Greetings from Kitten Town, And3rsonville, USA, where I’m currently on Poop Watch. Yes, folks, that is correct. I’m sitting here in the cat room with the laptop, waiting for Mia to use the litter box so that I can scoop some of it into a container and take it to the vet for testing.
You are SO jealous of my life. I can tell.
I walked into the cat room this morning to do the usual scoop-and-feed-and-belly-rub, and there were two small puddles of blood near the door. As I mentioned yesterday, Mia’s been having some diarrhea, which we were treating with Strongid, a deworming medicine. If that didn’t get rid of the diarrhea, the next step was going to be taking a stool sample to the vet. I’d intended to see if I could get one today, because someone emailed me last night with a scary account of fostering a mother and kittens, and how the mother ultimately died after having diarrhea.
The puddles of blood worried me a lot – and I’m positive they were blood, because I smelled them, I am JUST THAT DEDICATED – and I tried several times to call the woman in charge of the shelter. It was pretty early, so I guess she was still asleep or in the shower or something; I didn’t get an answer when I tried her cell phone, so I called the shelter phone and left a message. I called Fred and discussed with him what I should do, and when about 20 minutes had passed and I still couldn’t get ahold of the shelter manager, I had Fred call our regular vet and went back into the cat room to put Mia in a cat carrier.
Getting Mia in the cat carrier was no problem; getting her out of the room in the cat carrier was a huge pain. Because every time I opened the door, a flood of kittens went running out to check out what was out there. I’d scoop up two to take back in the room, and three more would run out. Scoop them up, and another handful would run back out. At some point I apparently lost my mind, because I pulled the cardboard “room” away from the door, and kittens went running in every direction, followed by a dark-eyed Mister Boogers and Spanky.
Luckily, Mia was safely ensconced in the carrier, so I gave chase, scooping up kittens and running them back into the room. I thought I had all of them in the room, but when I did a count, there were only four of them. I had to think for a few moments before I realized that Flossie was the missing kitten.
I went back outside the room and looked around. It just took a second before I spotted Mister Boogers looking freaked-out while staring under the spud’s dresser. I got down on the floor to see Flossie sitting there, every piece of fur on her body standing straight out. I grabbed her, put her in the room, did another count, swore loudly when I only counted four, found Edgar behind the condo, shut the door, grabbed the carrier with Mia in it, and left for the vet’s.
Let’s just say that while Mia is calm and laid-back at home in the cat room with the kittens, when she’s at the vet’s and they’re taking her temperature (and you KNOW how they take a cat’s temperature!), she is very much NOT calm and laid-back. In fact, she’s a hissing, spitting wildfire.
The vet came in after a few minutes, looked her over (she hissed when he used his stethoscope to listen to her heartbeat; let’s just say she’s not a fan of strangers touching her), said something about her perhaps being stressed out, and gave her an anti-emetic shot and prescribed metronidazole (which surprisingly – to me, at least – is what I use on my skin for my rosacea. Mine’s in a cream form rather than the pill form the vet prescribed for her, but still that seems rather odd, no?). Naturally, when I tried the shelter again to let the manager know what was going on, she answered the phone and I had explain everything to her, because she hadn’t had a chance to listen to the messages I’d left.
She asked whether they’d done a “direct or floating fecal” and I said I had no idea, so I had to go back inside to ask, where I found that they’d done neither, because she’d reacted so poorly to having her temperature taken that they were afraid she’d lose her mind if they tried to get a fecal sample. So they gave me a little container to get a stool sample and I brought Mia home.
I sat in the cat room for about 40 minutes waiting for her to do her thing, and nothing. I left to do errands and pick up a Diet Coke at McDonald’s, came back and checked, and nothing. I ate my breakfast, threw some laundry in to wash, and came into the cat room where I’ve been for the last 45 minutes waiting for Mia to poop. Still nothing.
Ordinarily if we so much as think about scooping out the litter boxes, she immediately goes over and befouls them, but today when I need to get a sample, when I WANT her to stink up the joint, she can’t be bothered.
The kittens came over to inspect the laptop, discovered the cord that connects the mouse to the laptop, and had a ball.
You know, this is the time when a webcam would really come in handy. I could set it up and go downstairs and keep an eye on the litterbox situation.
I suppose if I have to spend time waiting for a cat to poo, it could be in a worse situation. One where I wasn’t surrounded by amusing little popping-around-the-room kittens.
Poop, Mia! Poop!
Thirty minutes later, the cat still hasn’t gone. Every single other day of the week, she goes like every ten seconds. Today, she can’t be bothered. “Yeah, no, sorry. I don’t gotta go. Pardon me while I bite at the ears and belly of this feisty little brat I birthed out of mine own body and who thinks he can kick my butt, mm’kay?”
I love the kitties, but they are ripping my legs to shreds. If she doesn’t poop AND SOON, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Send happy poopin’ thoughts this way, if you would.
I just got extremely excited by the fact that she went over to the litter box, but she only had to pee out that entire gallon of water she drank an hour ago. Psyche!
1:00 pm and no poop. NO POOP. I never thought I’d see the day when I was praying for poop.
My butt hurts from sitting on the floor. I stretched out to take a nap but then Oy, who had been sleeping atop the condo with Edgar, came a-visitin’. And then Fred called to see if it was raining here. It wasn’t, but about three minutes after he called the sky started looking nasty, so I scooped Oy up and took him downstairs and outside with me. He was very good, just sat on my shoulder and looked around.
Miz Poo was sitting on the table when we came back inside, and I bent over so she and Oy could sniff each other. To my amazement, she did NOT hiss. What is up with that?
Perhaps it’s a sign that we need to keep Oy!
(No, not really.)
I just ran downstairs to close the cat window (it started raining) and uploaded a few kitten pictures so I can get this entry uploaded, and I hoped against hope that Mia had used the litterbox in the five minutes while I was gone, but NO.
Peanut’s trying to nurse and Mia keeps pushing him away. Heh. Poor Peanut! Don’t I wish I’d brought my camera back upstairs with me.
Edgar just woke up peeping (which is what I call the little crying noise the kittens make), and ran over to Mia, and then Flossie ran out of the carrier where she was sleeping, and Mia flopped over, and now Flossie, Edgar, and Peanut are wildly trying to nurse. Mia’s not happy, but she’s not fighting them off, either.
I wish I had my camera.
Peanut. Don’t you want to kiss his little face?
Oh, the horror. THE HORROR.
She loves to sit on my slipper and sharpen her claws.
Silly girl.
I guess I’m going to go ahead and post this stupid entry. It’s 1:38 and Mia STILL HAS NOT POOPED.
Send happy poopin’ thoughts to North Alabama, if you would. I’ll see y’all on Monday.