Well, today has been a very black day. Over the weekend I noticed some changes in Shadow's behavior. She was more irritable and kind of grumpy. Then last night things just got really bad. She was staggering around, didn't want to be touched, she was very lethargic and then she was trying to use the litterbox and not able to. Plus she was really quiet and when she did meow it just sounded like she was hurting. The last two nights she hasn't slept in my room and this morning we made an appointment and took her to the vet. He took some x-rays and did some blood tests and told us he would call with the results this evening. I hoped it wasn't anything serious, my thought it might be a thyroid problem, like Pebbles. The vet called at 5:45 with some very bad news. He said Shadow has advanced kidney disease and her kidneys are starting to shut down. He told us we could bring her in and they would give her IV fluids to try and help her improve and get her to start eating again. Unfortunately her chances of improving aren't high, they're less than 50%. We're giving it 4 days on the IV fluids and if she does not improve we are going to bring her home and make a decision. As I'm sure you can imagine, I'm not taking this very well. Shadow is my baby and if she doesn't get better it's going to be real hard for me. I knew this was going to happen eventually, I just wasn't expecting it to happen so soon. Not a great way to start the year