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January 24, 2002
My litte girl is sick
Monday evening, I caught my little girl, Diva -- she's a cat, not Mariah Carey; I'm not that lucky -- taking a piss in my laundry basket. Needless to say, that load of laundry got done right away, but I was left with a more distressing problem: why was my little girl not using the litter box?
(In light of this, I'm really glad it wasn't Mariah Carey, because then my life would have turned into a really bizarre porn film, shot at long distance using poor quality film and out of focus. Personally, I'd always thought that my life would be filmed in THX with a decent soundtrack, but I digress.)
I took her in to the vet on Tuesday for an exam and they took a urine sample from her. That actually sounds a lot simpler than it played out, because Diva has a small bladder and apparently she wasn't really in the mood to be shooting the juice. The vet kept her there for a few hours until she finally gave up a sample. I went back to pick her up around 9:30 in the evening. Apparently she was quite adorable for them, in stark contrast to her previous visit where she was the biggest baby about getting a pair of vaccinations. She was cute and adorable and all that.
It sounds odd, but I noticed that she doesn't mind being in the cat carrier. She doesn't mind being walked to the vet in the cold, which is three blocks east and three blocks south from my apartment. She really didn't like being hoisted up and down the stairs of my walk-up. Kept on meowing plaintively as I was entering and leaving the building, but was otherwise decently content.
Anyway, I got the results back from the urinalysis today and she appears to have some kind blood and proteins in her urine, indicative of a mild urinary tract infection. That's both good and bad news since it's the easier to solve reason for why she wasn't using her box; the other reason is behavioural which would have been a pain to correct. Unfortunately, the analysis went further to show that she had crystals in her urine and some other chemical that I don't remember &em; I can pronounce it, I just don't remember what it is &em; prompting the vet to want to do a blood test to rule out a liver affliction.
Poor little girl.
I know her health should be foremost on my mind, but at times like this when I'm running thin on money -- I have some "accounts receivable" that I'm waiting on and I've got a trip to Hong Kong that I need cash for coming up in about three weeks -- the added stress of having to dump out a decent chunk of money to pay for exams, tests, medication and special food is really burning me out. I almost wish it was the beginning of the week again when I thought I was finally going to be in the clear.
Tomorrow, it's back to the vet for the blood work, which I'm sure she's not going to like, and pick up some antibiotics and special food. It's... going to be interesting seeing how I manage to make her take her medicine. I think I'd best clip her claws before I try to do that. Someone please ask Bastet to look out for my little girl, or whichever kitty god(dess) is appropriate.
Posted by KinCross at January 24, 2002 09:18 PM