Yama is who I'm referring to. This darling.
Basically, he has always been a very food-motivated cat--knocking things over, chewing paper, mewing piteously to get us to feed him, etc--until lately, he just... hasn't. We've had to chase him down for meals, and in general he's been a lot more sluggish. I know personality changes can be signs of something more severe, so we made a vet appointment for him yesterday and took him in.
... unfortunately from here on out, everything is cloudy, because Matt was the one who took Yama in, he is not so great at reporting stuff to me, and they didn't give him any paperwork to bring home. I called and talked to a tech today, but what she told me wasn't much more helpful than what Matt told me. Still hoping the doctor will give me a call.
But it sounds like chronic renal failure. Yama's kidney values (I assume urea and creatinine? they didn't say) are elevated, he has an infection, and they're keeping him for a couple of days to re-hydrate him and put him on a special diet. The tech did say that he seemed to be improving since yesterday.
I don't think there's any particular cause for this--they didn't find any blockages--except old age. We don't really know how old Yama is--I always suspected the 1-3 years old estimate they told us when we got him in 2003 was kind of an underestimate--so I don't know how unusual this is or not.
I miss him and want him back home soon :( But from what I've been reading about CRF, it's kind of the beginning of a downward spiral. I'm trying not to think too hard about that...