Niles is fine

Sorry for anyone who has been concerned. We've been hosting our lovely friends the Bumps so there's my excuse for lagging.

Actually, Niles looked fine that evening, although he had a ping-pong ball-sized squishy thing on his right foreleg. They gave him fluids, so I assumed it was just the fluids pooling somewhere. It was gone the next morning, but the vet called to ask if he was okay and I mentioned that he'd had it but it was gone and Niles looked fine.

Oh no. The vet would like to see him. ASAP.

Now, I had planned to clean Wednesday but didn't since we were running Niles around to the vet. So on Thursday when we have this conversation I haven't showered, I am mid-ice-cream-making, and I cannot be there in twenty minutes for a cat who honestly looks healthy and happy.

How about 3:40? Fine. That gives me enough time to shop, shower, wrangle tot and cat, and get out the door in the pouring rain. I drive over to OB, find parking not too far away, and wake a sleeping baby to take him and the cat out in the absolute pouring drenching rain to go to the vet.

Oh, the vet says, a front leg. She thought I meant a back leg and thought Niles could be having a hematoma. The vet feels so bad she ushers me to the door herself, which means I don't have a happy vet tech asking me if I would like help taking the cat to the car. I really could have used the help, but I didn't want to make the vet feel worse, which she obviously did.

Back out into the pouring rain with tot and cat. Rain in SoCal is the equivalent of snow in CO; there are accidents and traffic slowing galore. I get back on the interstate for high speeds of 20 MPH and low speeds of 7. It takes me an hour to get home when it took me twenty minutes to get there.

But Niles is fine. He's gotten a couple days of wet cat food out of this, so he's super.

Cat sitting

Our sweet little white kitty was sick today and gave us a scare. He spent the day at the vet's getting X-rays (number 7, 8, and 9, good lord he'll get radiation tumors soon) and blood tests to discover nothing specific was wrong other than some elevated lipase levels. They gave him fluids. We brought him home and he's been perkier this evening.

A was a psycho demon at the vet's. He got licked by a couple dogs and got to give one treats (heaven!), but man, he's fast and doesn't sit still. He's into everything. He almost shut off the vet's PC while she was showing me the X-rays.

So tomorrow we'll be on cat watch. Poor Niles.

Cat attack

We go to the zoo a lot. The mountain lions in particular are interested in A, as in interested in having him for lunch. If he's out of the stroller and toddling along, a lion will pace back and forth, following him, looking like he's ready to pounce.

Last week, A was running and fell (and cut his palm, poor baby). The lion had been crouching in a corner, but once A fell, the lion jumped up and ran to the front of the cage, right across from where A was. It was frightening. Then the lion continued to stalk him while he cried. I've taken some video; I'll try to remember to put it on YouTube.

ETA:


Today the snow leopard jumped at us. That was scary enough (and fast enough) that I jumped.

Milestone

Today's the day I got caught up in writing and only realized how much time had elapsed when (not to reveal too much information) A handed me a box of condoms. Thanks, sweetie. I'm a first-born too; I get it. I'm popping off to put this in the baby book right now.