Rehabbing Kitty

I figure out soon enough that Trinket can not begin to eat normally with the Cone of Shame on her head.

I also learn that feeding her by hand is an exercise in foolishness.

And I learn that when a cat can't eat she is likely to get cranky and belligerent in record time.

So I take off the Cone of Shame and let her eat like a normal cat who hasn't eaten a needle and thread in the past two days.

And when she's done chowing like a Death Row inmate, I try to put the Cone of Shame back on.

Another exercise in foolishness.

I learn that even a cat with freshly stitched 8-inch abdominal incision can still run like a jack rabbit, jump like a flying squirrel, and scramble like a mouse into all manner of tight places.

By the time I wrestle her into the damn thing she is mad as a hornet and I am sweating like a fat man at a nude beach.

It's going to be a long two weeks. Made especially interesting by the fact that she can't get into the hooded kitty litter box with the Cone of Shame on her head. She is totally pissed, no pun intended, that she has to back in and leave her front paws and head outside the box.  Her expression is priceless. I remove the hood from the box. She's not much happier that her privacy is out the window.

The next day, I get up early to run through what will be the new routine of running interference between two cats and blocking and tackling and wrestling Trinket into the Cone of Shame before I leave. By the time I start the car, I am overheated, shaking, and covered in carpet lint.  And ready for a cocktail. It is 7 am.

Truthfully, I put the cats out of my head at work the next day. I have just about reached my limit of cat intervention. It is nice that people ask about Trinket, but I routinely answer that she is "on the mend." 

I return home and find the Cone of Shame sitting on the basement steps.

I air kiss and call her. She comes slinking in looking all proud of herself.

Like a parent with a toddler who just left his Silly Putty smooshed in the carpet, I point to the Cone of Shame.

Trinket flicks her tail in the air and makes a wide circle around it.

I pick it up.

I can see why she avoided it.

Somehow, in the new complicated kitty litter routine, Trinket had managed to stick the front edge of the Cone of Shame in a buried something-or-other.  A blob of it was now clinging to the edge of the cone, thus making it the Cone of Shadooby.  Shadooby that if she didn't pry the cone from her head would have been an inch and a half from her keen little kitty nose all the live long day. I can only imagine how she wrestled herself out of it.

I pitch the cone into the trash. We'll have to take our chances with the recovery. 

An epic storm is coming and Mama has bigger things to worry about.

Double Dose of Guilt

I wring my hands through the day and leave at 5.

I call the vet hospital to speak with the attending. This is all so bizarre.

The attending gives me the highs and lows on Trinket but mentions that she seems nervous and is not eating. I am wracked with guilt. 

I go home and let The Gidge out of confinement to run around and get her little kitten scent all over everything.  She is absolutely adorable and gleeful to be running all around. Again I am wracked with guilt.

The next day I get a call while I am at a Board Meeting (Bored Meeting). Trinket is ready to come home. They will keep her and love her up until I get there, but it is clear that she misses me. Once again, wracked with guilt.

I zoom home early, feed The Gidge, grab the crate and head out to get my little baby.

I wait and wait and wait and wait some more.

I get instructions about a bland diet and pain meds and oatmeal soap and stitches.

I wait and wait and wait and wait some more.


Eventually, Trinket is brought out to me. 

Shaven, stitched, dopey and wearing the Cone of Shame.

A very serious doctor tells me about boiling chicken and keeping her water dish filled and keeping her quiet while the stitches heal and wearing the Cone of Shame.

For two weeks! 

The little thought balloon above my head is screaming in all caps. "I DON'T SEE THIS THING LASTING FOR TWO MINUTES LET ALONE TWO WEEKS!"

The doctor helps me deposit Trinket in the dreaded crate. The Cone of Shame touches both sides of the crate. She can barely get in and can not turn around. We take her out. Back her in. It is quite a process.

I drive home and leave Trinket in the car while I go put Gidget back in solitary. 

I bring Trinket in and spring her from the crate.She darts around the room. She bangs into things. She can't squeeze into places. She misjudges doorways. She jumps up on the radiator only to have the Cone of Shame catch on the edge and force her to land again. She makes a mess around her food bowl trying to reach the kibbles that lie just outside of reach at the edge of the cone.

All together now...I am wracked with guilt.

It has just occurred to me that I have no idea what I am doing.

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News

It is exactly 6:30 in the morning.

I call Scott with the update. He is appropriately horrified. Both by the ordeal and the price tag.  But he agrees with my decision. How could I risk any chances standing there knowing what I learned?

I wonder what the next few days would have been like if I'd not seen the needle dangling from Trinket's mouth. If I'd not known she'd swallowed it. What would have been her fate?  As awful as this last hour has been, imagine how terrifying and sad the next few days would have been if I'd not known.  I can not imagine her being sick and suffering and dying.  How dreadful.

I decide to rally and go to work. I will be a few minutes late. I just need to call my assistant. I go into the attic to spend a couple of minutes with Gidget while I call. I won't be a minute, and I can just do my makeup while I am up here with her.

I calmly dial.

She answers.

I come unglued.

