Panic! At the Catastrophe

Angry as I am about the Tim's-cats situation, I haven't even had time to think of it for 24 hours now, because Mr. Snickers-cat decided it was time to give Mommy a heart attack.

It's hot here in Chicago right now; uncomfortable, yes, but certainly not the hottest it's been, or is likely to get. Just garden-variety sticky-sweaty-hot. And it was stuffy in the house, even with the windows open. And yes, Snick WAS running around like a small fur-bearing maniac for most of the morning and early afternoon.

But we'd been in the air-conditioned bedroom for a good hour or so when I noticed...something wasn't right. I coaxed him out from under the bed by a tug at the scruff--problem 1, because he normally comes right out when I call. I picked him up and he made this little gacky puke-face and let out a "meep" of indignation. When I put him down--straight back under the bed. I peered under the bed and he was still making the "I've got a hairball" face. I pulled him back out--straight under the bed. I tried the Ultimate Cat-Attractant Which Absolutely Never Fails: the earplug-on-a-string gambit. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He just...lay there.

I picked him up, now verging on panic, and brought him downstairs and put him next to Whitey. Snickers is physically incapable of passing Whitey without a pounce. He just can't do it. Except...nothing. He was just flat, completely listless. That was when I freaked. I grabbed the phone and called my regular vet--who was booked up for the night. I begged, I pleaded. There was no way. They gave me the number of an emergency vet, not exactly nearby, but better than the one I knew about which was a good 90 minutes away. I called them and they said "bring him in".

My main worries were: 1) he ate a string and he's now in distress. 2)He ate a bug and it was poisonous. 3) He injured himself bounding and backflipping all over the house, and it's just now manifesting. 4) He's got some inherited defect and it's just now manifesting.

After a 45-minute ride in the truck, which was hot even with the A/C, we got to the emergency vet. He panted the whole ride, in that panicked-kitty way that breaks my heart even when I know it's a put-on, which in this case it wasn't.

The vet listened to his chest and his stomach and looked in his eyes and ears--usual vet stuff--and then took his temperature. Bingo--his temp was about three degrees above high normal. Diagnosis: very mild heatstroke. Treatment: a night with the vet, a cool bath, and lots of attention. "Of course," the vet said, "that's assuming he improves. If not, then we'll have to do bloodwork, and so on..."

I left him there and went to my mom's, where I was spending the night--I'd promised to take her to the doctor for the colonoscopy she'd scheduled for this morning. I ate dinner and went to bed, but not really to sleep. I was too worried about Snick. I called before bed, and they said he was still running a fever, though it was lower; they were going to give him a cool bath and see if that helped. I woke up about a hundred times during the night, worried as could be. I've grown very attached to this little kitty, you see. He's one of the few creatures who I'm willing to risk loving, at the moment, and if anything happened to him....

I woke up at 5 AM and called the vet. "Oh, Snickers?" said the nurse. "He's doing wonderful. He's been entertaining me for a couple of hours now--I taped a syringe-cover to the top of his cage, and he's been batting it around and purring...And his temp is normal," she said.

More wonderful words I have never heard. I thanked her about fifty times, asked a bunch of questions, and told the nurse I'd call back around 10:00. And then--finally--I went to sleep.

For forty minutes, til Mom woke me to take her to the doctor. She's fine, too.

I picked Snickers up this afternoon, and (after an eventful ride home, a story for later perhaps) we made it back to the Catastrophe. Snick is in the one air-conditioned room for the moment, til the house cools down a wee bit, and I'll be watching him closely to make sure he doesn't run around too much. But he seems absolutely fine, which is possibly the best news I could imagine.