The Battle For Baby Cat

Okay, so my last entry was in early March, right after we adopted Baby Cat. And I’d like to say that I spent that time away from OD just resting on my laurels, but that simply hasn’t been the case. Until about mid April every waking moment was spent getting her health status to a consistent state. After that, work bottomed out to a complete clusterfuck of suckage as inventory approached and management did nothing to prepare for it. Up until now, I’ve just wanted to spend my time vegging out and playing “World Of Warcraft” (yeah, I know…there’s an entry forthcoming about this little piece of computer generated crack). I couldn’t muster enthusiasm for anything else. So I apologize to all of you for falling behind. I plan on catching up on everybody this week while I’m on vacation.

Anyway, about Baby Cat…

Our local Humane Society has a policy where if you’re interested in an animal you can go to the cage to pet it, but you’re not supposed to pick it up. I assume this is because of liability issues. They probably don’t want a bunch of frightened animals scratching and biting potential adopters. I can understand that. But at the same time, had I been able to pick Baby Cat up, I would’ve noticed the small pea-shaped lump above her nipple the day of her adoption and not the day after, when every thing was out of my hands. As it stands, I’m not sure how this was missed during the examinations she got on her two separate trips to the shelter. Her two previous owners apparently missed it, as did the Humane Society. Or maybe they had caught it and hoped to pass it off whomever adopted her next. I dunno. All I’m saying is that I’m just your average cat lover and I found it withing a couple hours of getting her home. Once she was there, she was our emotional and fiscal responsibility. And I knew it was going to be costly.

For the first couple of weeks, our new vet wisely decided to treat the lump as an infection in hopes to rule out surgery. Baby Cat was put on a liquid antibiotic that, at first, she didn’t seem to mind all that much. But on day four she had a violent vomiting spell that continued on for two whole weeks as dry-heaves. We made a switch in food and that seemed to help her some, but we still weren’t making the connection with the antibiotic because we were also dealing with a conjunctivitis problem in her right eye. In addition to the liquid, she was getting eye drops and an eye ointment. we pretty much spent the entire month of March giving the cat some sort of medicine every eight hours. It was around the clock care and it only got worse from there on in.

By the end of March we knew what we were dealing with was no infection. There was no discussion with the vet on whether lump had to come out or not. With most female cats that aren’t spayed at an early age, any kind of mammary mass is almost always bad. The vet was only giving her a forty percent chance of not having cancer, so the lump definitely had to come out. The surgical appointment was set up for early April and the mass was removed first thing that morning. Baby Cat was home that night sporting a particularly gnarly looking scar that ran about two inches and twelve stitches in length. This kind of horrified Lynn and I because we thought we were dealing with this tiny little mass. Yet here she was, looking like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. So for the next twelve days, our duty was to make sure she didn’t pull out her stitches. We had tried to put a collar on her, but with her petite size, she kept getting the hood of the collar stuck on the floor as she walked forward and then she’d almost break her neck trying to flip her body over it. Lynn finally started coming home early so she could watch her while I went to work. When I got home, my only focus was to make sure she didn’t pull her sutures out while grooming, which seemed to be every 30-45 minutes or so. When it was time for me to go to sleep, I’d carry her up to bed with me and she’d actually pass out for the night giving us all some rest. In the end, she only managed to tear out two stitches during the whole twelve day ordeal. I’d say we did okay under the circumstances.

But those couple of weeks weren’t without their problems, though. Early on, she developed a low-grade infection along the incision. We caught this very early on and she was put back on the liquid antibiotic. During the ten or so days she had been off of it from the first go around, there hadn’t been any problems with vomiting. The minute she got back on it, however, it seemed all I did was clean up small puddles food every day. After the first week of this round of medicine, I was starting to lose faith that we were ever going to get her back up to speed. There were days I’d just wake up with dread, thinking about the money we were spending and the possibility we just might have to put her down anyway. Eventually, we asked the vet if we could cut the dose of antibiotic in half, which immediately stopped all the puking problems. The difference in her energy level after that was like night and day. Since the first time since getting her home, I was starting to feel like we were nearing the end of the tunnel. And I was completely exhausted from the whole thing at that point.

