Well, that was a waste of $200 plus taxi fare!

(With apologies to Bellen, as I'm doing a copy and paste here of part my email reply to him, in order to update folks on Nicki.)

I ended up taking Nicki to the emerg clinic last night -- I had left work mid-afternoon and called my regular vet, had a 3:45PM Friday appt at his regular clinic for a check (for my own peace of mind), but could NOT get a cab to save my soul. The night taxi driver told me all the cab companies were swamped in the afternoon (we have 3) with the university and college students heading home for reading week. Duh. I knew that...but forgot they'd all be taking taxis. Heaven knows the bus I caught was filled with kids heading to the train station...guess the rest of them wanted cabs instead!

Anyway, I took Nicki because he had a huge sneezing fit around 9:30PM and then seemed to have to breathe through his mouth a bit (no panting or distress, just me being super-paranoid). Needless to say it was a waste of $200 plus $34 cab fare because he checked out fine: temperature fine, eyes, ears, heart, lungs, gums and tongue normal, etc. NO sneezing from the time he got in the carrier to go, to the time he came home, with the exception of one tiny snuffle when I put him back in the carrier at the clinic. And AS SOON as he got into the house, he started sneezing and has been sneezing since.

Now, don't try to tell me it's not something environmental, whether just unduly dry air, dust, whathaveyou. The emerg vet felt he's having a flare-up of the Herpes virus, of course, but if so, why only sneeze here? I'm stumped. I've even thought to check my furnace filter (just replaced a few weeks ago), but that's fine and doesn't need to be changed at this time. And apparently my re-washing everything in sight without the use of any scented fabric softeners isn't helping one bit.

::Headdesk::

I'm rather sorry I ever started that Prednisolone, as it seems to have opened a can of worms. I do have a homeopathic remedy for asthma/bronchial problems on order from PetAlive.com, though. Should take a couple of weeks (if I'm lucky), and Nicki ought to be off the Pred by then, so I can try this product instead.

Someone please cross their fingers and send some good energy to my poor boy.  :-/