Friday, September 18, 2009

Toxic Kitty

Our much beleaguered cat Jimi, has been sick lately.  The poor cat has lost a lot of weight and had some “intestinal issues”.   Having lost our cat, Luther, a few months ago I wasn’t prepared to deal with Jimi illness and the monstrous vet bills that come with it.  Luther cost us around $1200 of which $500 could have been avoided, if I hadn’t let the well meaning vet run yet another panel of tests to try determine what was causing his illness.  But that’s another much sadder story that I’m not wishing to get into today.  Today’s story is about Jimi. 

I’ve been foolishly thinking that Jimi issues were from stress.  He’s got a preschooler who terrifies him and worries about cat food on the floor.  But after coming to the realization that Jimi is not getting better on his own, I took him to the vet on Wednesday.   Vet bills are crazy outrageous and this particular vet is excellent and the prices reflect it.  So I corralled Jimi into the kitty carrier and packed him into the Saturn.  I made sure to turn it facing me so that I could reassure him that would be alright.  The poor baby looked at me pitifully and proceeded to poop in the carrier, then having nowhere else to go, he sat in it.  Now we all know that poop stinks.  Well this particular cat’s droppings are beyond anything you might have smelled before.  We are actually able to identify which poop is his by just how bad and pervasive it is.  He can clear a room in 30 seconds.  Within moments the smelled invaded the car.  I call my husband to say my farewells, because I was sure, I was going to die.  I rolled down the windows hoping it would help, it did some but I failed to mention that it was raining.  So I had to decided death by poop or dealing with wet interior and grumpy hubby.  I chose death.  The next 10 minutes were some of the longest in my life.  Arriving at the vet, I cheerfully with a green face told them that we had brought our own stool sample and were hoping it would help temper the costs.  I warned them that it was toxic, I think they thought I was kidding.  The first assistant turned a little green herself when she caught a whiff.  They were very nice about it though, they cleaned up the carrier and the cause itself. 

Unfortunately for Jimi and my pocket book our “sample” was free from parasites and he had to have the dreaded blood work.  Is it bad I was hoping for parasites?  The somewhat good news is, he appears to have a bacterial infection that is affecting his liver.  So we are on a course of antibiotics and a new diet.  So keep your fingers crossed and let’s hope he gets better soon.

Talk to you later.




No comments:

Post a Comment