Nine Lives

I want you to know how I now start and end my day: by chasing both cats around the house and forcing them to drink terrible, vile medication from a little squeeze tube. They gag, grit their teeth, and scream and I have to sit on them and fight to get the antibiotics down their throats. It is so, so not awesome.

Why are we doing this, you may wonder. It's not enough to say that the cats are just old or that we wanted them to see a vet as soon as we got to the west coast to make sure all was well. Those things are true, and eventually we would have taken them to get checked out. Smokey, however, forced our hand by taking it upon himself to jump out of an open window last week on moving day. Rob found him screeching on a ledge outside the 1st floor neighbor's kitchen window. At first, we were more confused than worried. Why would he jump? Does he hate life so much? Should we stop feeding him the same boring food every day so he has more to look forward to? Should we have short therapy sessions before bed each night to reinforce his worth as a cat and family member?

Then we realized that he had a huge fat, infected lip. So not only did he jump, but it was clearly not so graceful. Oh, the shame.

Anyway. I took both cats to the vet last week and it turned out that while Smokey just needed some meds, Emma had to go back in the next day for THE MOST EXPENSIVE DENTAL SURGERY THAT HAS EVER BEEN PERFORMED ON A CAT. She had 5 teeth removed and was with the doctor all day. Hence, the drugs for Smokey's lip and Emma's teeth.

Between his fluids for kidney disease, pills for thyroid disease, and antibiotics for the fat lip, I'm not so sure what will keep Smokey from making another attempt to jump. For now, the windows are all closed.