Fred & the Vet

Fred is nearly a year old, so it's time to take him to the vet for a routine check-up, because I was tired of having money anyway.

I have spent the last 8 months conditioning him to his carrier: leaving it out in the open, making a comfy little foam bed inside for him to lay on, rewarding him with treats any time I had to put him in it. We even took him for a spin around the block in the car in it, and he's always settled right down and not made a peep.

This was the day we'd been training for. The vet visit.

He has taken to snoozing in the carrier in the evenings, as part of his pre-bedtime schedule.

After cleaning out under the bed, I discovered his nighttime sleeping spot, before he transitions to our heads. He bit through this bag and cozied up all over my nice tan fleece fabric.

He also enjoys burrowing in Tim's jacket.

So I loaded him up in his little carrier, and walked carefully with him the 10 minutes to the local vet. He didn't make a sound, and seemed alert but not stressed. So far so good.

We entered the vet's office, which was about the length and width of a bowling lane. There were two women already there with cats in their carriers. Made Fred's carrier look like a gigantic hovercraft in comparison. My arm was cramping from the effort of carrying him and I wondered how much he weighed.

After signing in and filling out paperwork as a first-time patient, I sat in a chair with the carrier to the floor to my side, and I rested my fingers in the cage. I felt his little whiskers touching and he rubbed against my fingers. Still so far so good.

A woman and her dog, a quiet, doleful-looking seal-potato, were sitting near us. No hissing or barking or growling. Just sad red eyes. A man came in with his hyper little crap dog, who was shaking and whimpering and scared the potato-dog even though it was the size of my hand. We were waiting a long time, and there was a lot of door-slamming going on, and creaky doors. I remembered how WD-40 is $7.

Finally, it was our turn to be seen. I put his carrier on the metal examination table, and the vet tech asked me to carry him to the scale. I did so, and he weighed 10 1/2 lbs, which was less than her estimate. No one believes me when I say it's just fluff.

Fred was being good. His pupils were dilated but he wasn't making a run for it or scratching. I had my hands on him and was comforting him too. The vet saw him, checked his teeth and ears and butt, complimented his soft coat, and said that because he may not have been old enough when the shelter did his routine shots, we should give him a rabies and something else vaccine to be sure, plus an FIV blood test, plus a parasite test. Just to be sure.

I pet his face and tried to distract him while they took his blood and gave him two vaccines. He was stressed out but he wasn't drooling or hissing or anything, and it would be over soon.

The vet tech gave me a vial with a teeny trowel and told me to bring in his poop so they can test for worms and parasites. Again, I smiled and said okay even though inside I was thinking noooooooo.

We walked back home, Fred was stressed because he had needles in him and I was stressed because of how much that just cost me. It took less than 10 minutes. I set him down inside and opened the cage, and gave him a pet when he walked out. His tail was wet. I smelled my hand. Pee. It was only on one side of his tail, so I wet a washcloth with cat shampoo and gave him a quick wash in the area so he wouldn't be further traumatized by a full-on bath. I took out his foam bed and saw that he peed in a corner. I stripped the fleece cover and took everything into the tub, where I washed and diluted with vinegar. I cleaned everything thoroughly, annoyed that I'd have to go the laundromat today, and put the carrier and foam outside to air-dry.

I sat down at the computer to get to work, now that it was 2 hours after my appointment was supposed to start, and I heard Fred start gurgling in his throat. He puked on the rug, just on the edge before the hardwood floor.

Fast forward an hour later. Fred had thrown up around 10 times, to the point where his stomach was empty and it was just brown water. Poor cat. I'd ushered him into the bathroom to calm down and focus his puke in one spot.

The trick to getting Fred to drink water when you need him to is to put it in a human glass and offer it to him. When I checked on him later, and it was long enough that he wasn't going to puke anymore, I gave him some water in this fashion. He then spent the rest of the day really out of it, not eating, affectionate and sleeping. I've had cats who were out of it after shots, so I wasn't worried, but it was still really sad to watch. I got him to drink water, covered him in blankets, and was sad that he didn't get up in annoyance as he normally would.

We woke up to find him sleeping in Tim's broken pants drawer.

The next morning he ate a bit of food, but didn't even stand up to eat, so I brought his little dish to him to eat from. He continued to eat a bit through the rest of the day, and get more strength. He didn't have enough food in him to generate poop, which I still needed to collect a sample of (joy), and all the while I was strategizing how I could.

Then, finally, I was working at the computer when I heard the telltale scratching at the toilet lid that meant he'd just used it. I saw that he'd pooped and looked at the clock. 5:50. I called the vet and asked when the closed. 6. I told them I was coming there as fast as I could. Without thinking too hard about it, I put on a disposable glove, grabbed the little vial, and dug into the watery poop, fishing out a solid chunk. I almost barfed but staved it off by telling myself "shut up shut up shut up."

I got a little chunk and sealed the vial. I flushed, tossed the glove in the trash, and put the vial in a ziplock snack baggie, then put it in my purse and dashed out the door, remembering to put on shoes on the way out. I power-walked to the vet and got there just in time to be locked out. I stood there with a hopeless look on my face, container of poop in my bag. I put my face to the door and saw movement beyond. I knocked on the door. A young guy came out eventually, leaving for the day, and I asked him if he worked there. He let me in and let me drop off the sample. He seemed weirded out that I had the poop vial in my purse. I wanted to yell You have a fridge full of poop and pee you weirdo but I just chuckled and handed it to him. I was kind of babble-y at this point, because I was relieved to have made it in time and also probably suffering heatstroke. He informed me that I could store a stool sample in the fridge, as though telling me to refrigerate salsa after opening. He then charged me $50 to analyze the piece of poop I'd troweled out of the toilet.

Fred is now back to his impish, too-busy-to-be-cuddled self. Normally when we eat dinner at the table, he sits nearby on the perch, like some kind of attendant, furry butler. You can see his nostrils flaring furiously as he takes in all the dinner smells, but he's always restrained, sometimes giving the table an inquisitive touch with his paw. Chicken, though, is the line that he will cross every time. I took a small gristly piece of chicken out of my mouth to throw away and he leapt into my lap and ate it from my fingers in a few seconds flat.