The $190 Cat April 16, 2005 ~ 9:16 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closed
Moss and parasitic flowers on a tree. Woodstock, NY
I told several people before I went to the vet with Jesse that there had “damn well be something wrong with him.” I got my wish. He had a fever, some sort of infection, and impacted anal glands (or something like that). If I never have to see the vet squeeze my cat’s anal gland again, I will be happy. See, they’re supposed to drain on their own, but sometimes they don’t. And then the cat needs help (read here, “the cat needs the vet to reach up his asshole and squeeze the fucking things, which by the looks of it was every bit as painful as you’d expect”). I felt bad for him, really. He’d probably been in pain for a while, but I didn’t know, cos he’s such a happy ass (pardon the pun) all the time. And how was I supposed to know that warm ears mean a cat has a fever? I thought he just had naturally warm ears (which should tell you that he’s had a fever for a while). I felt like the world’s worst cat owner when all was said and done. And then I got charged $190. For the visit, getting the stuff out of the anal glands, for the two shots they gave him to fight the fever and infection, for the two types of medicine they gave me for him, for the claw clipping they gave him (which is coming in handy when I give him his meds), for the vitamins they gave me because he turned into the original Dandruff Cat due to stress, and for this other stuff they gave me because “sometimes the medicine makes cats foam at the mouth, and this will help with that.”
Yeah, you read that right. “Sometimes,” my ass. The poor cat has foamed at the mouth like Old Yeller both times I’ve tried to give him the shit. Anyone who has a good technique for giving cats liquid meds, please share, because Jesse and I are both dying here. One of us is dying looking like a kitty Cujo, the other is dying covered in cat spit foam. Because it’s all over my house. And I’m still not sure how much medicine I’ve gotten down his little throat.
But enough bitching. I have to tell you the highlight of the vet trip. Since Christmas, Jesse has lost about 3 pounds. He was 15 pounds, yesterday he weighed in at 12. I attributed it to switiching him over to senior food for a while, but him being sick makes more sense. The vet looked at Jess, looked at me, and said “He’s a little overweight.” to which I replied “You should’ve seen him before…I was starting to wonder if he has a tapeworm or something because he’s lost so much.” The vet wasn’t as amused as I was. Nobody ever is…
Pictures of my cat as Cujo will be up soon, if I can capture it.
