Sallyacious

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April 13, 2007

On Emotional Roller Coasters

So last night I went over to some friends' for dinner. Lovely evening. Lovely food. Lovely people. Lovely, lovely red wine. I toddled home (they're just down the street) with a lovely buzz.

I sat down on the couch and Quickly, my very favorite of all cats, curled up next to me. This week has been pretty crazy, so she and I haven't had much together time. With that in mind, I did what I usually do and scootched her up onto my lap via a hand under her belly. It took me a minute to realize that the normal protest noises she makes weren't normal. They were exclamations of pain. The cat was hurting and I was doing it.

I stopped. Immediately. I had no idea what I'd done to cause pain, but she was in serious distress. She lay in my lap for a while, very quiet, not purring at all like she usually does. And when she left to get food, she whimpered as she walked. She was favoring her left hind leg, and also walking like her belly hurt her.

There was clearly something very very wrong, and I had apparently done it to her. Whatever it was. Which was an awful feeling to have. Because not only do I love this cat like she's my child, I would never, ever hurt an animal. So to have seriously hurt my sweetbabygirl Quickly, however unintentionally, was almost vomitously horrible. Horrible.

I called the emergency vet hospital in Pullman and the slightly patronizing woman on the phone more or less told me that regardless of the problem, they couldn't do more than advise me to wait, really. I was welcome to take the cat in, but she thought I should wait until morning and take Q to our vet. Since she was eating.

So I opted to wait. Q was having trouble jumping up onto things like the futon, but she could go up and down stairs with seemingly little trouble. That's when I noticed her favoring her left hind leg slightly.

I made three different comfy bedding down places for her, one in the hallway and two in our bedroom so she could be with us without having to try to get onto or off of the bed. The stubborn little snotface was having none of it. She sleeps on the bed with me, and was determined to get to her rightful place for the night. So I put her on the bed. She made pain sounds, but began purring once she was on the bed. I did some reiki on her, just in case it would help and then we went to sleep. She slept between my knees all night, as always, and in the morning rather slowly headed downstairs for breakfast. But she ate.

I wasn't as worried. But I called the vet anyway and made an appointment for this afternoon.

Fast forward to this afternoon. The cat has been sleeping on the bed all day, just next to my pillow. She's moved a little, but not much. She's always happy to see me, purrs, but seems lethargic. I gently get her into the crate (that's always a fun job) and take her out to the car. She starts making noises like she's dying. Dying. Like she's dying and I'm killing her. And since I'm already wracked with guilt about hurting my baby, the tension in the car ratchets up fast.

We get to the vet. She's on my lap when the tech comes in. We get her onto the table just fine. She gets her temperature and pulse checked with no problems. When the vet comes in, her ears and eyes and teeth get checked and suddenly, all hell breaks loose in the form of one seriously freaked out black cat. I shall use one simple image, one tiny segment of the frenzy to ilustrate my point. She bit me. On the thumb. One of her teeth went through my thumbnail.

I would just like to take a moment to say that that? Hurts like a motherfucker. Still does. Oh. Man. The throbbing. I've done some serious disinfecting and scrubbing of the wounds. They're currently very tightly bound and slathered in neosporin. The vet recommended I also soak the thumb in epsom salts a couple of times a day for the next few days to keep the swelling down and the thumbnail on. Yay.

But back to the cat. She'd already bitten the vet and pierced my fingernail, and when she bit the tech, we were done. That's when the vet said, "I don't want her to hurt herself more, and I'm not going to be able to get to her leg to really work with it, so I'm thinking we give her a little gas."

I said yes. Then I went home to actually bandage my thumb and have a serious I've broken my cat cry.

When I went back to the vet about 45 minutes later, the first thing the doctor said to me as she bustled in was, "I've got some really great news." They had taken x-rays. No breaks, no tears, no joint damage, but Quickly's left hamstring was really tight. The vet massaged it while Q was under, and it loosened up quite a bit, which means 1) that it's a sprain or strain and 2) I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Also? The x-rays showed that the cat is pretty seriously constipated. Also not my fault. But it explains why she complained so much about being picked up. Because that hurt too.

So my Quickly is home. And she's fine. I get to give her laxatives twice a day for the next few days and also an anti-inflammatory each morning for the next four days. Yay. But she's going to be fine. And it was nothing I did.

Shortly after Q and I got home, Dave got home too and pointed out that there were two boxes on the porch. For me. One was bookbinding materials because I've decided to give that a try. I've always wanted to do it, and just finally decided to have a go. I ordered papers and the basic binding stuff last week. The papers came yesterday. And this weekend has cleared up wonderfully for me time-wise, so I'll be playing with some new toys.

The other box was a flower delivery. For me. I couldn't figure out how or what or why, and said so. Dave said, "Well open the card and read it!" Beautiful pink roses and this other awesome flower that I can never remember the name of. And the card? Well, see for yourself:

Oh. Yes. It is.

Posted by sally at April 13, 2007 04:22 PM

Comments

Posted by: glasbeth at April 16, 2007 12:26 AM

Posted by: Sallyacious at April 16, 2007 09:25 PM

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