Friday, April 08, 2011

The Remedy

So! We all went to the vet's last night. And I will tell you right now, trying to find those two cats and get them into their carriers is the worst part of any trip to the vet's, and akin to the miracle of the loaves and the fishes once it's actually DONE. Once they've been lovingly placed (or, you know, SHOVED) into their carriers, my job is over. The vet does the rest.


We get to the vet's, and - oh! wait! The first thing that happens when we get to the vet's is that there's a Crazy Cat Lady in the waiting room, except it's a dude. Yep, I, too, thought that Crazy Cat Ladies were exclusively female, but as it turns out, men can be Crazy Cat Ladies, too. Who knew?


So anyway, the vet takes one look at The Runt's ear, nods her head, and says, "oh yeah." And I was all, "what is it? What is it?" And she says, "It's the ear meds."


As I've said before, The Runt has had wonky ears since he was a kitten. Various medications have been tried, and for the past six months he's been on an ointment that is squirted into the ear canal. Of course, once you let him loose, he shakes his head and ointment flies everywhere. As it turns out, the ointment contains corticosteriods, which can soften the ear cartilage over time, causing the ears to droop. While only one ear is currently drooping, the vet assured me that if we continued with those particular meds, pretty soon the other one would be drooping, too. Mystery solved!


So we are taking him off the super-duper expensive ear meds and putting him on ... mineral oil. Yep, from now on I am to squirt mineral oil into his ears once a week (FUN), and we'll go from there.


So! The Runt is fine. We DID discuss his heart murmur some more, but that is a WHOLE NOTHER POST, right there. Rest assured that he is FINE, and we will be re-evaluating the heart murmur sitch in the fall.


Oh! And I asked the vet about the whole staring-upward thing, and she said, "Um ... I have no idea. Maybe you have bats in your attic and The Runt can hear them up there?"


Bats. God, I hope not. I'd rather have ghosts.


Now! On to Little Girl. As it turns out, she did indeed have the problem that Anonymous mentioned in the comments of Wednesday's post. And I will tell you what - When the vet puts on the ol' latex glove - just one, mind you - you can be pretty sure your cat's about to get it.


And what happened next could be a "Dirty Jobs" episode all by itself, and for all I know it already IS. There was much yowling and losing of dignity, but Little Girl will be right-as-rain. And! The vet only charged twelve bucks for that little procedure, and Dear Vet? YOU'RE NOT CHARGING ENOUGH.


So! The cats are fine. I took them home and treated them to a little Fancy Feast, 'cause I'm a big spender like that, and they didn't even hold a grudge about the whole v-e-t thing, so all is well. The end!


Oh! And would anybody like to swap To-Do lists for this weekend? 'Cause the weather is supposed to be halfway decent here, i.e., above freezing/not snowing, and I've got a T0-Do list that is threatening to spill onto another page, so if anybody wants to trade, just let me know.


Unless your list includes doing what the vet did to Little Girl last night, in which case you can KEEP your list. Please.

4 comments:

Badass Nature Girl said...

Glad to hear all came out well in the end! HA!

Our to-do list is still being added to, and of course, it will now start warming up since spring break and hubbys vacation is starting to wind down. BUT, we're also supposed to get a lot of rain, and one day where it's 80 and the next day where it's 50, so you really can't plan on getting much done with that to work with.

Today I have to stop some where and buy broccoli, pick up the oldest and we're hopefully going to the movies, where, hopefully, we will not have some snot tell us the wrong times were posted. Tomorrow we're taking the kids to a carving show and Sunday? It's back to work for hubby, the oldest goes with his dad, and it's just me the youngest sitting here staring at each other. Have a great weekend!

Anonymous said...

Your description is hilarious. Glad your cats will be fine. I love how my cat can grow exta limbs and be super flexible and like dead weight all at the same time I am trying to shove him into his crate. Then at the vets he acts like he's glued to the top of the crate?

My to-do list is long but lots of rain in our forecast so may be spared!
Have a great weekend. Thanks for the laugh.

rockygrace said...

BNG, hope you get the movie you want!

And Anonymous, yeah, it's always lots of fun to try to peeeeeel The Runt out of the carrier at the vet's. And then he goes all floppy when she's trying to listen to his murmur, mellllting into the exam table so she can't get a good listen. And then as soon as the carrier comes back out, he's all, SPROING!!!! Let me in there! Let me in there! 'cause he knows he's going home.

Little Girl, on the other hand, is much more stoic about the vet's. She's all, "whatEVER, let's get this done already". Until last night, of course, when her dignity was assaulted, and then she started to yowl. Poor gal.

Logical Libby said...

At one point I thought about becoming a vet. Thank you for reminding me why I didn't.