I Love That Cat, But He Now Owes Me Money

So Sunday afternoon, Healy came downstairs, jumped in Brenna's lap, and sat there trembling. Shaking, really. And then proceeded to spend the rest of the day on the couch, barely moving, and -- more bizarrely -- barely purring. Those of you who have had the honor of meeting Healy know that he is a purring machine, so if he's not purring, something is wrong. And from time to time, the tremors came back.

(Note: this is a stock photo of Healy from a while back. It is not currently snowing in Cleveland....)

So at bedtime, I took him upstairs and put him on the bed (where he usually sleeps), and he promptly jumped off the bed, crawled under it, and stayed there. All night.

So at this point, we're worried enough that we (Brenna and Thalia, actually) took him to the vet. The vet gave him the once over, drew blood, took his temperature, etc. She didn't find anything obviously wrong with him, but the test results take a day to come back. And of course there is vet bill #1:



So Healy comes home, and spends the day on the couch, very lethargic. That night my cousin Marguerite comes into town for the evening -- very timely, since she actually has a degree in veterinary medicine. She looked him over and wondered if he had a wound of some kind that wasn't obvious, since he proved very tender in his hind quarters. That night Healy was very unhappy, growling at me if I tried to move him, walking very slowly and painfully (if at all), and again sleeping under the bed.

Not good.



So in the morning, the blood work comes back: no problems. But he is clearly not better, wont come out from under the couch, doesn't show any interest in the big dish of tuna fish I put in front of him -- and when a cat turns down tuna fish, that's a bad, bad sign.

Back we go to the vet, for x-rays this time, to check if there is any intestinal/urinary blockage. (On the way to the vet, Healy peed in the cat carrier, so at this point I'm thinking urinary blockage is not the issue....) The X-rays prove negative: no problems. On the one hand that's good, but on the other hand, I'm baffled as to what's going on. The vet agrees with Marguerite's assessment, maybe a wound of some sort that isn't obvious. Did he fall off a counter, or get stuck somewhere, or in some other way injure himself?

So the vet shoots him up with a painkiller and suddenly he's a much happier cat. He comes home, is wandering around the house, even purring at Brenna and I. Yes, his purr is back! The wonder of kittydrugs. The vet gives us painkiller for a few more days, and hopefully he will be better by then.

The amusing thing is the syringes they give us with the painkiller come with a very well-remembered brand name:



(Monoject is, of course, the company that dear old Dad worked for for many years...)

Of course, along with all this comes vet bill #2:



So hopefully that cat -- the greatest tabby cat in the whole wide world -- will be better after all this. We'll see. Right now he's curled up asleep on the couch again. Keep your fingers crossed and send him all the kitty wishes you can. And in the mean time, that darned cat owes me $322.74 in vet bills.

*sigh*