Weekends. We live for them, don’t we? I know I do. We get to sleep in, stay up late. Watch our kids’ sporting events. Relax a little. I got to do one of those things this past weekend. Yep, just one. Then Saturday morning came and everything pretty much went to you-know-where in a handbasket. A dirty, rotten, no good handbasket.
To understand the depth of my despair, we must begin with Saturday morning. I typically sleep in a tad bit (ok, a lot of bit). But this Saturday morning was special. I woke early to my hubby’s voice saying in a rushed manner, “Honey, wake up! Frankie is lying downstairs in the bathroom in a puddle of his own pee.”
Don’t let his sweet face fool you.
Frankie’s our black male rescue kitty. A couple of weeks ago he had a pretty bad urinary tract infection so this news bolted me out of bed and down the stairs. Evidently when male cats have urinary tract infections, things can get really bad, really quick, and they can die if not treated.
Sure enough, it was exactly as hubs had described. He was lying there, in his pee, not moving. I flew into action. Our vet is only open the second Saturday of each month, so it was off to the emergency vet (ching! ching!). Now, understand that Frankie can be, well, difficult when it comes to the vet. Seriously difficult. Even though he has no claws, front or back, the vet still sedates him when he has to pay them a visit- because he’s such a joy, of course. On this day, given his lethargy and general state of “who cares where you are taking me,” I knew he was feeling quite terrible. Not to mention that while he lay on the bathroom floor urine was spilling out of him. TMI? Sorry.
Upon arrival at the emergency vet, they rushed into action, ran all kinds of test (more ching! ching!) and drew blood, coming to the conclusion he now had a kidney infection (ching!). The choice was to leave him in the hospital (chinga! ching! ching!) so they could give him antibiotic injections or they could send me home with the shots and I could administer them. I thought, How hard can it be to give a sick cat who barely moves a shot in the neck? So, home we went.
I made Frankie comfortable in the bathroom on a plethora of pee pads (like about 100 of them) and off we went to my son’s football game. Two overtimes later, we made it home and had a nice relaxing evening. Up until time to give Frankie his first shot. He was already doing remarkably better. He was using the litter box, praise the Lord, and was in much better spirits. So I grabbed the needle, popped off the cap, grabbed the skin on the base of his neck like they showed me and stuck him with the needle. My feelings of euphoria that I was some sort of glorified cat whisperer were instantaneously erased as he began to buck like a bronco with that dang needle flopping around in his neck.
I tried four times. FOUR TIMES. I failed. Couldn’t do it. Back to the emergency vet we go so they could give him the shot (ching! ching!). At 11pm at night.
Fast forward to Sunday early evening. I started to develop a migraine while we were at my son’s basketball practice- but I knew I still had to take the cat back to the vet for another injection after practice. I devised a plan. While my son was finishing up his homework I would race the cat to the vet and back, then we could all enjoy dinner together and I could take a migraine pill before bed.
At the vet, Frankie got another injection from the doc, then I got the news that I had to give him pills for the next four days. By this point, Frankie had all he could take. His kind, sweet demeanor has disappeared and devil cat took its place. He was tired of being poked and prodded and he was ready for home.
On the drive there, I called the boys and told them to start eating – it had taken much longer than expected at the vet. Then, as we’re passing Ben Geren, I felt something warm and wet on my lap. That freaking cat was peeing. ON ME! On me, IN MY CAR. Fighting all feelings of tossing kitty from the car window, I sped home, pulled into the garage then gently placed Frankie out of the car. At some point on the drive home, I’m pretty sure a demon took over my body. I walked in the house, freaking out, screaming that I’d been peed on by the cat, and I starting stripping off clothes. TMI again? Oh well.
As I stood there in the laundry room in my skivvies screaming what may have been obscenities- hubs and our son didn’t know whether to run or offer up assistance. It was about this time I realized the cat was hiding behind the washer and dryer. Why he was hiding I have no idea. Could have been my guttural screams in his direction.
Hubs and our son helped me get the pee cleaned up, which was thankfully only on a small portion of the seatbelt, not on the seats. At this point, I was starving, tired, and still in my skivvies. Our son announced he was going to bed (bless him, he’d seen and heard enough) and I was off to the shower – after I managed to coax the cat from behind the dryer.
By this time, my migraine was in full kick-my-butt mode and I was near tears. Hubs made me a sandwich, I washed down a pill and it was goodnight Irene.
This morning, I woke up our son, apologized for the cray-cray that was last night, and was getting him ready for school when he asked, “What’s today?” I replied, “Monday.” “No,” he said, “it’s spirit week- what’s today?” Then I remembered, today was camo day. We are not a hunting family. We have no camo. So we all three rushed to get ready, run into Walmart in search of a camo shirt. We finally found one, at 7:58am. We got him to school and as he was running in, he yelled, “Hey, I need a jacket.” So hubs and I went back home, got the jacket and delivered it to school. Then, we made it to our 8:15am meeting at Panera.
And there ladies and gentleman, you have my weekend wrap-up plus a Monday morning bonus. What’d you do this weekend?
~Catherine
Editor/Owner Do South Magazine
