Tightly Wound

Cat's Eye

You know, I may not be the most attentive mom sometimes--after all, I'm the one who thought my husband was overreacting about the Boy's July head wound that resulted in 2 metal staples being placed in his scalp--but I'm damn near telepathic when it comes to detecting pet weirdness.

Well, except when the pet in question has managed to tuck a deer leg beneath my computer desk, but really, that was an anomaly.

So anyway, a week or so before we were to engage in our 2006 Christmas Extravaganza, I noticed that the cat's left eye looked, well, like it was sinking into her head. Not much, but something seemed off. But there was no redness, no discharge, she was eating and drinking and killing moles like there was no tomorrow, so I thought, "Maybe I just haven't paid attention to her in so long I've forgotten what she looks like," and moved on.

But then the eye looked normal. Then it looked all sinky again. Normal, sinky, normal, sinky. So when I took her to the vet to be boarded, I decided to go with my gut and ask them to check out her left eye. You should have seen the look the receptionist gave me when under SYMPTOMS I had written "Sinking left eyeball." Yes, I realize I communicate for a living. But I'm also more than a little evil, and like to present my more highly-paid fellow citizens with an occasional challenge. Besides, it was the most accurate description I could come up with.

Off we went to Asheville, and when I didn't receive a call from the vet, I figured I'd just have to contend with more strange looks when I went to retrieve the cat, which we did at the tail end of a marathon 6 hour journey on Friday, which included a pit stop by my folks' house to pick up the dog, unpacking and repacking the car in their driveway, and ill-considered Diet Dr. Pepper consumption that resulted in a cranky, tired, me with a full, full bladder when we popped into the vet's office.

Which was deserted. Seriously. The Boy and I wandered around for a good 5 minutes, opening the door repeatedly so that the electronic DING would alert the vet to our presence.

Finally, the receptionist's 9 year old daughter appeared and stared at us for a few minutes before leaving, ostensibly to retrieve her mom.

Five minutes later.

So we're paying the hundred and fifty bucks for the diagnostics and the boarding and the receptionist says, "The vet has some medications for the cat and she wants to talk to you."

Another 20 minutes pass. Lots more patients are coming in. Hublet and the dog are wandering the parking lot, and the dog is totally stressing out, because vet visits tend to be frequent and unpleasant for canines who will consume entire pounds of raw bacon at one sitting.

Finally, the vet comes in. To say that this vet is earnest is like mentioning that Napoleon might have been sensitive about his height. She's also about twelve.
She launches into a ten minute monologue about the third eyelid and the infection, and it takes her at least that long to get to the point, which is: third eyelid infected; this infection tends to be a symptom of something else, but I didn't do any more diagnostics because I wanted to talk to you first.

Sigh. As I am not the model of patience, my instinctive response was, "Well, you could have CALLED me and talked to me about it, and then I would have told you to go ahead and do a diagnostic and treat the cat so that I wouldn't have to drag her sorry ass back up here again, because my cat and car trips DO NOT MIX, like AT ALL, and you're not the one who has to drive around with a yowling feline acting like her intestines are being extracted through her nostrils every time we make this trip, plus I wouldn't have had to sit here for thirty minutes with a REALLY FULL BLADDER waiting for you to SPIT IT OUT ALREADY, and by the way, how much more is this going to cost, dammit?", but as I am a public relations professional, I managed to spin that a bit.

So, an additional $132 and fifteen minutes later, I retrieved a disgruntled cat with a really dialated left eyeball, drops and cream for said eyeball, and was given instructions to return to the office on Tuesday--which means Hublet will have to beat feet tomorrow to pick up the Boy, stuff the cat into a carrier, and drag her and her yowling self to the vet to discover whether or not I will have to adminsiter yet more medication to a CAT, which is about as much fun as stabbing yourself repeatedly in the eye with a nail file, especially when the cat has a tongue like a gecko's and the ability to lick eye ointment which makes her foam at the mouth like Cujo, and can I just reiterate that all of this could have been avoided with ONE PHONE CALL?!?!

I can? Good. Makes me feel better.

Posted by Big Arm Woman at January 1, 2007 10:59 PM