them, or take in a stool sample). 
  
• Doodle has lumps on the backs of her legs.  Trot her to the clinic (different vet this time, but so far we have had no unsatisfactory treatment or advice from anyone who's seen her).  Vet says probably more allergic reaction to something.  She probably licked them too much, they appear to be infected.   Series of Amox again, shot of cortisone.  Within a week, everything's Doodle again.
  
• A few weeks after the legs episode, we notice Doodle's eyes look funny in the light.  Fearing she might have hit her head, we take her to the vet again.  Vet says maybe she hit her head, maybe it's some spontaneous reaction, it does happen from time to time.  Another shot of cortisone, plus antibacterial eyedrops and a pupil dilator, in case there's edema within the eye.   This, too, passes within a week or so.
  
• At this point, I'm convinced Doodle either has feline herpes or the eyes are all part of the allergic thing.  Not that it matters -- we've had her for over six months, now, and there's no doubt Tink's already been exposed to everything possible after being dumped at a shelter as a kitten and getting out and wandering a suburban neighborhood for two days, so whatever she has, we'll ride out.   Tink was inoculated for everything under the sun when we took her to the vet after we adopted her, anyway.
  
• Summer -- mostly, nothing.  One chin-swell that clears up after a week, no itching or overgrooming, no eye trouble.  Doodle is her usual munchy, loony, happy self.
  
• Fall is coming, and the eyes go again.  We take her again and see a different vet at the same clinic who gives Doodle a shot of a different kind of steroid (not as powerful as the one the other vet gave her).  Says some cats just have periodic problems with their eyes, and that we can bring her in if we're worried, but unless she's suffering some discomfort (the only discomfort Doodle suffers during these episodes is our trying to hold her down to look at her eyes and the trips to the vet), all they can really do is give her a shot.  As before, they do a dye drip on her eye to make sure there's no corneal abrasion or ulcer, and there isn't.  Her eyes don't water or run, she doesn't show any signs of a respiratory infection, and the whole thing may, indeed, be either spontaneous or part of an allergic reaction.
  

I've looked into this so many times over the past year, between the eyes and the eosinophilic granulomas, I'm convinced it's just Doodle.   Maybe she's allergic to something here in the house -- my vote is for PVC, since we have vinyl replacement windows and she spends so much time rubbing up against them.   She's also fond of plastic bags -- likes to dig on them, lie on them, crawl into and out of them.  She doesn't seem terribly disturbed by the occasional swellings or the eyes looking funny (they must only look funny from our side), and there's no way in the world we could possibly remove all the PVC from her environment.  As it's chronic, and goes away for weeks to months at a time, I don't think it's a food allergy -- she's been eating the same thing since about last January, and the stuff has come and gone with no particular regularity.  None of the vets has seemed to think that was the problem, either.

Autumn 2001:

Going on our second anniversary with Doodle.  We had a 'you bastards moved the furniture and blocked my favorite window, so I'm going to puke for three solid days, until you take me to the vet for a $200 observation visit, refuse to throw up at the clinic and eat like you've been starving me the whole time I'm there, then refuse to eat the prescription food I've eaten at the vet's for a whole day and puke again as soon as you get me home' episode back in the spring of '01, but as soon as the furniture was all back in place and we put Doodle on hairball prevention food, as usual, she was fine again.  She still gets a swollen foot or puffy chin now and again, and sometimes her eyes still look funny, but her eyesight seems fine, she eats enough and seems happy.  What can you do?  If taking her to the vet does more damage than whatever's wrong with her, it seems almost sadistic to take her unless she's oozing bodily fluids and twitching.  Doodle wins.

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