funny. That one wasn’t easy to write.
Not so much with the “in distress.”
I kept an eye on him, but he very much did not appear to be in any kind of distress, unless looking like a big dork, scampering around the living room, and keeping an eye on Fred in case Fred might suddenly feel the need to hand out food is his way of acting distressed.
Saturday morning Fred went and got groceries, then headed out to Smallville to meet up with a guy delivering lumber. I stayed in Madison until about 10 minutes before 9, then popped Joe Bob into the cat carrier and carried him to the vet. They were only taking drop-offs, so I dropped him off and left my cell phone number to call when he was ready to go.
I went home until about 10, then decided to go on out to Smallville, figuring that even if they called in the next hour or so, I’d just tell them I’d pick him up before they closed at 5.
Well. They didn’t call and didn’t call, so finally after Fred and I made a trip to Lowe’s to return a thousand different things we needed to return, and bought a thousand items we needed to buy, I called them on the way back to the house. At this point it was 3:30, and the receptionist said that he wouldn’t be ready ’til 4:30 and I could just show up at 4:30 and he’d be ready to go.
We went back to the house and did a few things, and I decided to go ahead and head out to the vet. I got in the car, and just as I was about to put the car in gear, my cell phone rang. The vet’s assistant had some more questions about Joe Bob, and kept asking if he’d been outside in the last few days. Finally I told her we’d had him a month and he had never been outside, and then she asked me to hold on, because the vet wanted to talk to me.
The vet told me that they’d put Joe Bob in a cage with a litter box and water, and wanted to see if he’d pee so she wouldn’t have to get a urine sample direct from the source. He didn’t pee and didn’t pee, so she used a needle to the abdomen –
(go ahead and scream and run around in sympathy. I sure did.)
and his bladder was very very small and the urine was dark brown with blood in it. What concerned her was that pretty much every time a cat gets a needle to the bladder they immediately have to pee afterward. When they put Joe Bob back in the cage, he didn’t even think about peeing. Which, to the vet, indicated that there was a blockage.
“And I’ve never ever seen a cat with a blockage whose bladder is this tiny,” she said.
I was opening my mouth to say “And this means.. what?” when there was an excited voice in the background, and the vet said “Oh! He just peed! Yay!”
She said she hadn’t had a chance to spin down the urine sample, but she’d do it and call me back, but since I was on my way out there anyway, I told her I’d be there in a little while and would talk to her then.
When I got to the vet’s, forty minutes later, she was just then looking at Joe’s urine via a microscope, so I waited and watched dogs being groomed. It turns out that ol’ Joe is loaded up with crystals in his urine and needed medicine and a new special diet. Also, I needed to keep an eye on him to make sure he’s not acting distressed, and still using the litter box.
When we got home, I took all the old cat food away from the cats and put them all on the special prescription cat food I’d gotten for Joe (I got a nifty “prescription” card so that I can buy more when I need it; the pet store won’t sell the prescription food to you without the doofy special card, either. I feel so special.). I figure it’s a matter of locking Joe away in a room by himself where he only has access to the one kind of food, or switch the diet for all of them, and I opted for switching all of them, because he has a pretty good time playing with Sugarbutt and Tom Cullen.
(Y’all just SHUT UP. No, we’re not adopting him!)
So it seems that he’ll be with us for at least two more weeks ’til he finishes his medication.
Sunday morning Fred woke me up to let me know that he’d gone downstairs to find that someone (we suspect either Joe Bob or Spot) had pulled a chicken bone out of the garbage can and chewed part of it up. Which means, no doubt, that splinters of chicken bone are working their way through SOMEONE’s intestinal tract and in two days one or the other of them will die from chicken bone splinters poking through their intestines. Or whatever it is that happens when cats eat chicken bones.
According to something Fred found online, it takes two days for symptoms to start, so we get another day of eyeballing Spot and Joe and making sure there’s no vomiting and/ or bloody diarrhea. Also, we need to make sure Joe’s getting enough water in (I made Fred squirt a couple of syringes of water down Joe’s throat last night just to be sure) and is using the litter box.
You know, KIDS aren’t this much work. Maybe we should jettison the cats and have a couple of kids.
God knows that even if he lived that long, Mister Boogers wouldn’t even consider taking care of me in my old age.
Apparently something was going on out there.
Previously
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Sounds like corporate logic, to me – cable guys having to service DVRs when they don’t know anything at all about them.
2003: Uninspired.
2002: Dude, what the fuck? They don’t have mirrors on Boston Public?
2001: My husband, Narcissus.
2000: No entry.]]>