How I spent my birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I had made plans to have lunch out with a friend at one of my favorite restaurants.

When will I ever learn never to make plans?

Around 8:30 in the morning, when I was in the midst of my morning chores, which include scooping the litter box, it occurred to me that Sammie hadn’t…well…how to put it delicately? She hadn’t had a bowel movement in almost a week. I looked at her lying on my office chair. She seemed sad. Maybe it was just tired. Either way, I freaked out and called the vet and was told to have her there in two hours.

I cancelled my lunch plans. I had visions of bowel blockages and surgery that I would refuse to put her through with everything else going on. I wept, convinced this was going to be our last trip to the vet.

Sammie perked up. She looked at me as if to ask “What’s wrong with you?” She no longer looked sad or tired. She looked like herself. Okay, maybe we could get by with an enema.

Dear Dr. Barnes poked and prodded and declared that there simply wasn’t anything in there. She hasn’t been eating well and what she has been eating has been tuna fish. Highly digestible according to Dr. Barnes.

No enema! Yay! She’d lost half a pound. Boo.

Also, the cancer under her tongue has now eaten its way through to the top of her poor little tongue. No wonder she doesn’t want to eat. So we did another medication juggle. She’s off the torbutrol and is now on metacam in addition to the piroxicam and cimetidine. The hope is to make her comfortable enough to eat which should solve the problem of the absent bundles in the litter box. Dr. Barnes didn’t pull any punches. We’re approaching the end of the road. All we can do is try different pain meds to keep her reasonably happy.

This morning, I gave her the first dose of the metacam. Within a half hour, her pupils were dilated. Within an hour, she wolfed down a good-sized bowl of tuna fish. The UPS man delivered my order of Tiki Cat, something I’d not tried before. After all that tuna fish, I didn’t expect her to eat again until dinner, but Sammie hung around the kitchen meowing, so I popped the top of one of the new cans and spooned some out. She dove into it. Admittedly, she didn’t clean it up, but she put a good dent in it.

Now she’s crashed at my feet sleeping off the buzz the new meds gave her. And I’m breathing easy for the first time in several days. My cat is stoned, but at least she’s eating.

Happy birthday to me.