Monday, June 1, 2009

Anal Glands, Ear Drops, and My Trip to the Vet

Sometimes I think humans are just clueless cause it takes them forever to figure out what I’m saying, and I’ve spent five days giving Daddy clues by roaming around the living room and changing my eating habits and pawing at things, but all Daddy hears is “meow meow meow blah blah blah meow meow meow,” when what I was really saying was, “Come on Daddy! I don’t feel good! Do something!” And when that didn't work, I would sit very still and show him general disdain, like this:



It all started last Tuesday when Daddy brought me a new bag of kibble and I was so excited that I just scarfed bowls of it down, it was so good! And this is my kidney-diet kibble which comes in hard crunchy pellets which is just yummy. But then when I went poo in my kitty box, my bum felt really sore, so I went off eating the hard kibble; and on Wednesday I had a wet and gooey poo which did not make me happy, and I meowed to Daddy, and he thought I wanted kibble, so he gave me some, but I turned away and didn’t eat it, and that confused Daddy; and even when he would give me some hard kitty-treats in the evening, I turned them down. And sometimes when I got so hungry that I would have to eat the hard kibble, I only ate little bits, and I’d shake my head, and I’d let some of it fall out of my mouth. And I got so upset that my ears started itching, and I scratched and scratched my right ear so much that it started to bleed a little bit. And Daddy thought maybe I had a toothache because I wouldn’t eat my hard kibble; and then on Thursday Daddy noticed that my bum was sore, and there was a little trail of grainy stuff on my belly from where my poo had come out, so on Friday morning Daddy went to the vet and got some canned kidney diet food, and he gave it to me and WOW, I loved it:

And it didn’t hurt my bum when I pooed, even though I kept having wet and stinky poos; so all weekend I kept telling Daddy, give me more of that wet canned food! And he did, and I loved eating it, but he ran out of it on Sunday afternoon, and I didn’t want of that hard kibble stuff, so I starved Sunday night.

But then today is Monday, and this morning Daddy scooped me up and put me in my cat carrier, and I HATED it cause I knew it meant I was going to that nasty VET again, and sure enough, that’s where I ended up. My picture is in their newsletter and you would think they’d treat me special for that, but NO! The doctor picked me up and weighed me (I’m 6.4 kg, or just over 14 pounds, which means I’ve actually gained some weight since last visit), and he looked all over my teeth and found no inflammation or redness, and my throat glands weren’t swollen (I could have told him that!), then he listened to my heartbeat, but I decided to make it difficult for him by purring real loud, then he stuck that stupid thermometer up my kitty bum and discovered my temperature was perfectly normal (I could have told him that, too!). Then finally it dawned on him that I might have something wrong with my anal glands—at last, FINALLY one the humans figured out what was wrong. But then, what did the doctor do? He put on a rubber glover, grabbed a paper towel and some antiseptic, had Daddy hold me by the scruff of my neck, and then he probed my anal glands. YIKES! It was NOT FUN! My glands were all dirty and clogged and inflamed, and he squeezed the granular stuff from them, and I YOWLED and I SCREAMED and I decided, I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS PROCEDURE, so I swiped at Daddy with my back feet and clawed him real good on his right wrist (luckily for Daddy, he had clipped my claws a couple days ago, otherwise I would have gouged him), and I said to myself, if I were my brother Gerald, I’d be hissing and spitting and biting long before this; I’m usually such a quiet and timid cat at the vet, but this time they’ve gone too far—leave my kitty bum alone! And then the doctor put all sorts of antiseptic on my belly (since it was covered will some nasty-looking granules, and I was not looking forward to licking myself later). And then, to crown it all, he had to look in my ears! We cats HATE having our ears looked at. And not only did he stick an ear-scope down my ear canal, he put this sticky ear fluid in BOTH my ears. NO, NO, NO! I tried real hard to shake my ear and aim that stuff right at the doctor’s eye, but he was took quick for me and he put me on the floor before I could aim. But he let me run into my cage, and it was all over, and a good thing, too, because I was DONE with all this nonsense. And my ears looked like this:

Then Daddy paid the bill and bought some more soft kidney diet food, and as we were going out the door, he struck up a conversation with a couple who were bringing their cat to the vet, and he was a gorgeous longhair white cat with grey patches, and it turns out his name is Oscar, too! And they got this Oscar from the Cartlon Vet a few months ago as a kitten (I wonder if he was named after me, given that I’m their star patient?). And I felt such sympathy for that Oscar, because Lord knows what that doctor had in store for him!

When I got home, I was ready to get a major spoiling from Daddy; I deserved it. I still had little bits of granules all over my face:
So he tried to give me some more of that hard kibble, and I meowed, NO WAY! So he gave me some of that yummy soft kidney diet food, and I devoured it, I was so hungry. And when I was done, I licked myself all over, cause my ears were still wet from that yucchy stuff the doctor put inside them, and my bum was wet from the antiseptic, and I just looked a mess. And I don’t like looking like a mess! So it took me ALL DAY to lick myself back into shape.

But I'm still mad at Daddy: