Emma scared the be-freaking-jesus out of us the other week. When I returned from my weekend away at "business school camp" and flopped my smelly self down on the sofa (thirty-odd degrees outside, no heat and no hot water while living in a hut = pits and bits cleanings only, thanks), the kitty scampered over and curled up against my chest.
I knew immediately that something was very, very wrong. Emma is not a cuddly. Either the cat had died while I was away and Ben had sneakily replaced her with another tiny black cat with an entirely different personality in order to avoid my complete melt-down, or our little Emma-kins was one sick puppy-cat.
I immediately felt her ears (cool, but not cold; typically a good sign) and her nose (dry and warm, but not hot, another good sign). Her eyes were clear. Her twitchy little ears looked just fine inside. I pried open her mouth and, other than a faint trace of fish-breath, all seemed okay. She didn't flinch when I vigorous stroked her head, back, sides, neck and tummy. Nothing seemed to hurt, but she did seem terribly skinny. Ben said she'd been finicky, but had eaten, some.
She's oldish (almost 15), so skinny isn't surprising, really. Maybe I was wrong, I considered. Maybe...she missed me.
Then, the little cat flipped up her tail and wandered over to Ben for some loving and I gagged and almost vomited right there on our new red plush pillows.
If you are a dog-person, you might know a thing or two about anal glands, but, typically, ask a cat person about that particular organ and you get a "huh? wha?"
Very much against my wishes, I am now an intimate expert in anal glands, particularly those of my own cat. Poor little Emma experienced what is termed an anal gland explosion and you probably don't want too many more details than that, but I'm going to share some anyway because one day you might come home and discover that your cat's ass has exploded.
In short, imagine the result if a blindfolded man sodomized your cat with an ice-pick he'd duct-taped to a cheese grater.
Yes, I wanted to curl up in a corner and whimper for a while, too, but instead I picked up the pathetic little cat, snuggled her into her carrier and Ben and I sprinted for help.
Luckily, the 24 hour emergency vet clinic is only 4 blocks from our home and I figured that another few hours sans shower wouldn't kill me (although Ben kept his distance I noticed). The receptionist took one look at Emma's ass and we bypassed the waiting room, landing directly in triage.
Emma experienced an anal event, so the clinic sent her home in a funny costume. It's cute. I will spare you all pictures of the gory stuff.
This is one miserable, adorable kitty.
She also had to have oral antibiotics and stool softeners forced down her little throat twice a day, as well as what amounts to a special sitz bath morning and night (administered via syringe, though, by me, of course, while Ben held down a very pissed off, squirmy cat in the bathtub and I squirted smelly blue solution around her angry, flicking tail, attempting to keep as much of of the medicine as possible off of poor Ben and on the nasty bits).
I also had the pleasure of swabbing my cat's anus with pain-reducing Neosprion gel after each bath (with a Q-tip, thankyouverymuch). Fun times, I tell you!
Since Emma somehow concluded that she could not move in her fancy plastic headdress (silly cat), she stayed where you put her. Anywhere you put her. If you sat her on the bathroom rug, she would stay there all day. If you plopped her in you lap, she would stay there! Which was kind of cute until she couldn't figure out how to move from the bed during the night and quietly pooped on the duvet. Who doesn't love 6am laundry?
And since she couldn't see her feet, even when we stuck her in the litterpan and left her until her business was done, there were accidents. Our brand new super-plush bathroom rug has now been washed 7 times, so I don't think we can call it "new" any more, even though it's only been with us for three weeks.
We did give Emma supervised time sans cone; however, after a 3-hour-cowering-beneath-the-bed episode (the exciting finale of which consisted of one excessively freaked out cat and one girl - take a guess - who didn't stop sneezing for five hours), we had to confine her (the cat, not the sneezing girl) to the bathroom for these sessions, and, honestly, it's asking a lot of someone to sit on the bathroom floor (because sitting on the tub or toilet intimidated the freaked out cat) for hours watching a cat to make sure it doesn't lick its nether-regions. Thanks, Ben, you're an awesome kitty-daddy.
Anyway, a follow up trip to her regular vet (at which time the dead tissue was excised from her rectal area and gunk was cleaned from the ruptured anal sack, thank god I was at work and missed that particular joyride!) set our minds at ease; some inconclusive blood tests had kept us on the edges of our seats over questionable statistics regarding the cat's kidney function, but further investigation (and intrusive removal of urine from her bladder, ICK, OUCH!) proved that, for now, the kidneys are doing what kidneys do just fine.
If you remember, about that time we had to leave town for the weekend to attend a wedding down in Fort Walton Beach. Thus, we got to pay someone to come into our apartment and wash the cat's ass twice a day! I bet you didn't know that you could actually get into the cat-butt-washing business, did you? And there you go, some daily trivia for you. (Had I known such a fabulous person existed, by the way, I would have seriously considered hiring her to come on in and take care of all that butt-cleaning from the start, even while we were home!)
After a week, Emma was out of her cone and scampering again. She'd dropped from 8 pounds to 6 pounds during the ordeal (yikes!) but she's since gained back over one third of a pound and is smacking back three cans of cat food a day!
She looks hilarious prancing around the apartment, flashing her shaved hind-end at us, but we can tell she's happy again, so it really doesn't matter. If you come over, beware that our cat is still weird looking, but she isn't gross-cat anymore.
There is absolutely no chance that, when I come home from class tonight, Emma will cuddle up against me. While that does make me a little sad, it is as it should be, as it always has been.