Through sobs and sniffles I relate the story to her, beginning with Trinket eating a needle and thread.

Of course she thinks I've said, "Trinket is dead" and immediately begins to console me. Asks some questions. Wants to know if anyone is with me. Where Trinket is.

I tell her she is at the vet, which of course given the hour and what she thinks she heard, does not compute.  And after 10 minutes of repeating and explaining and asking more questions, we are laughing. She thinks I should stay at home. I know I need the distraction of work. She says she'll meet me in the lobby for coffee and a pep talk on the elevator ride.

I manage to get myself dressed responsibly and remember my lunch. On the drive in, I call Scott. He'll feel better knowing that I've composed myself sufficiently to drive. 

I am chatting brightly with him on the phone when I get a call waiting. I don't recognize the number but I do recognize the exchange. It is the vet hospital.

Oh no. It's been only about 45 minutes.  This can't be good.

I tell Scott I have to go and why. He wishes me luck and asks that I let him know what the news is.

I am in near panic when I click on the other line. Hold my breath while the surgeon announces himself.

"We are out of surgery..." he says.

"And....." I say closing my eyes and bracing for the news, which if of course, not advisable in traffic.

"It went very well," he says, and it is all I can do not to turn my car around and go back and kiss him.

"I made the incision and I could feel the needle in her stomach. I was able to just poke it through and pull it out without actually cutting the organ. Which from a recovery and an infection standpoint is ideal."
Oh I am sure it is when you are you. I am getting the willies just hearing about it. TMI, doc, TMI.  I would have been just as satisfied to hear that she went to sleep and the Needle and Thread Fairies came and took the needle and left a dollar. To shake away the image, I focus on the practical.

"When can she come home to me?" I ask.

"We'll have to wait and see. She will need to eat and we'll monitor her temperature. And hopefully, in 24 to 48 hours, she'll be well enough to come home."

I am dying to hold her. I want to see her. I want to tell her how much I adore her and let her know she's not been abandoned.

But I try not to seem like a loon. I ask if I can call later to talk about her progress. The surgeon tells me that of course that is welcomed.

I promise to call and hang up.

And as I dial Scott to tell him the news, I realize, you guessed it, I am crying again.

A Gut Feeling

The doctor is very nice. Very soft spoken. Very frank.

Cats have passed things like this before, but the risk is very great. And a needle could do a lot of painful internal damage on it's way out. 

Super. Next.

We could try endoscopy.  There may be a way to go down Trinket's throat and pull the needle out.

With what?  A magnet?  I ask for more information on that option.

He explains that the only real risks involve time.  They don't do endoscopy at this facility. I would have to drive to the nearest one that does, an hour away.  And in that time, the needle could have traveled further and make the endoscopy impossible. And then I'd be driving back presumably for surgery, which might be more complicated by the additional travel time. 

Not a great option after all.

Or he could do surgery now. He could have her on the table in 15 minutes.

He seems like a nice man. I ask him, "What would you do?" 

He tells me that surgery is the best option.  Endoscopy might just be prolonging the inevitable. Hoping she'll pass it seems dangerous and could be painful.  The most human option, and the best chance for success is surgery.

I agree to surgery and he goes to get consent forms.

The consent packet is pages and pages long. I have to decide on heroic measures. I have to opt in or out of pain meds. I have to decide on a threshold for treatment. I have to make a lot of seemingly harsh decisions about what I am willing to take financial responsibility for. The information leaves me breathless. Good thing. That way the alarming estimate doesn't propel me into a state of shock. 

I sign off on treatment and sign away my next paycheck. I ask if I can see Trinket one last time. He agrees and then tells me to go home. It will be a few hours and they will call me. I should not stay.

The tech brings her in. She is wrapped in a towel. She seems woozy. Three of her four legs have been shaved and there is a tiny IV in her front right leg, taped and oozing.  Her fur is wet. She has had her abdomen shaved.  She is pathetic.

I am visibly shaken by her appearance. The tech tries to calm me by telling me that I am in luck. This particular doc is one of their very best surgeons. Trinket will be well cared for.

I reach out and scratch her ears and the top of her head. She leans in to rest her little kitty head heavily on my palm and closes her eyes.  I kiss her goodbye and tell her she is my good girl. 

And again I am crying as I turn to go.  I feel like I've seen Trinket for the last time.

Picture This

I dress. I brush my teeth. I crate Trinket. I feed and cuddle Gidget so she does not feel orphaned just yet. 

As I drive to the vet's office, I realize that this ordeal started at 5:15 and I am on the road to a pretty heinous day at 5:45. A day that starts like this is not likely to pull out an extra innings win.  And again, I am crying. Just a little.

I try to be hopeful. Maybe the needle and thread are on the floor at home and I just didn't find them. Maybe the needle is stuck somewhere convenient and not too painful and the doctor can just pull it out. Maybe almost anything else happened.

I get to the office and walk in sullenly with my foreign-object swallower. The tech is a Goth enthusiast with 11 facial piercings and some scary tattoos and gauges in his earlobes that are filled with blobs of amber in which there are little entombed scorpions. Guessing he opted out of charm school.  He is very nice though, in spite of his almost scary appearance and he is very sweet to Trinket. 