We also made bit of a small blunder with her during all of this. The surgery fell during one of my monthly roller derby bouts and the tickets had already been paid for and my fellow rollerheads expected me to be there. Lynn and I went around and around about this for days and we eventually came to the conclusion that Lynn would drive me and a friend to the fairgrounds for the bout and then pick us up once the event was over. And so we wouldn’t be leaving Baby Cat home without supervision, we’d put her in a carrier and take her with us. On paper, this was a good plan. And, for the initial trip down and back, Baby Cat took the ride just fine. It was the second round trip that went badly, though. I could smell cat urine the second Lynn opened the doors for us in front of the Pavilion. It was a twenty-five minute dash back home and we spend the next hour and a half washing the cat and making sure the incision was kept clean. As cat parents go, I think you fail the test when you make your sick cat sit in her own pee for the better part of an hour. But I don’t think there was any other way to get around to going to the bout. It was either go, or lose the ticket money. If there’s ever a next time, I’m going to take the financial hit because I felt like a total fucking failure after that incident.

Eventually, though, the stitches came out and we got the pathology results back. The lump turned out to be benign, but whoever wrote the report covered their ass by saying this type of lump “usually” comes back as something worse. To me, the word “usually” isn’t a definite. It’s not all inclusive. There’s wiggle room there. So I’ve taken that as good news. And despite the conjunctivitis jumping to the other eye on the same day she got her stitches out, Baby Cat seems to be doing great physically. Once she was off the antibiotic completely, she started playing and eating her food with reckless abandon. Lynn’s a little concerned she might be putting on weight, but I figure she didn’t have much of an appetite for almost eight weeks. She’s entitled to a little fat. But I am measuring out her food on adaily basis. On the whole, we’re all starting to enjoy each other’s company now. If something else comes up in the future, we’ll deal with it. for right now, though, we’re finally at the point I wanted to be the day of her adoption. Oh, I know we’ve given her great care and we probably saved her life, but there were some dark times there for a while. It was a test that almost broke my spirit. But when I hear her purr these days, I know it was well worth it.

Now if we could all just get a little more sleep, we’d be doing even better. One day at a time, I suppose. One day at a time…

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“Five Fun Facts About Baby Cat”

1) You can’t really judge her mood by her tail. With most cats, how the tail is moving/standing is a good mood indicator. But her tail swishes and flips 24/7, even when she’s sleeping. Think Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2. It’s like she keeps on sending out some sort of subliminal morse code.

2) She’s not a finicky eater at all. Most cats like a little wet food when it’s warm. Forget it. She’ll it warm, cold, or whatever. She gets a little wet food every day as a treat and I used to put whatever I had in the fridge out on the counter for it to warm up a little before I served it. Not anymore. She knows what the can sounds lik when you set it down. Needless to say, she goes crazy.

3) For a petite little thing, she’s a complete badass. She spent time with other cats, and I think she’s used to a little bit of rough play. One minute she’ll be letting you pet her, the next minute she’ll be play fighting and biting. This is something I’m trying to calm her down on. Only she’s not big on cat toys. All of Tigger’s toys are still here and she shows zero interest in them. Plus we just bought her this new $8.95 catnip scented toy and she doesn’t want a thing to do with it. But give her my forearm…

4) She sometimes forgets there’s glass at the patio door when watching the birds. I don’t care what anybody says, it’s still funny to watch her slam into the glass. I know. I’m just cruel that way. Hopefully she’ll learn someday.

5) Most of the time when she meows, it comes out as an almost silent squeak. Again, this is funny considering it was hard to get Tigger to shut up most of the time. She’s quite the talker, though. You just can’t hear her. 🙂