• Brace Yourself – It’s Hurricane Shitstorm •

Hi, friends! Welcome back to another blog post.

Today was a shit one (lol) because I've clearly not had enough of those recently. So here's what went wrong TODAY.

So when we woke up this morning, we noticed that one of the cats was acting really weird.

The same cat had been acting pretty weird when we got home from Knoxville last night – but honestly, between all of the drama in Cumberland gap, and then finding our downstairs flooded, checking on the already weird cat wasn't really a super high priority for us to deal with in the moment.

Although it probably should've been.

So that morning, Josh went to work while I stayed home to do my thing. And I just noticed that the cat was just acting weirder and weirder. 

He just would not eat, and he would not drink. And if you know this cat at all, you know that this cat loves eating and drinking more than anything. So the fact that he was doing neither seemed really weird.

So at one point, I had a break, and I went to sit down with him. And while sitting there, I just tried petting him.

The first thing I noticed was that his abdomen felt really freaking hard. And I mean, he's definitely a fat cat, and he's always got a big belly. But typically, it's really squishy. So it was really weird that his belly was very hard, and he looked way bigger than normal.

The other thing I noticed was that he was making this, like, weird guttural moan every single time, I was touching his stomach. And it was a sound I never heard him make before so I was like, "Maybe I should call the vet."

So I called the vet, and the vet has me do has some, like, routine checking stuff while I'm on the phone with her. So I started, like, checking his gums and touching different parts of his body to see how he responds and reporting back.

And as we're talking, the vet's like, "Well, how long ago did all of these symptoms begin?"

And I say we don't know because we just got back from being out of town.

So the vet's like, "Okay, well we think this might be, like, a urinary thing – and it can be fatal to cats if left and treated for 2 to 3 days  – so you need to get him to an emergency room immediately.

So I was like, "Fantastic."

And I called the emergency hospital that our normal vet referred us to, told the emergency vet what was going on, and the emergency vets were, like, "You need to bring him in. Now."

The only issue was that I was in the middle of work, and I had a very busy day. So I felt very heartless – which I also told the hospital – when I asked, "Do you think this is something that can wait a couple hours for when I can be more flexible?"

And they were like, "No. Absolutely not. You need to get them here right now. We have some offices. We can set you up in one of those, so if you need to work, you can definitely do that. But definitely do not wait for this."

So I was like, "Okay, great."

I then packed up all of my stuff for work, took care of the dog really quick, threw the sick cat in the car, and drove him, like, thirty minutes to the emergency hospital.

When we get there, they immediately take him into the back, set me up in a work room, and start running some different test and procedures. After a while, they came in and they were like, "Yeah. It's a good thing you brought him here. It's definitely a urinary blockage."

So I was like, "Great."

They then said they were gonna run a couple more tests to figure out like the severity of it and, like, they would just keep me posted

So a couple hours passed by. The vet then came by and told me that they're gonna have to keep him for forty-eight hours minimum. The vet then then proceeded to shock me with the bill, so I take out a fat fucking loan for it on the spot (while I wait on my next bonus to come through), and I was like, "Okay, great."

I then said goodbye to the cat – who was under so many drugs at that point – gave him a kiss and head pat, and then drove back home to finish working for the next few hours.

Raleigh and the other cat knew something was wrong.

When I left the emergency hospital, the vet told me that no news would be good news – so I pretty much spent the entire day hoping to receive no phone calls. And for a while, it looked like the only updates I was gonna get would be by text. Because about two to three hours after I left him, they texted to say he was doing exceptionally well, and he was on the mend, and they were definitely thinking he would be good to go on the initial timeline they gave us. 

However, probably an hour or so later, they called to say that he had a blood sugar crash, and they were thinking he may have sepsis. Which some quick Googling informed me is pretty fatal in cats due to it, like, affecting a whole bunch of organs. So that wasn't particularly good news to receive after literally an hour before hearing that he seemed to be on the mend.

They also wanted give him a central line for the time being so they didn't need to "stick him" as often as they continued running tests. So it was at that point that I pretty much tagged Josh in and told him that he needed to take things over from this point onward.

Because between the cat, and the house flooding, and the Cumberland Gap drama yesterday, as well as some other things I haven't written about, I had just about run out of mental and emotional bandwidth. 

But Josh, being the good boyfriend that he is (with a medical background), definitely his new role in stride.

Good news followed a little while later. A couple hours (and one significant bout of crying because I was pretty sure my cat was gonna be dead in the morning) later, the vet texted to let us know that things were starting to look a little bit better, and that, once again, no news would be good news throughout the evening. However, she did sign off saying she was happy with his progress since putting in the central line, so that was at least, like, a little bit of positivity.

Raleigh did not care for my emotion today. She just wanted treats.

So, yeah. By the time Josh got off, I was just completely emotionally spent. I was planning to cook dinner tonight, but I ended up calling him as he was heading home and I was just like, "I do not even have the energy to make food." So we ended up ordering some Pizza Hut and having some wine and watching some TV.

And that was the day. A day in which we need to brave ourselves because Hurricane Shitstorm touched down.

Oh – and if you've read this far and you're feeling so inclined, why not subscribe to the monthly newsletter? Each month, I'll share with you just some fun new finds and recommendations and other things I think you might enjoy to recap the past thirty days. I'm sure April is going to be quite the mess, so if you're into mess, I bet you're gonna like it. And if you decide later on that receiving one email a month from me just is not your cup of tea, you are able to unsubscribe at any time

So that is all for today. Thank you so much for reading – and goodbye for now!