« Five Tips for Stemming the Flow of Emails During Holidays and Vacations | Home | Our Christmas Baby Surprise! »
Poorly Pets and the Christmas Baby Countdown
By Greg | December 23, 2006
With 2 days til Christmas and 5 days til the official due date of our first child, my wife and I have been trying to achieve a gradual winding down in our to-ing and fro-ing, fetching and organising. Each day, we’ve been looking forward to having a real break, some rest and relaxation — and each day, something has come up to make it a bit less than straightforward. Today, it was our cat, some quick veterinary treatment for our cat…and the clean-up afterwards.
Two weeks ago, our house bunny Basil created the first big pet stress point of the holiday and baby season when she wound up with a big, nasty, fast-growing tumour almost as large as her head. Fortunately, we had a great veterinary surgeon who did a stupendous job of removing it with a clear margin, and she is making the best possible recovery. Potential disaster averted, at least for the time being.
Today, it was our cat’s turn. There’s no delicate way to put this, really, so I’ll just say that for the last several days Olivea has been constipated. My wife Kathryn (a veterinary surgeon herself) said it was getting to the point that we needed to do something about it to avoid more serious problems for our cat, so this morning we grabbed Olivea and administered the medication — the job of which is to stimulate the smooth muscle of the colon and bring about a bowel movement. I’d seen this happen before with other cats under treatment in a practice where Kathryn used to work, so I knew the effects of the medication could sometimes be rather…um…sudden, and as a result sometimes be a bit disturbing to the cat. It’s essential that the cat be kept near a litter tray, because when they need to go, they need to go now. So we were taking no chances: this would all take place in the kitchen, with the door firmly closed, and the litter tray at the ready. She wasn’t going any farther than a few feet from her litter tray.
Olivea is an extremely gentle cat, who has never ‘gone for us’ in anger, and this time was no different: she squirmed and complained a little bit, but otherwise made no fuss when the medication was delivered (and when I say ‘delivered’, you can probably imagine where it needed to go). Within a few seconds, presto! She went to her litter tray, and constipation was over as if by magic. It was unusually stinky and messy, but other than that it looked normal, and all was well. Another potential pet disaster averted!
She was still showing some signs of mild distress, though, so we gave her a few cat treats, stroked her fur a bit, and generally tried to distract her from any unpleasantness she might have been feeling from the drug. Kathryn left the kitchen for a moment to do something, and I continued making nice with Olivea. A few minutes later, Kathryn came back, and out shot Olivea, through the open door and up the stairs to the rest of the house. Not to worry, we figured, because she’s already done her business in the litter tray, and she generally doesn’t like being shut in the kitchen during the day.
So we fixed a cup of tea and started looking forward to sitting down for that nice rest we’d been promising ourselves we were going to have as soon as we hit the weekend and could call a halt to our other to-ings and fro-ings and baby and Christmas preparations. By this time, the cat had come back downstairs to the sitting room and was being terribly lovey-dovey, cheek-rubbing my legs and looking generally much happier than before we’d grabbed her for the forced litter tray experience. Suspicious? Hmmm, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I made a quick dash upstairs to get something before we sat down with our tea.
I made it only part of the way up the stairs before the smell hit me. WOW. No, the smell didn’t just hit, it assaulted me.
Where was it going to be?
Just please, not the futon!
Somewhere on the carpet?
The bathroom — yes, that would be good. Maybe she will have been the perfect cat and just done it in the bath?
No, it wasn’t the bathroom, and it wasn’t even the carpet: it was, of course, the futon. It was right there in a big, warm, wet heap — right squarely on the duvet.
We sleep on top of one duvet (synthetic) and under another duvet (down), and the first miracle was that she’d decided to relieve herself on the synthetic duvet rather than the down duvet. The futon itself was mercifully untouched.
The second miracle was that she had done it right on cat-poop-coloured cotton bedding. (I think they sell this shade of brown as ‘mocha coloured’, but I now realize that a more accurate description would be ‘cat poop coloured’: it’s much to dark to really be mocha.) The little pile blended in very nicely with the dark brown bedding — nicely enough that I had to check a couple of times to be sure there was just the one pile. Of all the bedding she could have done it on, and least she chose the one duvet cover that matches her poop perfectly. Maybe they should market it as cat safety bedding or something.
But quick, remove that pile — it’s seeping through!
Now quick, get the duvet cover off to avoid any more seeping through onto the duvet itself.
Too late: the duvet doesn’t look wet to the eye, but WOW is it stinky! Quick, get that bit of it in the basin and wash it out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Place on radiator to dry, hopefully in time for actual sleeping later tonight.
Now to attend more seriously to the duvet cover…
Obviously, it needs washing, but it also needs some more of the slimy remnants removed, because I don’t really fancy the thought of our bedding tumbling around in the washing machine in a solution of laundry detergent, water, and cat poop. I take it to the kitchen, where the washing machine is already busy with something else. That smell is still powerful, even with the messy bit of the duvet cover turned over on itself.
“I’ve gotta scrape this off”, I say to Kathryn, who is standing a few feet away, keeping her tender pregnant lady nose as far away as she can. “What will you use?”, she asks. Being a resourceful guy, the answer is obvious, and I turn to the tea spoon still sitting by the side of the sink from our now-cooling drinks. But as I picked up the spoon to scrape off the remains of Olivea’s accident, Kathryn made her objections apparent. Pregnant ladies really are sensitive, aren’t they? She just did not fancy poop on a spoon, and she threatened to never use the spoons again if I did it. She was so distraught I thought for a second she might actually throw up. She grabbed a piece of a Christmas card box from the recycling bin and handed me that. It was nowhere near as perfectly shaped as a spoon for poop removal, but I made do. I didn’t want to have a whole set of unused spoons just because of one mishap with the cat.
Out to the compost bin with the soiled bit of cardboard…and the other remains of Olivea’s non-litter-tray experience.
The smell? It lingered for hours. The duvet? It’s still drying, but I think it will be ready for tonight. The cat? She’s spent the day recovering from her ordeal — mostly by sleeping cozily in her radiator bed. The spoons? Still used for tea, and tea alone.
Speaking of which, we made a new cup and got a late start on our nice, relaxing Saturday.
We only have two pets, so I’m kind of wondering what might happen tomorrow. Will it be the baby’s turn?
No Comments »Comments are currently closed, but please do leave a trackback or pingback from your own site!
Bookmark and Share: