Wednesday, May 17, 2006

A Near Cat-astrophe

The SU and I were going to bed last night and our one cat, Stewart, had beaten us to the bed as usual. But very unlike Stewart he didn't start purring the moment we drew near. The SU started petting him but he seemed a little, I dunno, odd. Odder than usual even. We knew there was a problem when rubbing his belly, usually a favorite, caused him to growl at us. At 11 o'clock we rushed him to the all-night emergency vet clinic near our house. The vet said he had a urinary blockage and his bladder couldn't empty. They had to anesthtize him, put a catheter in his... uh... you know, and give him an I.V. drip to get some fluids back into him to flush him out. We picked him up from the emergency clinic this morning and took him to his regular vet where he'll most likely need to stay until tomorrow, assuming he can pee on his own again then. The vet said that when this sort of blockage happens if the animal doesn't get medical attention within 24 hours they generally die. The animal, not the vet. That would be one hell of an occupational hazzard. If Stewart had fallen asleep anywhere, ANYWHERE, but on our bed...
It's sort of a funny story about Stewart really. A month ago we gave him to a friend of ours on a trial basis. She really likes him a lot. Now don't go getting all up in my grill for giving our cat away. See, we have 2 dogs and 3 other cats and Stewart is a bit of an attention whore and he likes to terrorize the other cats and wake us up at 4:30 in the morning and do a ton of other things I could live without. The SU and I thought it might be a great thing for Stewart to have a house all to himself with an owner who would do nothing but dote on him. I thought it might be nice to sleep until 6. This worked fine for 2 weeks and then Stewart started peeing on the floor instead of just in his litter box. This is something Stewart had never done before. After a few more days our friend decided, understandably, that even though she adored Stewart it just wasn't gonna work out. We thought Stewart was just revolting against being ditched, errr, re-adopted. So we took him back. He seemed fine for a few days and then this happens. It certainly explains his sudden uncontrollable urinations.
Anyway, to make a long story just pretty long instead the SU has put a ban on giving away any more pets, we're about a mortgage payment poorer and we'll once again have the most annoying & aggrevating cat in history. And I'm so happy he's gonna be ok.

2 comments:

lkmanitou said...

OMG! I'm glad that Stewart is okay now. Poor widdle kittums :( No wonder he took to peeing in the middle of rooms and wasn't his attention grubbing self during DnD!

Anonymous said...

I was SOOOO GLAD to have him home! I feel bad for being glad things didn't work out for our friend since I missed him (I guess with friends like me, who needs enemies?). And now this happens. And I miss having him here again.