Warning--some may find this entry unpleasant to read.  For those of us with pets or very small children, reading and talking about this stuff just doesn't bother us any more--we become immune.

Hobbes had been doing very, very well, hence the lack of entries in this blog (no entries means nothing to report, which is always good!)  Life in and out of the box was moving along nicely.  Unfortunately, about three weeks ago, Hobbes began to have very soft stool.  I say unfortunately because he also has very long fur--I'll say no more.  This has happened to Hobbes before, so we just monitored it, and hosed off the yard when necessary.  But then Tom noticed blood in the stool.  Very unpleasant, although we were fairly sure it was probably just a touch of colitis.  Sasha will have bouts of colitis on occasion, and while startling, it is easily treated.  So we called our trusty vet Mark, who had us put Hobbes on Imodium.

Unfortunately, no luck.  So Hobbes had to make a trip to the vet's office--the first in many, many months.  Mark took a blood sample, which he sent off to a lab.  While Hobbes pancreas is just fine (yeay), he has inflated levels of folate, a symptom of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).  That means that the bacteria levels in his small intestines--the section that connects the stomach with the colon--is inflated.  That can be caused by lack of muscle activity to push matter, and along with it bacteria, through the system.  Lack of muscle activity in this area might also allow bacteria from the colon to move backward through the intestines, back into the small intestines.  Wow, this sounds surprisingly familiar--sorta like megaesophagus!

Unfortunately, trying to manage Hobbes' diarrhea may not be easy.  At this point he is on a med to try and regulate the bacteria level in his intestines, but it doesn't seem to be working.  Mark thinks this might be caused by an auto-immune reaction to his food.  That would be a disaster, since it has taken us so long to get into a food production down to a routine.  Whatever it is, we will try everything we can in order to avoid the next step, which would be a biopsy, and perhaps even surgery.