Took The Cat To The Vet Today

Just got back from the vet with the cat. She promptly lay down on the driveway and demanded food (more or less in that order!). She's been on my mind a bit these last couple of days, hence the amount of writing about her I am doing. She's my dependent :D And I vastly prefer her over both a kitten and a child (the first is crunchy, the second gets you in legal trouble if you cook it).

This is the third time in her life that she's ever been to the vets - once as a kitten for the uterine-excavation-operation-of-doom, once a few years back for flea allergies and then again to the same vet today. She's thirteen (minus an estimated month). So it was a rare and special occasion for both of us.

Ah, and here she comes. Mewing and chirruping. Because, obviously, she ran out of food. And my bag is in her spot on the bed, so she's standing there and calling me over to pay attention to her, and fix it damn it, these bones need a comfy spot!

She's got some kind of intestinal bleeding, which leads to extremely smelly stools, black with digested blood. Which led to panic in the flat on their discovery in the litterbox, and I got to research various gross things on the internet (and poor Arkillian was driven away from the couch by the smell). So now I have to sneak antibiotics and stomach-lining stuff down her throat everyday for the next week... and to try and persuade her that outdoors is so much nicer than the litterbox. Really. Even when it's wet and cold and has stray cats nearly as big as her.

Got some supplements (Seaflex) for her arthritic joints, so she can stop limping and being miserable everytime it rains. And growling at me when I pick her up, that's important too... as it can lead to biting. Luckily she thinks they're cat treats.

Otherwise she's very healthy, weighs 4.44 kg (she lost nearly a whole kilogram when she was sick!) and happily shed all over me. The cat brush was buried under the pile of computers from the LAN Diablo 2 character creating event in the sitting room... I had to dig it out and drag another handful out of her fur when we got back.

She's funny - I don't know if all cats do this, but when she's in the carrier in the car she meows very pitifully - these long, moaning, wails, sort of 'whyyyyyy?'. She's very well behaved - and we actually let her out on the way back (it was Mum's idea. I'm not quite sure what she was thinking, but I was greatly entertained, so I don't regret it. The cat was loose in the car on the ride up from Hamilton ten years ago, so there was precedent...)

The cat promptly ran and stood up on the side door, looking out the window, then came through the seats into the front, and I diverted her onto the passenger side. She sat on my lap awhile, and wanted to climb onto the dashboard and shed profusely in vengeance at being denied. Then she went in the back and stood against the door, watching dreary Auckland roads go by, then climbed up and lay on the back dashboard area. At which point we decided that she should probably go back in the box.

Then she climbed down and lay on the seat, looking between the front seats at the view, and then she realised there was another side door that she hadn't looked out of, so she went to do that, and managed to stand on the automatic window button. Which led to great panic, and probably great interest on her part, as the window went down... and we promptly pulled over and poured her back into her carrier, and she "MAOOOOOOOW"ed her way home. Where she commenced to be quite happy and most demanding as soon as she was let out.

Edit: Hey, cool - vet follow-up. Just got a phonecall from the vet, with more care tips (bland diet and so on) for the next week, in case she did poison or injure herself. Cat spent the entire phonecall headbutting me in the knees and mewing for attention.