Well, it’s been a minute since I’ve written anything. I stopped because I was living a covid life, by that I mean a boring not going anywhere life due to covid restrictions, not a “I’m sick with covid” life. Weird the things we need to clarify now…
Anyways!
Life was boring, I did nothing and went almost nowhere, so had no idea what to write about. Now here I am, almost at the end of September 2022, I’ve had a full summer, and written nothing. Ah well, least I’m starting up now and not next week, right?
I really wanted to share the ridiculousness that was my evening, because I couldn’t have made this up if I’d been asked to.
Striker, the furball, the one who pays no bills yet rules this apartment, the chonky boi, the Overlord, has been having some medical issues lately and oh my god, the drama! From me. From him. Put two dramatic souls together and things will get interesting.
He had a vet appointment to test his kidney levels. About six months ago he had dental surgery and his pre-op bloodwork showed slightly elevated but still in normal range readings on some kidney stuff. Yes I know, I’m so technical with my wording. I’m not a vet or a doctor people, the bio wording they use means nothing to me! So his readings were a smidge high and they recommended bring him in at 6 months for a blood and urine test. Ok, sure, of course I will.
He has his blood and urine taken, I apologize profusely to him for the indignity of the entire process, we go home. No biggy. The next day, while I’m working from home (oh yeah, since I’ve last written I have a new job and work from home a couple times a week, see, shit really has been happening since I’ve been gone!), I get a call from the vet saying he’s stage two almost stage three kidney failure / disease and boom, world turned upside down. How did that change so quickly in six months? They talk about him needing subcutaneous shots of fluid once a week and how they’ll teach me how to stab him with a needle, how he needs a special type of food, how things are bad.
Then they also say they want to run one last test, they have enough urine they don’t need a fresh sample, so can they? Of course they can! Like I’m gonna say no to that?
The next day, after I’ve been ugly crying and holding Striker like I can somehow physically ward off his death if I hold him tightly enough, I get another call from the vet. Super chill this time. No protein in the urine, things are great. They know Striker is food picky so if he eats the kidney food great but no big deal if he doesn’t, not yet anyways, he doesn’t need the weekly shots. Basically, a roller coaster of emotions over a 24 hour period for them to be all “yeah, it’s all chill now, we just need to keep an eye on things”.
What the actual…I’m trying to swear less, so just imagine how that finishes lol
So now I want to go over there and slaughter someone. Do they not take training on how to talk to people when going to vet school, cause they should!
I took away from this when things do get worse health wise for Striker I will not handle it well, like that’s a surprise to anyone who knows me *rolls eyes*.
I was still edgy over the whole kidney scandal when I notice Striker is licking his back paws, like, a lot. An abnormal amount. I take a look and holy hell they are scary looking. Red, and irritated looking, and sore, and just not ok. Weirdly enough, an injury I can deal with better than an internal organ thing, so I clean them best I can and book him a vet appointment.
Vet visit number 2, in under 2 weeks…he’s plotting my death, I’m sure of it.
We went to the vet yesterday and they described his poor back paws as looking as if they’d been burned Burned! From what you may be wondering. Did he jump on the stove when a burner was on? Did he walk through freshly fertilized flower pots? Did he make friends with a bbq? Nope. None of these. All he did was use his litter box, with a different litter than normal. It messed with his murder mittens so badly they are being described as burned.
Lemme tell ya, my anger levels are real. The vet said we’ll never know if he is allergic or if something was wrong with the litter batch, but that part doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is I brought something into this apartment, for him to use, that hurt him. And I want the blood of someone to make up for his hurting. But I can’t really get revenge on myself, cause who would feed Striker then? So revenge will have to be forgotten, while I am now a caregiver to a strongly opiniated ball of floof.
All of that back story to get you to tonight. I came home from work and set up a Striker Spa Session, as I have decided to call it. Towels spread on the floor, the antiseptic wash soaked into gauze squares, a bowl of warm (but not hot!) water for rinsing the paws, and an antibiotic cream for after the paw cleaning and drying is over. They did this at the vet yesterday, showed me what to do, and uh yeah, fun times for us.
To be fair to Striker, he is remarkably well behaved when I have to do random things like this to him. Once he realizes I’m committed to whatever it is I’m doing he just sorta sighs and waits till I’m done. Such a trooper!
So I deep cleaned between his toes and around his toe beans, removing built up icky stuff, which he actually made sounds about but after he seemed to feel better so let me off with no fresh wounds. Then rinsed the wash off his murder mittens. Then dried them as best as I could…why do cat paws not dry quickly? What’s with that? Then used a q-tip to get the antibiotic ointment between his toes. Then held on to him for as long as I possibly could to give the ointment time to absorb because he and I both knew as soon as he was let loose he was finding somewhere to hide so he could lick his paws.
He does have a cone of shame, that I had to buy, and that he was put in when we left the vet. He managed to get out of it while still in the carrier on the way home. I put it back on him as soon as we got home and I learned that (1) when wearing a cone of shame Striker can only walk backwards and (2) he gets out of it in under 20 seconds.
I tried making a little foot wrap thing for him, but no go, he got that off in about two minutes. Not gonna lie, kinda proud my foot wrap lasted longer than the cone of shame.
We are now working on the honour system, I keep telling him “No cone than no feet!” as in, if you don’t wear a cone then you can’t lick the feet. So far he is proving to be less than honourable, but at least when I tell him to stop he does, for about five seconds.
What’re you gonna do? He’s a cat, it’s an instinct. A stupid instinct but an instinct all the same.
Tomorrow we will be having another Striker Spa Session, and will be having them once to twice daily for the next 5 to 7 days, or until he kills me in my sleep, whichever comes first.
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 