There was a point in time when I thought our littlest might not make it. James lovingly refers to that period as “The First Twenty-Four-to-Forty-Eight-Hours-She-Was-Home.”
We figured out pretty quickly that Elephant made up for what she lacked in size with her moxie. And her ability to shoot snot clear across a room. (It’s rather impressive, once you get over the gross-factor.)
She has been healthy for several weeks. Meaning, of course, that she wasn’t coating everything in her immediate path with microbes and goop. She was also finally off antibiotics (for the first extended period of time since we got her).
We took her in to get fixed, perfectly healthy. We got her back and… lo, she has a cough. A small cough, but a cough. And snot. There was just the tiniest little bit of snot on her face.
I should have had a small episode in the vet’s office right then and there, because last time she was a little sick we spent 24 crucial hours and $200 trying to convince her that Zithromax is *yummy!* (It is not. She is far too clever to buy our crap. She is not, however, above being bribed with receipt tape and belly rubs.)
She came home Friday. It’s now Sunday and she can’t drink water or sit still or think too hard without having a serious coughing fit. I mean, you know. Specifically the drinking of the water. Which is worrisome, as she’s a very tiny cat who really likes her water. Consequently, she tends to lap up as much as she can find in her dish, then choke most of it back out.
We’ve tried a gravity feeder. I tried giving her water from a syringe. We’re doubling her wet food portions. We’re Googling everything we can think of. We’re doing lots of novice-cat-owner things, like promising her ponies and unicorns if she’ll just stop coughing.
Apparently, Elephant has no use for a pony. She coughs on.
We’re taking her to the vet first thing in the morning, because last time we let it go past 48 hours, she could barely breathe faster than we knew how to get her to the vet. And the vet is looking at her and listening to her chest and is all, “If you weren’t telling me that this cat is sick, I wouldn’t know.” And I’m angrily texting James, “MAKE HER DO SOMETHING SICK!”
Ellie coated the vet with a thick layer of cat-snot. The vet wrote a prescription. Ellie got better.
I called the Vet as soon as we got home and they told us that it was probably because she was under oxygen while she was being fixed.
Two days later, she’s coating the entire apartment in Elephant snot again, unable to drink water without choking.
So, back to the vet we go, on an emergency visit first thing tomorrow morning. And here’s what I know. We took her in, finally healthy. We got her back, and she’s sick.
They will fix my precious baby, or so help me God, I will cause such a raucous. I like her vet. I’m fond of the office. I’m glad she’s still eating and playful and sweet. But if they give us any grief or try to charge us for treatment… They will see an ugly, ugly side of me. The side of me that very few people saw of my mother when she felt the need to defend her babies.
… Can you even imagine me with kids? Heads will roll.
I just want my normal evil Elephant back.
iouweahh387 — Love, Ellie
-M.
