Tag: vet

Yet Another Trip to the Vet

Let me ask a hypothetical question. Say you have a really old cat. I mean really old. This animal is so old you have to pick it up and hold it next to the food bowl before it starts to eat. It’s so old, the cat’s idea of play is to vaguely wave a paw in the general direction of a toy. I’m saying people just have to look at the poor animal and they can immediately see, holy crap, that’s an old cat. Now say this cat starts to pee all over the house because it can’t always find the litter box, and you notice that there is blood in the urine.

Here’s the question: Do you take the animal to the vet, or just take it out into the backyard with a shovel, and dig a hole?

Now, before PETA starts rioting on my front lawn for even suggesting a painless, blunt trauma, euthanization of a cat, let me just clarify. I did end up taking her to the vet.

But she hated every second of it. We both did, actually.

The cat, Sheba, started yowling the moment she saw the carrying crate. She would have run away when I brought it out, but she was too tired to move from the spot she had been sitting in for the past two hours. (Did I mention this cat is old?)

I put Sheba in the crate and placed her in the car. She immediately started to throw up and pee in the carrier from panic. She panted and cried during the entire thirty-minute drive to the vet. I’m surprised the ride itself didn’t put her out of her misery.

When we arrived, I found clumps of hair in the carrier. Her fur was falling out because she was so stressed out from the trip. I wondered if, by the time I got her back home, she was going to look like one of those naked, loose-skinned cats you occasionally see on television (because no sane person would ever actually own one). You know the ones, I’m talking about. The cats that look like a cross between a newly hatched baby bird and a malformed demon from Hell.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. She still has (most of) her fur.

At the veterinarian’s office, Sheba was pulled out of the crate and given a full examination, including taking her temperature (no, not oral) and stabbing her with needles to draw blood.

The doctor wanted a urine sample as well, but because Sheba had already peed in her carrier, they took her into a back room, kept her in a cage for two hours (not an exaggeration) so her bladder would fill back up, then used a catheter to get a sample. You can imagine just how much the cat enjoyed this whole process.

When the vet finished torturing Sheba, it was my turn.

“That’ll be $700, Mr. Wilbanks.”

$700!

I don’t pay that much when I take one of my own family members to the doctor. Why are cats so expensive? It’s insane. Especially when you can wander down to any animal shelter in the city and get a new kitten for free. Who sets these prices?

I don’t know who felt more violated by the trip; me or the cat.

I stuffed Sheba back into the carrier and brought her home. When I got into the house, I opened the door of the carrier and the cat had just enough energy to step out of it and lie down in the middle of the hallway. I poked her with a finger just to make sure she was still breathing.

She was.

The next day, I got a phone call from the vet. The vet told me Sheba had a urinary tract infection and it needed to be treated with antibiotics. I got a prescription (Another $100. Whee!) and brought it home.

The medication was a white liquid that needed to be sucked up into a dropper and squirted into the cat’s mouth. Twice every day.

For fifteen days.

I don’t know if you have ever tried to force something into a cat’s mouth but let me assure you it is not an easy or pleasant experience. Those furry little monsters have some nasty sharp teeth and they aren’t afraid to use them. I’m sure it’s no fun for the cat either. I can only imagine if twice a day for two weeks someone dragged me out from under the bed and stuck a turkey baster in my mouth. I might start wondering if simply crawling into a corner somewhere and letting death claim me might not be the better option.

Which brings us back to my original question. Did I do the right thing by dragging that poor old cat to the vet and putting her through two weeks of misery for a treatment that might extend her life for another sixteen seconds? I’m not totally sure.

I’m thinking about it from my own perspective as well. When I get so old that I start peeing all over the house and someone notices blood in my urine, I don’t know if I want doctors poking me with needles and making my last days absolutely miserable.

I’m just saying that maybe we should give the whole backyard and shovel thing some serious thought.

