The beginning of December, Archie gave us quite a scare. He was pooping blood every 5 minutes (it ended up lasting for 5 days). I rushed him to the emergency room, where a few hours later, they hooked him up to an IV of fluids. They ran some tests, but they had no immediate answers for us and sent us home. It was so terrifying and heart-breaking to watch our baby deteriorate. After a day of his illness, he couldn't even get up off the couch. We had to carry him back and forth to the bathroom. There was nothing they could do! On the fifth day, he started to improve and they finally told us that he had e. coli. We feel very lucky that he was able to get better on his own (they don't have a way of treating e. coli, you just have to let it take its course). One of the dangers of having e. coli is that it can cause kidney damage. We've been back in for tests and he has no lasting problems from it. He's a strong boy! As for where it came from, we're not entirely sure. It could have come from anything that he ate, or the deer in the backyard, or another infected person. I personally think it came from the kitties we rescued. They were both so sickly (and one even died), so I think they're the likely culprits.
I was really nervous about how he would take to being hooked up to the IV, but he did a great job. He insisted they put Spiderman stickers over the needle, which I think is a great idea. We love our Archie!
