It’s not that my wife is on a 2-week business trip to Canada, so we can’t be together today on Valentine’s day…
It’s not that I’m spending the week in a hotel near work because the floors in our house are being refinished this week…
And it’s not that we had to board our cats for the week, so I don’t even have them for company…
No, what makes today totally sucky is the call I got shortly before lunch from the veterinarian’s office where the cats are staying. One of our cats, Stormy, an 11-year old female, apparently decided to go all apeshit on the attendant that was checking on her today. Hissing loudly, she flung herself at the attendant’s face. Not surprisingly, the attendant jumped back to protect herself, and Stormy fell heavily and awkwardly to the floor. After they managed to restrain her, they had apply sedatives in order to examine her - she was limping badly after the fall. Turns out that she managed to tear all of the ligaments in her rear left knee when she landed.
So now we’re looking at major surgery, to the tune of $2,000 - $2,500 to repair the knee. That’s assuming of course, that the knee can be repaired - with a 11+ year old cat there are no guaranetees, especially with this much damage. She has an appointment tomorrow with a veterinary clinic that specializes in surgery where they’ll examine her and tell us what our options are.
My wife’s terribly upset, because Stormy’s her ‘special girl’, who comes in every night for a round of pets and affection when my wife goes to bed, and I’m upset because one of our cats is hurt, and I have to make critical, life-or-death decisions about one of our cats without my wife being there.
I have all 9 of the SCL cats purring double time for you, your wife and Stormy. I hope her injuries can be repaired - and if not that a peaceful crossing will be arranged.
I’ve had a dreadful day myself so I’ll be the corner with you. I’m getting over some bad virus so my throat hurts and I can barely eat and of course I can’t kiss my husband or come near my daughter because I’m probably contagious. I got condescended to at work by a twit who picked apart my work for twenty two minutes over nothing. (I work at home so I didn’t get to give my germs to her.) And I just spilled a large bottle of chloraseptic on the darned carpeting. Plus it’s cold as hell out there with howling winds.
Let’s hope next year’s Valetine’s Day is better for all of us including kitty!
Runestar, I’m so sorry to hear your kitty was hurt. Was it at Cat’s Exclusive? I hope they (whoever they might be.) take responsibility for it.
It’s hard enough to be away from your kitties.
I would think the boarding place has some responsibility. They were responsible for your cat’s well-being. Now that I have cats that are 12 and 17 I don’t consider 11 to be too old for surgery. Bo had surgery (a lump removal) at age 11 and radioiodine (not surgery, but a stressful thing for him because he had to be quarantined for 10 days at a strange vet clinic) at age 14.
But my Valentine’s day was a sucky one, cat-wise, too. My cat Bo is now 17 and I found out Tuesday that he has a growth in his bladder. He was peeing frequently and his urine was blood tinged. I’ve opted for an ultrasound (to take place next Wed.) to find out if it is able to be removed surgically. The vet says that it is taking up most of his bladder at this point, and we need to determine if the attached area is small (good) or large (not good).
When his bloodwork came back yesterday we also found his kidneys are starting to fail. So I spent my V-day eve at the vets learning how to give my cat sub-q fluids.
picunurse, yes, it was at Cats Exclusive. I don’t hold them responsible for it though* - Stormy’s the feline equivalent of that guy the neighbors are always talking about on the news “…he was quiet, kept to himself a lot. Wouldn’t have expected he’d snap like that”
She’s always been low kitty on the dominance pole, but every now and then in stressful situations she’ll go beserk. I guess this was one of those situations.
