Reader! I have been ill! Hospitalized! Rushed in the middle of the night by Her and the Mister to the Animal Emergency Clinic in Kirkwood because They failed earlier to believe how serious was my malaise! So just like “Animal Planet”… I am now a $500.00 cat. (Purrrrrr) I know you’re thinking just what Debbie Hall said when she was told I was at hospital: “Not the Columnist Cat!” But it’s true.
Even a celebrity feline like myself was stricken in my prime with a cat malady (feline lower urinary tract disease) that left me piteous and imperiled—potentially really needing a ghost writer. But I am climbing back.
I have had a catheter, an IV, an x-ray, blood work, antibiotics, steroids, a two day hospital stay and three emergency room visits, my gorgeous furs shaved from throat and leg so doctors could get to my innards and pull out some of my fluids and dump in some more. I was so pathetic for a while that “Vasa”, a “house cat” at the ER, had to be told not to hiss at me! Ordinarily I’d have curled her arrogant whiskers.
A cat-veat to my human readers: Save yourself the $50.00 walk-in fee at the ER by taking your own darling puss to see Dr. Steve up at Kingsbury Animal Hospital at the first sign of trouble instead of waiting until midnight when his life is on the line.
FLUTD occurs more often in male cats. My symptoms were frequent trips to the cat box, straining, urinating outside the cat box, laying around and throwing up. Vomiting can be a sign, but doesn’t have to be. The doctors at the Emergency Clinic said I would have died if the Mister hadn’t decided to bring me in and that cats can suffer kidney damage if the condition is untreated for too long.
A word to cats: Find a home where they notice if you’re not feeling good and where they’re willing to get out the check book. Be real nice on the way to the veterinarian to insure that your humans come to visit you in the hospital and to take you back home when it’s time. Don’t let yourself get in the position I was in where you’re just not sure how things are going to work out until they are over.
I let Her kiss on me now whenever she wants and cuddle me and give me pills all day long and I’m not complaining. The Mister said I might get a little humiliation from this experience and I tell you, I have.
