feline excitement
Dec. 11th, 2017 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseTheoden's had a cold for about a week, and last Friday I was worried about him so I got a Saturday appointment at our regular vet. Except by Saturday morning, he seemed to be doing better, and Random (the other cat) had developed a recurrence of a swollen eye that has been showing up on and off for a few weeks, so we switched the appointment to him since he was overdue for a checkup anyway.
Well. At least this time the vet was prepared for what a nightmare-patient Random is (they have to bring out the big gauntlets they use for ferals, and do everything but the very basic exam back in the "pet-parents don't get to see what's happening" area)... and he has conjunctivitis, so he came home with eye drops that he has to have three times a day for ten days. Okay, fine.
Except then Sunday Theo's cold started getting worse again. And then today he started coughing and being really lethargic and not wanting to eat, and Theo is the kind of cat who consistently starts bothering us to feed him two hours before his food times, so if he doesn't want to eat, you know it's serious. So we call the vet, and the vet says, yeah, that sounds worrying enough that, since we're closing, you should go to the emergency vet.
So we coax the grumpy, stuffy, snotty, wheezing, coughing, miserable fifteen-year-old cat into his carrier and grab the folder with all his paperwork and rush him to the emergency vet, where I start crying a little because they take him away in the back for triage without me, but not I have to initial whether we want him to be DNR or to have chest compressions and other CPR if he codes. Which of course is unlikely in this situation, but this cat and I have been together for thirteen years, and I know he's not going to live forever but by I panicked when I realized that if something did go wrong it might happen when I wasn't with him, and that thought wasn't okay.
Fortunately none of that was an issue. They didn't have to give him oxygen, he doesn't have a fever, and he didn't need antibiotics. He's just got a viral infection. So they gave him a fluid IV and gave us some ideas about how to coax him to eat more, and I'm going to keep locking him in the bathroom with me while I take showers to try to clear out his sinuses a bit. And keep giving Random his drops. And try to keep them from infecting each other if possible.
The tech was really sweet and said one of the girls in the back knew who Theoden's namesake was and was telling everyone all about him. That made me happy. As did getting Theo to eat what he'd leftover from his dinner after we got home.
Well. At least this time the vet was prepared for what a nightmare-patient Random is (they have to bring out the big gauntlets they use for ferals, and do everything but the very basic exam back in the "pet-parents don't get to see what's happening" area)... and he has conjunctivitis, so he came home with eye drops that he has to have three times a day for ten days. Okay, fine.
Except then Sunday Theo's cold started getting worse again. And then today he started coughing and being really lethargic and not wanting to eat, and Theo is the kind of cat who consistently starts bothering us to feed him two hours before his food times, so if he doesn't want to eat, you know it's serious. So we call the vet, and the vet says, yeah, that sounds worrying enough that, since we're closing, you should go to the emergency vet.
So we coax the grumpy, stuffy, snotty, wheezing, coughing, miserable fifteen-year-old cat into his carrier and grab the folder with all his paperwork and rush him to the emergency vet, where I start crying a little because they take him away in the back for triage without me, but not I have to initial whether we want him to be DNR or to have chest compressions and other CPR if he codes. Which of course is unlikely in this situation, but this cat and I have been together for thirteen years, and I know he's not going to live forever but by I panicked when I realized that if something did go wrong it might happen when I wasn't with him, and that thought wasn't okay.
Fortunately none of that was an issue. They didn't have to give him oxygen, he doesn't have a fever, and he didn't need antibiotics. He's just got a viral infection. So they gave him a fluid IV and gave us some ideas about how to coax him to eat more, and I'm going to keep locking him in the bathroom with me while I take showers to try to clear out his sinuses a bit. And keep giving Random his drops. And try to keep them from infecting each other if possible.
The tech was really sweet and said one of the girls in the back knew who Theoden's namesake was and was telling everyone all about him. That made me happy. As did getting Theo to eat what he'd leftover from his dinner after we got home.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 09:29 pm (UTC)(If I worked at a vet I'd be the one gleeing over Theoden's name. :D There was at least one human Arwen in our patient database when I worked for a GP, though I don't think I ever met her. She would have been born in the late 70s, which seems about right!)
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 09:36 pm (UTC)People are always pronouncing it 'Thee-oh-den" which... okay, I get it, that's how Theodore is pronounced, but it still makes me sad. And one person said "Oh, like from Game of Thrones!" *facepalms*
ARWEN. ♥ I love how you can track nerdy names through the decades. Someone told me there was a Tiberius in her kid's class, which put the kid being born shortly after the Star Trek reboot movie, and we had a good laugh at that.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-13 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-13 12:14 am (UTC)I'm not 100% sure about how it would be pronounced in Old English (it really is a word in Old English, meaning "leader of the people"), but I use the pronunciation from the movie - soft th (so a thorn, þ, in Old English or IPA, not an eth, ð) followed by ay (like an accent aigu é in French) and then oh-den. Maybe I should just use the accent - Théoden!
...Sorry, WORD NERD. XD