Cat Stories

Mr. Kitty’s Trip Part 2

“Well,” Dr. Bellville said, “Given the fact that he isn’t really moving and your sister didn’t see what happened, I’m wondering if maybe he also fell and broke something. Maybe I’d better take some x-rays to see if Chloe did him some internal damage. How much are you looking to spend?”

I opened the storage compartment of the carrier to see how much my sister thought Mr. Kitty was worth. “It looks like you can go up to $300.”

He scooped up my cat and walked out the door, but brought him back in two minutes. “You said nobody saw this fight? Are you sure there was a fight?”

I hadn’t been expecting that question. “N…ooo, nobody saw the fight, but my sister sure heard it. Why? What’s up?” He said, “Your cat’s full of birdshot; I can feel it under his skin. Whoever did it must have been standing right in front of him.”

 He lifted Mr. Kitty’s face for me to see. “See that mark on his nose and the brown on the white part of his eye?  A shot went in there, and lodged behind his eye. The brown is blood that’s escaped into the cavity.” I ran my hand over Mr. Kitty’s skin, and could indeed feel little hard lumps all over him.

         

“I think he’ll be ok,” he said. “I’ll give you some antibiotics and pain pills and we’ll see how he does.”

“What about his eye?” I asked. “Do you think he’ll be able to see?”

 “Yes I do. It’s just a blood vessel that’s been broken back there. The eye itself is ok.” 

         

As my sister worked all day, Mr. Kitty came home with me and spent the next three days behind my couch, coming out only for the essentials. If I wasn’t quick, I’d have to drag him out to give him his pills. But he too soon got tired of my place, and spent the fourth morning loudly requesting to go home. I told him, “You know, if you go home, you’re going to have to face Chloe, and she probably hasn’t forgiven you yet for going into her bedroom.” He climbed up in my lap, looked me dead in the face, and said, “NOW!!!”

Cat Stories

Mr. Kitty’s Trip

The same sort of thing happened with Mr. Kitty, and started exactly the same way, with the 8 o’clock favorite sister routine. A year after Frequency’s little medical emergency happened, she got hit by a car, and was replaced by Chloe. Then a few months later, Mr. Kitty came along, much to Chloe’s disgust, as she had apparently come to think of the house and my sister as her personal property, and she was quite unwilling to share with anyone.

At nineteen pounds, Mr. Kitty was almost three times Chloe’s size. But she had claws, and he didn’t. The two of them were continually trying to convince the other they were boss cat for the first year. Once they decided that his domain was my sister’s bed, and her domain was the other bedroom, they got along pretty well. That is, they got along ok, IF they stayed out of each other’s territories.   

The night before the fateful morning in question, Chloe had apparently found Mr. Kitty under her bed, and the next thing Sister knew, he came flying out of Chloe’s bedroom, with her in hot pursuit, screaming murderous threats at him. He had little tear marks all over him, and blood behind the white part of his eye.

My sister didn’t think his injuries were too serious at first, so she gave him an aspirin and put him to bed. But he never moved all night, an unheard of thing for him. So she called me in the morning. She would take him to work with her, and I could pick him up from her car. The money would be in the storage compartment of the cat carrier.

For obvious reasons, I took him to a different vet this time, and a kid that looked about thirteen years old came into the examining room, introduced himself as Dr. Belville, and asked me what had happened to Mr. Kitty.  I told him about the fight, and showed him where Chloe had nailed him.

Cat Stories

Medical Emergency Part 2

I called my sister at work; did she want me to put Frequency down? “Wellllll, no, maybe not. She didn’t start out great, but she’s become a nice cat now. You know they’re going to want $500 to fix it. Why don’t you just get her some antibiotics and we’ll see how she does?”

The vet wasn’t keen on the cheap fix, I suppose, and haughtily told me that it would be cruel to leave the cat in this condition without repairing the damage. She said if the cat didn’t die in agony, we’d end up bringing her back to have her put down anyway and have to pay for another office visit.

I can’t prove it, but I think she bumped the price of the antibiotics up to $35, and of course, tried to push pain killers on me too for $20 more. When I conveyed the message to the sister person, she shouted at me, “Thirty-five bucks for cat antibiotics? What are they; gold plated?” I listened to the decision making process on the other end of the line, “Well, you know the aspirin will work fine. We don’t need the fancy pain killers.” She himmed and hawed a minute, then said what I knew she would, “Buy the stupid antibiotics and I’ll pay you back.” Then she muttered to herself, “Eighty-five bucks for a cat. I’m getting soft.”  

         

I took Frequency home and in two weeks she was fine and yelling to go back home to her trees and flowers. We never did find out what she had done to herself. My sister guessed that a dog chased her up a tree and managed to get a good chomp on her backbone before she escaped. As they say in the Tootsie Roll ® commercial, the world may never know.

Cat Stories

Medical Emergency Part 1 

My sister and I have come up with a favor asking code. When we need a favor that’s small and easy to do, we call the other and say, ‘Um.’ “Would you pick up some milk for me while you’re at the store? Can you drop me off at the mechanics to pick up my car?” If the favor is somewhat inconvenient, we are expected to say the ‘um’ guiltily. When one calls the other and says, “How’s my favorite Sister?” we know we’re going to be doing something like going to Detroit, tonight, in a blinding snowstorm. 

When Sister called me early in the morning, on a work day, and asked how I was, I knew my day was shot. “There’s something really wrong with Frequency; she can’t use her back legs at all and they’re shredded on the inside. Can you take her to the vet?”

Mentally I groaned. My house was trashed, and this is about the only time this week I could do my shopping. But one of the cardinal rules of family hood is that one does not refuse to do a sister favor, nor take care of a hurt pet, especially not to go shopping. She told me, “I don’t want to spend more than about $50 on this cat. If she takes more than that, just have them put her down.” 

Poor Frequency was in so much pain, I couldn’t pick her up without hurting her. Though vets always tell you it can kill cats, I popped an aspirin down her throat, and it did seem to lessen her pain. 

The lady vet was rather snippy about the $50 limit, but said she could take one x-ray for that amount. She came back shaking her head, “Somehow,” she told me, “this cat has managed to snap both leg bones off where they meet the spine.”