The Rose's Grove

Theoden'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.

Video of ocelot kitten at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo learning how to hunt for fish and generally being absurdly adorable.

Enjoy. ♥

Kitty (still unnamed) spent all day locked in the bedroom with her food, water, carrier, and litter box, and some new toys we bought her, because we felt guilty that she'd been living in the bathroom for a week. She was friendly and happy and ate some wet food, and survived her first meeting with Theoden with nary a moment of panic (despite his being a big rude monster and hissing at her twice when she tried to touch noses with him). All in all, it was a Good Day... until about 10:30pm. We'd just decided that it would be nice to let her stay in the bedroom overnight, and The Boy was going to go in there to read before bed... and she'd had an accident on the bed. A messy one.

Fantastic.

So we scramble, get her back into her carrier and into the bathroom with her food and water and toys, and then strip the bed and run everything down to the laundry. Let it never be said that having had bedbugs isn't good for something - our bedclothes and mattress all have nice thick, tightly-woven covers that are well-nigh to waterproof, so the mattress itself was saved, thank goodness. But Kitty's Bad Evening was not done yet! She puked a ball of fur from her mouse-toy in the bathroom, and had a little blood in her urine. Searches on the internet indicate that one time seeing this isn't too much to worry about, but if we see it again it may indicate urinary tract or bladder infection. Luuuuuvely.

...Aaaaand now to go find something to entertain until we go downstairs to switch the laundry into the dryer. I think I'm too sleepy to continue my earlier reading of The Two Towers in French, right now. :P

The kitty previously known around our house as "Little Dude," turned out, in the course of a visit to the vet today... to be Little Dudette. Yes, after 25 years of cat ownership, I am apparently still not reliably capable of sexing young cats. My one mitigating plea is that she was not cooperative about my attempt to check under her tail, and that she wiggles a lot whenever I tried. Ahem. Anyway. The really great news is, she's healthy, and she was apparently spayed at some point (which is good, because although the vet gave us a really wonderful steep discount for having rescued her, as soon as ninjascript told me "she's a girl," I thought "oh, crap, that's going to make getting her fixed a lot more expensive and please tell me she isn't pregnant, she's way too skinny and malnourished to be pregnant..." She's not. Everything's fine.

She did break her leg at some point, and it healed weird. I'd thought there was something funny about the way she stuck out one leg while she slept, but I've seen perfectly healthy cats with weirder sleeping habits, so I hadn't paid much attention. No harm done, she'll just a bit walk funny all her life.

The Boy also spoke with one of our neighbors while he was taking her out to the zip-car, and they recognized her and said they'd seen her around for a few weeks. A few weeks. In the parking lot of an apartment building right next to one of the busiest streets in Seattle. This poor cat has been starving and living in a dangerous area, and has been ignored for weeks by people who saw her, but apparently couldn't be assed to do a thing about it. Seriously? If you're afraid to deal with it on your own, call the Humane Society. They will send people out with humane traps to catch her, and they'll do their best to take care of her. I can't help thinking it's better than leaving her alone, hungry, and cold on a city street. I did not have a hard time catching this cat, all things considered. It took me maybe 15 minutes of quiet determination and patience. On some level, she wanted to be caught - she was desperate to be touched and petted. I can't believe people saw her and didn't do anything.

So! Today after class, ninjascript (aka The Boy) and I got a ZipCar and went out to Ikea for some shelving units to outfit the office and living room. We stopped off at Fry's, too, to get thumb-drives. After that, we pulled into our parking lot to pick up some boxes we'd promised to nekokoban for her upcoming move... when we saw a tiny, skinny grey cat dart out from under the truck next to the ZipCar spot. We stopped, kitty zipped back under the truck... and I began to panic. Our apartment building, particularly the side that part of the parking lot faces, is on a very busy city street, and this kitty had no collar and looked like he hadn't eaten in days, if not longer. I got out of the car to try to see if I could see him, and he walked toward me, cried, and then walked away... and then walked back, crying again. Definitely no collar, but definitely not feral, and we definitely couldn't leave him there.

( Details of the Slightly Panicked Efforts to Rescue Kitty, and PICTURES of the Resultant Kitty )

So now we have a teenage-kitten-type-cat in a little carrier in our bathroom with little bowls of food and water. He's crying on and off, but he quiets down whenever I go sit with him for a while, so I think it's more that he's upset about the cage than anything else. So far, we think he's eaten a few of the treats but not the actual food. Unfortunately, we're at our cat limit for the apartment, so he's going to have to go to the shelter tomorrow. I'm relieved to know he'll be off the street, but I can already tell it's going to break my heart to hand him over to a shelter - he's a gorgeous little guy, still almost a kitten, and he's so desperate for love and attention.

I'll be good of course. Can't have an illegal kitty in the apartment, no matter how cute he is. I just really hope he finds a good home. He looks like a really great little guy.

Important Question, though: I've never had to keep a cat overnight if they weren't... you know, my cat. We've given him food and water, but I don't know how we're going to give him a litter box. I think we're going to want to keep him in the bathroom, so we'll need to be able to go in and out without letting him out (or our cats in), so to me that sounds like Kitty gets to stay in the carrier. But what can we possibly use to give him something to use the bathroom on in there?

Problem solved. I gave up on keeping him in the carrier and gave him a shallow cardboard box with litter in it... in which he immediately flopped over to beg petting. I think that had more to do with being desperate for petting than not knowing what the box is for, but we'll see. And he has a towel in the carrier, now, for him to sleep on.