One thing to remember about this story - Jay and I grew up on farms. Unless an animal was making you money you never, ever called the vet. In fact Charity and I were only allowed male cats while growing up because that meant Dad and my 2 uncles could neuter them themselves. We probably had a couple of cats that did end up at the vet but it was few and far between. I know Jay was also raised the same way. Vets were only called in the case of stuck calves or something of the sort. And they were usually only called after all the resources at the farm had been exhausted. Then we got the kittens…
Within the first week we thought the cats ate mouse poison
due to the appearance of blood in their litter box. That caused Jay to have to take them to
school and lock them in the greenhouse.
It also caused him to have to call the vet about it. I think in Jay’s world every call to the vet
puts a dent in his manhood armor. Having
to call the vet about two little kittens took a chunk out of it. The vet told us to feed them hydrogen peroxide
until they puked. We fed it to them, we
never knew if they puked but somehow they survived.
Then less than two weeks later we had another tragedy. It was supposed to snow that Sunday
evening/Monday morning so I moved the van in to the garage. Monday morning I was loading my stuff in the
van and calling “here kitty kitty” so I could catch them before I backed the
van out. Well I have a tendency to shut
my van doors pretty hard and unfortunately like his name suggests, Blackie was
black and I didn’t see him trying to jump in the passenger side of the
van. I slammed the van door on his
head. He fell down and started having a
seizure. About the time I’m staring open
mouthed at the cat Jay opens the door and starts to walk into the garage with
Camryn. I told him I thought I had
killed Blackie. He says “Oh my Gosh”
then we all three stand there watching
this cat have a seizure. Camryn kept
saying over and over is he dead? I think
he’s dead. Is he dead? Yeah, he’s dead.
Finally Jay told me
to get Camryn out of there. I loaded her
in the van and backed out then Jay and I tried to decide what to do. I said we couldn’t leave him there to die by
himself. I told Jay to take him to the
vet. Jay loaded up the cat, who had all
four limbs jutting out at different angles, and did as his wife asked. When I got back in the van Camryn said
something about Blackie being dead but at least we still had Lucy. I was traumatized all day but I was never
sure if it was because of what I had done or the fact that Camryn saw her dying
cat and it didn’t bother her in the slightest.
Several hours later I got a phone call from Jay. The vet had diagnosed Blackie as having a
severe neurological trauma. When I got
home that night I thought there was no way that cat was going to make it. He couldn’t even walk straight. Camryn kept asking if Blackie was dead or
alive. Jay’s manhood armor got multiple
dings that day….he carried in a kitten, in a kitten basket, to the vet and left
with 21 days of steroids he was responsible for giving the cat. He knew there was no way Cade and I were
going to be able to doctor the cat. He
also wasn’t too happy about the dent that was left in his wallet.
Then less than 6 weeks later tragedy struck again. Cade called and texted me numerous times
because he was at home and something was wrong with Lucy (his cat). I was able to get ahold of Jay and he checked
on it. He called me back and confirmed
something was in deed wrong with the cat.
I got home and thought maybe she had been injured somehow because her back legs weren’t working. We put her in the laundry room in a basket
and kept her there overnight. I told
Cade if she made it through the night we’d take her to the vet the next
morning.
She somehow made it though the night even though I didn’t
think she looked good. Then Cade went
out to feed Blackie and found him the same way.
It was like they couldn’t control their bodies. When I say it was funny, I’m not referring
the fact the cats were sick – that was awful.
But when Cade carried in Blackie and I saw the shape he was in I
realized later I said “well add him to the basket.” Jay was in the shower so after I picked the
lock on the bathroom door (I can’t imagine why he locked us out of the bathroom
that day) I told him what was going on.
We both felt bad because we were afraid it was mouse poison again.
That morning Jay had to carry a laundry basket with two
kittens into the vets office. He told them that if they couldn’t do
anything for them put them to sleep. That morning Cade asked if all cats needed
this much doctoring. Jay responded with “only
ours.” Later in the day he got a call that Lucy had
died but Blackie was stable. The vet did
make us feel better because he said there was no way that was mouse poison because
it caused them to do “psychedelic things”.
Vets words exactly. But then we wondered what in the world did they get
in to? The only thing Jay could find was
a bottle of cattle wormer that had fallen down.
We wondered if they had somehow eaten that?
Later on that evening Blackie also passed away. I was on the phone with my sister when Jay
and Cade found him. I had been wondering
all day how to handle the death thing but Cade took care of that while I was
still on the phone. He told Camryn
Blackie had died. Her response – “Again?!” So that was a little comic relief for the
evening.
The next morning Jay and I were looking at the itemized vet
bill. They had charged us a $25
cremation fee for Lucy. Jay asked me if
he called the vet and told them we’d take Lucy back did I think they’d credit $25 back on our card? I wasn’t sure. I kind of forgot about it until later in the
week. I asked if he ever called the
vet. He said he decided not to. He thought it was probably a little weird and
then the vets office would talk and laugh about him for awhile….as opposed to
how they already were???
Then just a week and a day later Jay made an appointment
with the same vet to preg check our Mini Hereford (not a common breed). I don’t know if the vet had to get on his
knees. Later the same day he had to call
the vet to pull one of Bonnie’s pigs (not a common occurrence). This is also the same vet that Jay talked
into ultrasounding Bonnie a year ago to see if she was bred (definitely
abnormal for SW Mo). It probably wouldn’t
have mattered if Jay had called the office to see about getting a refund on his
dead cat. There’s a good chance we were already
being laughed at.
When I told my dad this whole story all he could say was “you
mean you took them to the vet?” When I
told Jay that he asked if I had told dad that it was all my idea to take
them? There went a whole chunk of the
manhood armor. All for two free
kittens.
No comments:
Post a Comment