Oh no, My Cat's Sick ... and it's Saturday Night.
To pet owners there's nothing worse than one of our beloved animals getting sick, unless it's when the cat gets sick ... and it's Saturday night.
This really unnerving horror happened to us this past weekend - my beautiful Harry, who I call my 'Google' cat (put "cat" into Google and Harry is what shows up!!) was acting weird when we woke up on Saturday morning. He's usually bright and chipper, sitting on my chest, purring and occasionally giving me a gentle 'rowf' to let me know it's time to feed him, but this morning he just laid there, limp, warm and looking raggedy.
His kitten (yes, Harry has his own little kitten to play with) jumped up to play, but he could only muster a half-hearted hiss, then he put his head back down and closed his eyes. No rapid thrashing of his big fluffy tail, no gentle batting at Alice as she climbed on him - nothing. Harry wasn't looking good.
My wife and I examined him (puncture wounds, cuts, abscesses or sores) but could find nothing. His nose was warm and dry - not a good sign. He had been fine the night before, so we decided to keep an eye on him to see how he did.
Harry is an indoor cat, so there's not a heck of a lot that can happen to him, but a very similar episode happened a couple of months earlier - it went on a couple of days and he went downhill fast. First thing Monday morning we decided it was vet time, so I packed him up and took him for the long ride down to Eastham Veterinary.
We live on Cape Cod, in South Yarmouth now, and there are quite a few 'small animal' vets within a short distance (Veterinary Associates right here in South Yarmouth, Barnstable Animal Hospital in Hyannis, Pleasant Bay in Harwich, etc., etc.), but Eastham Veterinary has a small town, animal lover approach. For a long time we lived in Brewster, right on the Orleans line, so Eastham was only ten minutes away. Someday we'll eventually get someone closer.
Anyway, the last trip to Eastham cost me $250 to get an expert diagnosis - "fever of unknown origin", a shot of B vitamins and antibiotics and a prescription for amoxicillin. He recovered quite nicely, but here in South Yarmouth, particularly in Brookhaven, $250 bills don't grow on trees (they do in Chatham, or Oyster Harbors, but not here). I really didn't want to bring him in again for another "fever of unknown origin" diagnosis. I can do that for free!!
As the day went on, Harry didn't seem to be improving. He was licking his lips, swallowing a lot, listless, damp and warm. By two in the afternoon we started force feeding him water with an eyedropper, putting little tiny pieces of chicken on his tongue and generally hovering around him like he was our young child. By four o'clock he didn't seem to be getting any better.
The wife started demanding I take him to the vet -- except not to our regular vet, who closes at noon on Saturday. No, she wanted Harry to go to the animal emergency room - the Cape Animal Referral and Emergency Center in Dennis. At this place, $250 won't even get you into the parking lot. The care is as sophisticated as any human hospital, and not quite as expensive, but still, they could blow though $1,000 just like that.
I let her know that I was not going to spend $1,000 on Harry - not because I don't love Harry, but because we simply don't have $1,000 to spare. I endured being called "cat killer", "murderer" and "heartless" while trying to think through what had happened to Harry. There simply had to be some reason Harry was sick - something he was eating, or not eating, or ... SOMETHING.
What was it? I had potted some rooted cuttings and put the over-wintered plants outside ... plants that were inside for the winter. Plants the cats dug in, tossing soil all around the room. Plants Harry chewed on, especially the lemongrass that he decimated over the winter, eating stalk after stalk after stalk. It went outside last Monday - Harry's lemongrass was now in the herb garden, beyond his reach. Could that be the cause of the "fever of unknown origin"? Was "lack of greens" the mystery diagnosis? Hmmm. This was a $1,000 question.
The moving and planting of the lemongrass was a touchy subject. I had back surgery two weeks ago, so I'm not supposed to doing any gardening, but last week I planted four teeny weeny plants in the herb garden. You would think I had gotten out the mules and plowed the back forty or wrestled some alligators in the fish pond or something. Through my flagrant irresponsibility I forever forfeited the right to mention any kind of pain, without hearing something about "gardening against doctor's orders."
Well, I had to bring up the concept up to the wife - could Harry's system be out of whack due to lack of greens? He's a long haired cat; he ate lemongrass, a particularly raspy grass, every day. I moved it outside last Monday, and Saturday Harry was hurting. Would she consider digging up some grass, putting it in a pot and putting it inside where Harry could get at it? And, would she do this BEFORE we rushed Harry to the Animal Emergency Room?
Sure, it was preposterous, and it wouldn't make a difference, but she did it. Within a half hour of bringing the potted mounds of fresh grass inside, Harry got off the couch, dragged his sorry tail into the kitchen and started chomping on the green stuff. His recovery was nothing short of amazing - within another half hour he was sitting at the kitchen island, a hungry cat, begging for chicken scraps. He ate a dozen pieces in minutes. He jumped down, walked over to his kitten, wrapped her up in his big paws and started mauling her, just like he always does.
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KEYWORDS:cat,cape cod,south yarmouth,eastham,eastham veterinary,cape animal referral and emergency center
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