so. jeremy's parents' dog takes a pill for arthritis called Deramaxx. they got her pill out to give it to her and set it down on the top of a bookcase. some unknown amount of time later, they went to retrieve the pill and give it to the dog. pill is missing. you know where this is going. we spent about a half hour searching frantically for the pill, worried that it might have fallen off the bookcase and into magnolia's hands. can't find it anywhere. at some point during the search, we see miss kitty up on that same bookcase, sniffing around right where the pill had been ... and the mystery is suddenly solved. the pills are made to taste and smell like treats. and miss kitty loves her some treats. so we look on the bottle, which clearly says 'for dogs only' and jeremy gets on the phone to our vet. (why do pets pull this crap on the weekend? they can't wait until a tuesday morning to do some shit like this?) we're all very calm, tho, just thinking, 'oh well, it's just anti-inflammatory; the cat will probably just spend the day being super relaxed.'

this is so not the case.

NSAIDs - non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs are deadly for cats. you hear that? deadly. and miss kitty has just apparently eaten one about the size of her head.

this is where the really fucked up shit begins. jeremy is talking to the weekend emergency answering service for our vet, a vet we have known and trusted for many many years and through many many pets. rather than allowing us to speak directly to a doctor, she takes our info and calls the doc. i'm sure this is standard practice, but it fucking sucks. if they're not going to get you first-hand information, they should just give the number of an emergency clinic that will. anyway, she then attempts to relate what we've told her to the doc who tells her what to tell us. she calls us back ... and tells us that we have to force our cat to ingest hydrogen peroxide to make her vomit. did you get that? we are supposed to get a turkey baster and force hydrogen fucking peroxide down our cat's throat until she pukes. if we don't do this, she will die. if we do this incorrectly, and she inhales any of it, she will die. we are so fucking freaked out at this point, that we don't stop to think how fucked up this all sounds. they don't tell us how much to give her. they don't tell us how to keep her from inhaling it. just do it, she says. shit.

jeremy gets in the bathtub with the cat and a baby nose-sucker bulb thing full of peroxide ... he does what he is told has to be done ... and the cat does vomit. thank god. and it looks like there are pieces of the pill in there. and now what are we supposed to do? make her puke again? how many times? call the answering service again (still not allowed to speak to the vet, god forbid) who calls the vet while we sit and wait, crying in the tub with the poor miserable cat. 'make her throw up again, but don't let her throw up more than three times.' you gotta be fucking kidding me. how in the hell do you regulate cat puke? fine. more peroxide and she pukes again. and again. and less food this time. poor miss kitty is a complete wreck at this point. she has been traumatized by the people who are supposed to take care of her.

we get her cleaned up and let her go to her happy place as far under the bed as she can go. a few hours later, she drags herself out and pukes again. this time ... we see a little blood ... a few hours later, same scenario, but with a lot of fucking blood. no more bullshit. we immediately get in the car and go the emergency weekend vet clinic.

where we discover that everything we just went through was wrong.

we should never have given her peroxide.

we should never have waited so long to bring her in.

now let me recap this for you: OUR VET TOLD US, in no uncertain terms, to do this potentially lethal torture to our cat.

he did NOT tell us to get our asses in the car and go to an emergency clinic only 20 minutes away. we are so stupid.

when we told the emergency vet what we'd been told to do, he is shocked: "a doctor didn't tell you to do that?" oh hell yes. he absolutely could not believe anyone would be so stupid. he says you can get away with this with a dog. but not a cat. they are too delicate. and that we are incredibly lucky that we did not kill her, right then and there in our own bathtub. and have, of course, made matters much worse for our poor cat.

now imagine how my husband is feeling at this point? we are both feeling like utter shit, but he is the one who forced the shit down her throat. he's asking himself, did i give her too much? did i make her this sick? is it my fault she's puking blood? and i'm realizing how fucking stupid we were to try to do any of this in the first place. what we were thinking? why in god's name did we not just put her in the freaking car and take her to emergency right away? and the only answer i have for myself is panic. and that we THOUGHT a real doctor was telling us the best course of action.

so. emergency takes miss kitty and says they want to keep her two hours to slowly get medicine in her that will stop her stomach convulsing, coat and protect the obviously damaged lining of her stomach and stop her producing so much acid.

the second we pull into the driveway they call. she's thrown up all the medicine. they have to give her IV and keep her overnight.

i was actually so relieved when they said they would keep her. as much as i hated thinking of her sleeping in one of those cages in a strange place, i wanted her to have that IV as long as possible, as much medicine and fluid and peace and quiet as she could get. and they said in the morning when we picked her up they would evaluate whether we could take her home or would have to hand her over to our "vet" to continue IV treatment. sadly, it was the latter. and i have no fucking confidence in those people anymore, i swear to god. it killed me to give them my sick cat, who is ten times sicker bc of the way they handled our initial call. but miss kitty did seem a lot better today. good enough to be really pissed off at us, a blessing. and there is a good chance we can bring her home this evening. and a good chance that she will be back up to snuff within a week. and a small chance that she has a hole in the lining of her stomach. and i tell you i have a huge hole in mine. i don't need any hack veterinarian to tell me that.