Things Tough Warriors Eat

Today I was stuck at Eviljob, so Meg came over to dose Squoosh. He's still on antibiotics, because his lymph nodes are still swollen; hopefully he'll get off them this Friday. Butsoanyway: I'm at Eviljob, carrying out my duties (okay, okay--I was outside smoking on a quick break) when Meg text messages to me the following:

cat thrown up food you gave, then threw up antibiotics am on phone w/ vet now don't call.

Ok, so of course I go into Major Freak Panic Mode. I don't like this--you can *kill* me with suspense. So I pace; I shout; I scream; I try to call, all the while saying, "omigod omigod omigod" until the people I stepped out with threaten to go get a bucket of water to throw on me. Finally I get Meg; she'd opened Squoosh's bathroom, and he'd puked up undigested food (she rightly assumed I'd laid it out for him before I left). She figured he'd probably overeaten, so she gave him his antibiotics and a little more food, and decided to wait and watch TV and see that he was ok. When she went back in about twenty to thirty minutes later, Squoosh'd thrown up again (she had cleaned up the first puke), and this tme it was only liquid--the antibiotic. He'd not touched the food she had put out. So she threw away the food in case it was bad (the can had been opened the night before and kept in the refigerator), cleaned up the new Squooshbarf, and called the vet. She said she saw a little piece of plastic in the new Squooshbarf, and wondered if that could be why he was sick and not eating. The vet's tech (I love them for being open on Saturdays, even if it is shortened hours!) said it was probably the Clavamox, and to take him off it and bring him in on Monday. After talking with Meg, I disagreed and told her to take him in today before they closed at four. I was concerned that (1) Squoosh doesn't need to be off the antibiotics with this infection still in his ear; (2) he might have eaten more plastic, or something else that is causing an intestinal blockage; (3) he might have a more serious problem, and this is just the first sign of it. After all, this vet only charges $35 for a base office visit, and if Squoosh takes a turn for the worse after-hours, the emergency vet charges a hell of a lot more. Plus, I love the little guy...errr...tough warrior.

So Meg takes Squoosh in. The tech, she says, is annoyed that his advice wasn't heeded. Sigh. The day I give a flying fuck what techs think of me, you'll be the first to know. Meg said she told him that it was her sister's cat, and if anything happened to the cat, she'd never hear the end of it and neither would he.

Giggle. S'true. Neither of you would.

So he saw a different vet than his normal weekday one, but Meg said she was very nice. She said his vitals were great, he's gained 5 oz., and she was 50/50 on whether he'd made himself sick by eating a piece of plastic, or if it was the Clavamox (it often makes cats throw up). But she said she didn't think it was an intestinal blockage, because she didn't feel anything obviously out of the ordinary. She offered to x-ray him to be certain, but said she didn't feel it was necessary. Meg called and asked if I wanted him x-rayed, and I sided with the vet; he did poopy between yesterday and today, and when Meg fed him again (fresh food) after he threw up the Clavamox, he didn't throw up again. So Squoosh came home, and we skipped the afternoon dose, and picked it up again tonight. The vet thought that three weeks on Clavamox might be too much for a tiny cat like Squoosh, and said to call Monday regardless of how well he is doing to give an update and possibly pick up a different antibiotic. I'm okay with that decision, because his regular vet had wanted for him to be on something other than Clavamox or Baytril anyway, but they hadn't had any of whatever it was in stock, and since Squoosh wasn't throwing up on Clavamox yet, Dr Vet said to try another two weeks. So this sounded reasonable.

I was worried anyway, so I cut out of Eviljob as soon as possible--three hours early. Eh. I'll make it up elsewhere in the week; this is a Family Emergency. :-)

When I got home, Meg was still there. Awww...thanks, Meg. She'd brought her papers to grade, and was grading whilst keeping an eye out for more Squooshbarf, but she'd put him back in the bathroom to rest (cats his age are supposed to sleep like, sixteen hours a day, but Squoosh won't sleep if he's out, or has company--he gets too excited). I went to visit him, and the first thing I see (besides a spunky Squoosh who tries to make a dash for Freedom) is Squooshbarf that is either new, or was missed by Meg; there's a pile of puke at the base of Squoosh's Mouse-go-Round, next to the wall. The Mouse-go-Round is almost knee-height, and looks kind of like a mushroom with a flat top; four mice dangle from the top of it, and the top turns. Squoosh loves it. And it was only $17 at Wal-Mart, proof positive that Petsmart is supporting an outrageous crack habit.

Okay, so I've bought some toys for him. :-) My hall bathroom looks like a cat gymnasium.

Well, I didn't want him to be bored.

So I pet Squoosh, and he's purring, and I pick up the Squooshbarf and inspect it. I'm not gross, I'm trying to be a good kitty mommy. And, lo and behold, this pile of Squooshbarf is actually...a big wad of dental floss!

Squooshable?!?!?

So I go back to Meg, and ask her if this could possibly be new Squooshbarf. Oh, she says, no; it's not. She saw it, and meant to clean it up and just forgot after cleaning up the other barfs. So it was probably in there (she thinks) when she first came in, but maybe after the antibiotics.

It doesn't really matter; I think I've solved our mystery.

So I did what I should have done when I first put Squoosh in there--I Squoosh-proofed it. I picked everything up, removed the wastecan, pushed everything out of reach, and so on. I've lived with adult cats for too long; it had never occurred to me that a baby cat might eat stuff like a plastic wrapper (that I think was pulled off of a large jar of bath salts I kept on the floor--it looked fine there, though it sounds like it was a weird place, I know--but now store up high on the shelf), and dental floss (that he would have had to have pulled out of the wastecan).

wtf is up with eating dental floss, my love? I'm not convinced that all tough warriors eat dental floss.

So I think Squoosh is ok. I think he just ate dental floss and plastic this morning before I fed him, and it made him sick. And that maybe he didn't have enough to throw it all up with until Meg gave him the Clavamox. And he's poopied since, so I'm pretty certain that he probably doesn't have an intestinal blockage.

Sigh. Now I just have to convince him that real cats don't eat dental floss. Silly almost-cat.