This weekend I went to visit a friend for his birthday. What he neglected to tell me beforehand was that since the last time I had visited him and his fiance, two cats from their neighborhood had adopted them. One was an adorable playful kitten (not even a year old) and the other was a beautiful gray pregnant mama cat.
What’s the problem, you ask? Well, I’m allergic to cats is the problem. I have a general allergy to them in that I’ll start sneezing and having major nose leakage. In addition, if any of their catness gets near my eyes, they’ll swell up and itch like crazy.
Now of course, it wouldn’t have been too bad if I had any modicum of self-control around cats and kittens. The problem is, I’m an animal lover. I think little kittens are adorable and I can’t help but pet them.
For example, I was sitting on the edge of the couch and my hand was dangling below it. The kitten would hide in the bathroom for a bit, then tear out across the floor and ninja attack my hand, then scamper back into the bathroom to prepare for his next assault. How am I supposed to resist snuggling a kitten as cute as that? Or when the pregnant mama cat jumps into my lap, sits down, and looks at me as if to say “Why aren’t you petting me yet?” I just have to pet her, don’t I?
Needless to say, this past weekend was hell. My eyes were burning and watery all weekend, I was sneezing and coughing up a storm. I swear I went through about 4 packs of tissues or so. I’m back home now but my chest still hurts and my throat is sore.
Cats are like my own personal League of Supervillains. A cute, adorable League of Supervillains, but a league nonetheless. I bet their planning their next feline assault on me at their secret headquarters as I type this up.
Sad thing is, I’ll probably fall for their next cunning plan too.
Right now they are the bane of my existance as well. I love them more than anything but the $902 vet bill I got today made me gasp out loud and then sob quietly to myself on the walk home.
One does what one must to honor the Feline Overlords, Pollux Oil. In your case that means sniffling and crying and generally suffering reduced vision and extreme itching. Be glad you don’t have the same penance pbbth does.
Holy shit, pbbth, that’s a lot of cash. What’s going on with your boys?
Joey has been having trouble urinating and has been peeing on the floor instead of in the box. I took him to the emergency vet for this in July (that is not included in the $902, btw, that was a separate $400) and according to my regular vet today the meds they gave him at the emergency place were actually for people and were not designed to help with inflamed urinary tracts in cats, which is apparently why he has experienced this relapse. He is doing an ultrasound, x-ray, blood work, and other stuff right now and I am to go back at 6 to pick him up and find out what I need to do to keep him healthy in the future. I put it on the discover card and will spend the next year paying off the damn near $2000 in total vet bills between the two cats for the last 3 months and they are officially not allowed to get sick ever again in their lives.
My shelter cat has cost me close to $2000 since last december. The fees of getting him, multiple doctor visits and a two day stay in the hospital. Now turns out he may have asthma. Little bastard is lucky we adore him.
I don’t know. I haven’t tried anything because I’m not normally around cats that often (for obvious reasons). I’m sure there’s some sort of anti-allergy medication I could take, but my contact with the adorable overlords is so infrequent I never really thought about it.
And :eek: at the pet expenses, pbbth and Antinor01. Clearly you need to start charging them rent.
back in the days that i did not have to take allergy meds full time; i would have a bottle of otc on hand for the times i would visit humans that were cat owned.
you could get a 5 pack of zyrtec or claritin and have it on hand for the rare kitty visit.
it is not fun having a full facial allergy melt down. a bit difficult to chat between sneezes.
We are looking at another 400$ (on top of the 350$ bill from 2 weeks ago… on top of the 130$ for the other cat… on top of the 1500+$ from last October…) for one of our cats; it appears that she has some level of chronic kidney failure, and we need to do an ultrasound and more urine tests to see how bad things are. She’s only 6 years old, so if we manage it well now, she can have a nice long life ahead of her… we hope.
I’m glad my husband’s company pays overtime, and they have a lot of work to do at the moment! It makes these bills a little less painful!
A friend of mine refers to her home equity loan as “Norm’s Health Fund”. (Norm unfortunately passed away a few months ago after a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of cancer treatment. )
Well, now that I am home from the emergency vet where Joey is currently undergoing surgery I can say I have spent $2000 in 24 hours to keep him healthy. It is 4 in the morning right now but I will be back at the emergency vet at 8:30 to pick up Joey and transfer him to his regular vet in hopes of keeping the rest of the bills down because I know he is not done racking up charges as of yet. 2 of my credit cards are now maxed out. I have no idea how the hell I am going to pay for all of this medical care.
Joey is still in the hospital but he will be coming home tomorrow morning. He had developed some sort of blockage in his bladder and was not able to urinate so they put him on a catheter (sp?) and an IV and performed all sorts of x-rays and ultrasounds and such. They have determined that the pH of his urine is too high and that is causing crystals to build up in his bladder but it is a pretty simple thing to prevent in the future by controlling his diet. They are removing all of his tubes and everything today and keeping him overnight to make sure he is normal again but this should help him feel much better and keep him from peeing in inappropriate places. This is going to end up costing me about $3200 total for all of the medical care and cab fare to and from emergency vet hospitals and whatnot but as long as he is okay it will be worth it.
Yep to this. I’m allergic to cats and dogs, and have friends with both. I keep a box of my favorite OTC allegy med in the car, and take a dose one the way over. If I’m staying for a day or longer, I just have to remember to take the next dose before the itchiness reminds me.
A couple of things
don’t touch your face. Even if you pet the cats, not touching your face can keep the reaction way down.
don’t let them near your suitcase. You don’t want to find a cat curled up on tomorrow’s shirt.
consider bringing along your own pillowcase, and don’t pull the blankets or sheets right up to your face. A pillowcase from a non-cat environment can make a HUGE difference. Breathing fur and dander all night, because you have the sheets tucked up to your ears, will make tomorrow miserable.
