Firsts

I finally handled a possible medical issue with my cat calmly. It was a miracle.

On Tuesday night, after I put my cat down on her cat tower, I noticed there was a little bug on my shoulder. It could’ve come off my cat, for sure. It fell off my shoulder and I bent down to look for it. I found out and tried to balance it on my finger and take a photo of it to send to the vet (because I’m crazy). Unfortunately it fell again and I wasn’t able to find it again so I vacuumed the area.

Then I Googled what a flea looked like. It looked like the bug that I had been balancing on my finger. Then I called the vet. 

I calmly explained to the nurse who answered the phone that I had been administering the anti-flea medicine every month, as prescribed. I told her that I brushed her regularly, albeit with the Furminator and not a flea brush, and wasn’t seeing any fleas. And also that I checked the skin on her neck and didn’t see any fleas or flea feces. 

The nurse told me that if I have been giving her the flea medicine regularly, and if it was in fact a flea, it was on it’s way to die and not to worry. She also suggested that it could’ve been something other than a flea. 

I kept checking her neck periodically throughout the night and giving her extra pets. But I was proud. Mostly of myself. For not losing my shit. #firsts

This is Playbill’s “calm the fuck down, human” face.

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First Vet Trip Success – Sort Of

I noticed a couple of little moving white rice-looking things on Playbill’s butt on Monday night/Tuesday morning and thought that probably wasn’t normal. I called two vets on Tuesday morning and emailed the adoption organization that I rescued her from. I decided to go to Uptown Veterinary Associates because the other vet had awful reviews (one was, “you overlooked my cats cancer and I had to put her to sleep!”) and Uptown had great reviews. 

J came over to help me load her into her new cat carrier which I’d picked up earlier that day at Petco and it was a battle. She’s a shelter cat so, of course, she was going to be freaked out at the idea of going into a carrier again. We both felt so bad and told her over and over that she was coming back with us and not to be scared. Of course, she didn’t understand so, that’s one drawback to the Cats Not Kids lifestyle. We eventually got her in and called an Uber, which she hated even more. Anjellicle Cats had said that she hated the taxi ride over to my apartment and she hated this car ride too. She mewed like she was being tortured the entire time. Again, we felt so bad.

A few minutes later, we got to Uptown Vets and checked in and it was only a few minutes until we were placed in a room. The offices were bright and clean and they had an office Chihuahua and three office cats. A nurse came in to weigh her and get her details and a few minutes later the vet came in. Playbill was pretty calm by this time. I kept my hand on her, petting her the whole time. The doctor was so great. She gave Playbill lots of catnip and scratches. She said Playbill was on the high end weight-wise for a cat her size. Oh man, I’d always though she was small! 

They told us that she had the most perfect shaped “cat face” that they’d seen in a while and that she was their star patient for the day in terms of behavior (admittedly they said the bar had been set kind of low by other animals that day). Another technician not involved came in and said, “Hello! I saw those eyes looking at me through the door and I had to come in!” Yes, she has huge Pixar eyes. 

I gave the vets her stool sample and they gave her some medicine for her worms. They also gave me monthly anti-flea medicine to put on her to keep her from getting bit and getting worms again. 

She hated the car ride back, but a little less, I think, maybe because she knew she was going home. She flew out of the cat carrier in my apartment and jumped on the bed, giving me a “I’m never going in there again”-look. It wasn’t a cheap vet visit by any means, but it was worth it. 

Poverty & Pets

Last week a friend of mine found on the street and rescued a beautiful, elderly (12 year old) cat that she saw on her block one morning. She suspected it belong to people in a ‘problem’ building on her block but found him, took him to the vet with help from the shelter that she knows, and got him help. 

The condition he was in was so, so heart breaking. He was dirty, not fixed (so he was knocking up strays all over the neighborhood), five pounds underweight, had breathing problems (because his humans smoke who-knows-what in their apartment), and had cuts on his face and neck (probably from being outside, not from his humans). He stayed at the vet two nights (getting fixed, getting his shots, leukemia testing, etc) and then my friend took him home for a night to her apartment where she gave him a bath.

Unfortunately, the social worker that came in to help said that since there were no signs of abuse, they technically couldn’t remove the cat from the home just because he was neglected.

What?! If this were a child, neglect would be more than enough reason to remove it from the home. I was absolutely baffled. The humans of this cat have a four year old son, which is even more worrisome. Apparently the cat is a great source of happiness to the child, which would make it heartbreaking to take the cat away.

My friend argued that just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to have pets. I told her we’d have to agree to disagree, because I fully believe that if you have trouble taking care of yourself, don’t bring an animal into the mix and make it suffer, too. I don’t think that is a very unreasonable thing to think. 

I know there are endless cycles of poverty that I don’t know the half of because I’ve never experienced them, but I do know that I’d feel awful having a pet if I couldn’t take care of it properly. If you can’t feed and take your cat to the vet once a year, you shouldn’t be allowed to have it. End of story.

On the flip side, if you’re rich and neglect your pet, you also shouldn’t be allowed to have them either. If you’re going to adopt an animal, make sure you can properly take care of it, otherwise, don’t bother. 

My friend is going to check up on the cat and try to convince his humans that they should give it up, but who knows what’ll happen. I hope the cat is treated better this time though.