The doctor comes in and asks me about the episode from this morning. He's pulled her chart. He knows all about the bat and the rabies and the fleas etc. Seems Trinket has been the Story of the Day at rounds these last few weeks. Which makes me Owner of the Day each time, for sure. I am so proud.

The doctor assures me that it is not uncommon for cats to eat weird things.  He's seen lots of oddball things come out of  cat, in spite of the dog species getting the bad rap for eating things that aren't food.  He says that for some reason, needles and thread hold great appeal to cats.

Somehow this makes me feel oddly better. Like if he's seen this situation a few times he's a pro.

He tells me he'd like to examine Trinket (who is with the tech) to see if she's really swallowed the thing.  I am encouraged that one of my other dreamed up options might not be so far flung.

He returns in a few moments to say that he did not find the needle protruding from her tongue or stuck in the back of her throat, or resting peaceably along side her gums.  He'll have to perform an X-ray to know for sure.

I consent.

They will have to sedate her a little.

I consent again. 

A few minutes later he returns.  He logs onto a the computer to show me the images.  I am alarmed that Trinket looks all stretched out and elongated like the cats we dissected in 10th grade biology. It gives me the shivers to see her body like that.

But the most alarming thing lies in the middle of the image.

There, shining like a beacon in the night, is the precise outline of a sewing needle. In such great detail that I can even see the eye of the needle.

"Well, no disputing that she ate it," I say.

And then, "What do we do now?"

Needle in a Haystack

Oh.
My.
Gawd!

That little trip to the night table was evidently a scavenger hunt.

I am not unlike most people in this respect. I have a little dish on my bedside table that has a lot of little unrelated pieces of junk in it. A button that fell off. A Chapstik. A fortune from a fortune cookie. A book of matches. And in this case, a needle and thread. I'd recently mended the hem on a black jacket and left the needle, with about 8 inches of thread still attached, in the dish with the other junk. 

Once I discovered the needle dangling from Trinket's mouth, I of course shrieked in horror.  Which of course, made Trinket scamper away.  I of course, gave chase, trapping her in the spare bedroom before she could hid under the treadmill. I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and reached for he needle. Three of four times as she thrashed and squirmed and fought with me.  It took her only a few seconds to scramble from my grasp and dash down the stairs.

I spring to my feet and chase her as she runs. Down the first 6 steps. Turn on the landing. Down the next 6 steps. And then a hairpin turn across the center hall, through the dining room and into the kitchen where she stops to look at me. 

I flick on the light. Exactly 10 seconds has passed.

And I can see that the needle is gone!

Trinket is calmly walking away to hide in the basement.

I grab the phone from the center hall and call Scott. As I explain what has happened, I cradle the phone against my shoulder and drop to the floor. I retrace my footsteps, and more importantly, Trinket's pawsteps from the kitchen to the spare bedroom, feeling along the carpet and hardwood with my fingers, hoping to land on the needle and maybe even the thread. Please, God, let me find the needle.

Scott is very calm.  He is googling while I make my panicked hunt for the needle.  He tells me that I really need to call the vet and do it fast because a tiny cat is not a lot of body to pass through and a needle will be doing major damage in no time.  The alternative is pretty bleak.

When I am certain that the needle is gone I dial the vet. Of course I need to come in...the sooner the better. Trinket is on borrowed time.

The Cat That Ate the Canary, Or Worse

The next few days go much the same way.  I have Gidget confined to the penthouse suite and Trinket terrorizes her during every brief encounter.  It is madness. I've had to get very creative about carving out time to make each cat feel like the light of my life and frankly it is leaving my nerve endings in shreds.

When Gidget is out of view and beyond smelling range, Trinket is as lovable and sweet as ever. Curls up with me on the couch. Sleeps on my bed with me. Greets me like a puppy.

One morning, I reach down for her as she slept by my side and she climbs up to nose around near my face, purring the whole time. I reach out to pet her and she climbs onto my night table.  And very quickly she jumps down. As if she is in hot pursuit of something.

For a moment, I wonder if she's somehow managed to find a way to open the attic door and is off to pounce on the poor unsuspecting kitten whose wandered out to explore the rest of the forbidden house.

She runs back into my room and appears to be mauling something - paws flailing near her face as though she has something in her teeth. She is making a gaggy sound.  I am flinging off the covers to see what is happening.

I lean over the edge of the bed and talk to Trinket.  I can see that she is moving her head back and forth as she is silhouetted against the light carpet.  Maybe she ate something and is choking it down. She continues to make an awful gagging sound. 

"What is it, Trink?" I ask as I turn on the light, hoping that what she has is very dead and no more heinous than a cricket.

The light comes on and I look at her, and she at me. In my bleary-eyed view, I can see that she is trying to chew something. I lean in close and gasp in horror when I see what it is.

Not a cricket. Not a mouse. I can see something shiny dangling from her mouth along side her chin. 

My cat appears to be attempting to swallow a needle and thread!