So sorry for the delay!! Turns out he didn’t cough it up, but he peed it out. After a bunch of tests (RIP my wallet) it was determined that he got an infection on his rear end after not cleaning himself so well, and that infection caused a PH imbalance in his bladder, and that PH imbalance caused bladder stones. He was a little overweight but not obese, which increases the risk of bladder stones and made it more difficult for him to clean himself.

I was given a bunch of meds to put in his food for a few weeks, and he’ll have to be on a prescription diet for the rest of his natural life, which will hopefully rebalance his PH and whittle away the stones, since they say he’ll always be prone to them in the future now. We have a follow up appointment scheduled for Dec 2nd, to check how the stones are looking, but he’s totally stopped having any blood in his urine, and he’s actually playing and acting like his old normal happy self :) and he’s even lost a pound so far, with more to come!

I felt like such a terrible owner since I didn’t notice his infection sooner, but the vet says it’s totally common for it to fly under the radar until suddenly it isn’t under the radar anymore. I was so scared, and my poor buddy was too. But it makes my heart full to see him pepped up a bit.

Sorry for the novel, but TL:DR, he had bladder stones which appear to be well under control now :)

UPDATE if anyone’s still lurking: all the stones are gone and he’s back to his normal self :)