MrsHughey.com

That's not the Easter Bunny, it's my big fat cat

It wasn't the Easter I expected, that's for sure. I spent Easter morning at the emergency veterinary clinic instead of church. I never did get over to visit my family.

It started at around 8. I got up and fed the cats. A few minutes later, I was preparing to take a shower when I noticed one of the bowls was unoccupied. This is really unusual for my cats. They have to be fed a carefully measured amount each day to control their weight, so when the food is served, it's pig-out time. Romeo wasn't at his bowl. A few seconds later I heard him howling in the living room. As soon as I found him, he started throwing up - a lot. It was just undigested food and a small hairball. This isn't unusual for cats. Sometimes they just eat too fast and end up barfing.

It was what happened after he threw up that freaked me out. Later, his regular vet summed it up perfectly, "He just wasn't taking care of business." He didn't clean himself up at all. He just flopped down on his tummy and seemed like he wasn't breathing. I thought maybe he was choking or having trouble finishing emptying his stomach, so I pushed on his abdomen to try to help. He was aware enough to wander away from me a few feet, the plop back down. He had a bit of drool on his chin and his breathing was there, but very shallow.

I freaked. I have had two cats of mine die, and they both died very suddenly. My sister's cat recently died of a stroke after having some strange vomiting spells. So I immediately grabbed the Superpages listing on my refrigerator. I always keep two copies of the entry (including address, phone number and map) for the nearest 24-hour emergency vet clinic on my fridge. I was glad it was there - especially since it was Easter Sunday! I called them and they said I needed to bring Romeo in.

Fortunately, their office is only a few miles away. I put Romeo in his cage and he didn't protest a bit. This further concerned me as he normally runs, hides, and fights when the cage comes out. He just let me put him in the cage without a peep. I put him in the car and we were about on our way before he started his usual loud meowing. The meowing made me feel a lot better - at least he was breathing better.

The vet immediately saw us. They did a ton of tests including blood tests and x-rays. Although all the tests were necessary to rule out major problems, everything looked basically normal. Whatever had happened, it hadn't caused any visible damage.

I had already made an appointment for him to go to his regular vet on Monday afternoon. He gained quite a bit of weight at my mom's and I wanted to talk to them about getting it off. The emergency clinic suggested I keep that appointment, especially since he knows Romeo's history so well.

So I was just supposed to monitor him for the rest of the day. Everything was normal. Some friends came over and we played a torturously long game of Trivial Pursuit.

Yesterday I followed up with the world's best kitty doctor, Dr. Bob Marazzo. He has done absolute wonders for Romeo, who has had chronic health problems his whole life. Dr. Bob has helped manage his chronic condition through medication and saved us a lot of money by doing so. He's also the man who rescued our other two kitties (and their mother) from living behind Crabby Bill's.

Dr. Bob says Romeo had a seizure Sunday. It sounds really scary, but it's not uncommon for cats, and the vast majority are one-time things. We discussed his symptoms and the episode in detail. Dr. Bob explained the stages of seizure and told me to monitor Romeo very closely for the next 3-4 weeks. I'm to look for specific behaviors and keep notes if anything happens. If he does have regular seizures, there's not a whole lot they would do, anyway, unless they occur very frequently. But there are other tests and such that can be performed to rule out epilepsy and other conditions. I felt better just being able to put a name to what happened.

Then we discussed his weight. Romeo is now 18 pounds, 2 ounces! YOW! It's the biggest he's ever been. He gained a pound and a half since we last took him to the vet 7 months ago. The vet put him on a different prescription food, which should help, and I'm to continue trying to keep him active and carefully monitor his food intake. I hate that he's so big, especially since he's just turned 10. So many scary things can happen when cats are obese. But we're going to get the weight off. I'm determined.

Today while I was running errands I went by Pet Supermarket and picked up a few new toys. Sure, they already have lots of toys, but sometimes new ones will encourage them to play a bit more. If you have a cat, definitely spring for the Kitty Hoots toys. Mine LOVE them. I got them two of those today and they were big hits.

Still no news on a job. While I was out today I picked up an application at Barnes & Noble. I'm also continuing to send out resumes and feelers. Hopefully something will work out soon.

Other than that, there's not much to report. Andrew is feeling lonely and trying to work on his papers in Oxford. I am feeling lonely and trying to find a job. I'm not doing well on working on the novel, and hope to make myself get back into it within the next couple of days. I don't want to be away from it for too long, but once you break the habit of daily writing, it can be hard to re-establish it. Still, I am not going to give up on my dream just because some stuff happened to shake things up. Following your dreams is all about making it through the hard stuff. So I'm going to fight for it.

Posted by Erin at April 22, 2003 08:43 PM