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A Trip to the Vet

Recently, my wife told me she needed my help taking the dog and one of our cats to the Vet. I told her I would be happy to check if the kids were available to go with her. Unfortunately for me, she had already asked the girls before she came to me, and they were busy. It seems she wanted me to go with her about as much as I wanted to go.

That is to say, not all that much.

Despite the fact that neither of us really wanted me to help with this project, I ended up spending a Wednesday morning wrangling unhappy animals instead of the marathon couch sitting event I had previously planned. That TV doesn’t just watch itself, you know.

My wife asked me to start by grabbing the cat and putting it in the carrying case. Knowing that the cat would run away the second it saw the carrier, I ended up waiting until she had curled up on the bed in the back bedroom before bringing the case in from the garage. I don’t know if she is psychic or if I’m just really unlucky, but the moment I walked into the house with the carrier, the cat wandered out into the kitchen and spotted me.

I tried to hide the carrying case behind my back, but it was way too late. The cat disappeared, leaving behind a cat-shaped cloud of hair floating in the kitchen.

I spent the next fifteen minutes looking in all her usual hiding spots before I located her under my bed. It took an additional five minutes before I could get enough of a handhold on her to drag her back out into the daylight.

Bleeding from numerous puncture wounds, I brought her back to the kitchen to stick her in the carrying case. Her head went into the case easily, but the rest of her suddenly melted into a pudding that was too wide to shove through the opening. It was like I was trying to push toothpaste back into its tube, only the toothpaste kept wriggling and trying to squirt back out.

When I finally got her in the case, it was time to gather up the dog. Getting the dog to go to the vet is a much easier process than corralling the cat. All I need to do is pick up the car keys and jingle them in my hand and the dog is already sitting in the backseat, drooling on the headrest, and wondering why it’s taking me so long to start the engine.

Which brings us to the next fiasco in this trip to the vet saga: starting the car.

After packing the animals into the car, my wife sat down behind the wheel, put the key in the ignition, and…

Nothing.

The battery was completely dead. I don’t know how the cat managed it, but she must have snuck out to the garage while I was searching for her and murdered the car battery. I can’t prove it was her, but the circumstantial evidence is very compelling.

We were forced to borrow my daughter’s car since we didn’t have time to get a new battery before the animals were due at the vet clinic. As my kid reluctantly handed over her car keys, she told me with a straight face, “Come straight home after you see the vet, I need the car tonight. And, don’t forget to put gas in the tank when you’re done using it.”

Before I could respond to those statements with the honest response they deserved, my wife reminded me that we were already late for our appointment. I grabbed the keys, made a mental note to myself to yell at the kid later, and headed out the door.

The vet visit went as I expected. We were advised that the animals are too fat, and we needed to feed them less or let them exercise more (Why is it always my fault that the animals have no self-control?) otherwise they were both perfectly healthy. We got a brief lecture about not waiting so long before we brought the animals in for checkups next time. Then, the cat got a shot and the dog got a treat, thereby guaranteeing that the next trip to the vet would be an exact repeat of the ridiculousness we had just gone through earlier that day.

When it was over, we stuffed the cat back in her suitcase, gave the vet enough money to make her next three house payments, and headed back home.

I thought when we got back home that the cat would tell me what she did to the battery in my wife’s car, but she must have still been angry about getting a shot because she wouldn’t talk to me. She just hissed when I let her out of the cat carrier and ran back under the bed.

It was about this time that my daughter demanded her keys back and asked if I had gassed up her car.

I tossed her the keys from my pocket and said, “Here. You’re taking your mom’s car, tonight. The jumper cables are in the garage and don’t forget to buy a new battery on the way home.”

Okay, I didn’t actually do that. I didn’t think of it fast enough.

But I really, really wish I had.

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Enjoying Deep Dark Thoughts? Follow me on Facebook so you don’t miss a post. Just go to my page and click the “Like” button to receive updates on my blog and other projects.

And you can follow me on Twitter @gallenwilbanks.