I think I’m going to send our veterinarian’s office a Christmas ham or something. Because this year I’ve seen those people more times than I see my family and some of my closest friends. It’s a wonder I don’t know their phone number by heart, considering the number of times I’ve called them in the past four months. First with Penny, then with Buddy’s kitten care, then when Trish got sick not to mention her grooming appointments…

And then Buddy decided at some point over the weekend he’d try his paw at a health scare of his own.

I spent the weekend in Alabama with my family, and as I was about to head home Sunday Brian called to tell me Buddy’d been throwing up with some regularity, but it looked like kibbles and he was acting normal, so should we be worried?

Sidenote: for the non-pet-people out there, there’s a difference between vomiting and regurgitating. When cats (and dogs, I think) regurgitate they just kinda open their mouth and “blech” their food out because it hasn’t made it to their stomach. It just looks like a little heap of food. But when they vomit, they do the actual heaving motion and expel whatever’s in their stomach. It’s kinda frightening to watch, honestly. I’ve never witnessed an alien birth, of course, but that’s what I imagine it being like. Anyway, at least you can tell what’s going on and promptly move them off the carpet or put something down in front of them to ruin. Still gross, and I always gag whenever I have to clean it up.

I digress.  I told Brian to give him a can of soft food and see what happened. I got home at about 6:30 and nothing seemed out of sorts. However, both cats woke me up at 6 Monday morning (as they are wont to do, ungrateful creatures they are). I fed them, went to the living room to try to finish my sleep on the couch, and there it was. And then he barfed on the kitchen floor. So a couple hours later Mr. Buddycat was in the carrier on the way to see Dr. Megan and our friends at McGehee Clinic, where he is understandably very popular.

I wonder if he was still so popular after he had to get three x-rays? Because when I tried to take him out of the carrier and hold him while I talked to the vet at the end of the day he growled at me. And then when I got the bill I was ready to growl right back at him.

Long story short, he had something blocking his intestine but it seemed to be moving through him as the day wore on. And it was hard to tell whether it was a foreign object or if he was just really, really “backed up.” Of course there would be only one way to find out. So I took him home and fed him the special food she gave me, and ten minutes later he took the biggest poop of his life and has been fine ever since.

So, there you have it. It appears I spent a huge chunk of my Christmas budget to take my kitten to the vet for constipation. These cats are gonna put me in either a mental institution or a poorhouse, if those even exist anymore.

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