The Continuing Apricot Saga

Well, he was okay.

Last night, Sunday, Apricot threw up his supper treat. This is unusual for him. Then, this morning, as I was getting ready for work (and it’s not like I spend a lot of time in the house awake in the morning before leaving for work), I saw Apricot scooting. Again. 

He didn’t have to let me see him do it, either. Which means to me, that it was serious. Again.

When I got to work I waited until my vet would be open and called them and got a same day appointment at 4 pm. Today or tomorrow I also needed to get an allergy shot. (It’s complicated. But essentially when you start a new bottle you have to build up your dosage and during that time you have to come in more frequently. And I’m in that time period.) 

I managed to leave work at 2:20 (a half hour early) and get to the allergist, get my shot, get home by 3:20 (I was blessed by traffic actually moving!), get changed, get Apricot, and head off to the vet. I didn’t bother changing my stuff out of my work bag, just took out my lunch bag and took the rest of it with me, since it had my water bottle and stuff.

Apricot was not pleased. When I put his harness on him before I got changed and explained the situation, he hid. I had blocked off both major hiding places though. He still managed to find somewhere I couldn’t find him. I actually have no idea where he was initially hiding. He tried to change spots and I saw him when he was inbetween them. 

Then, again in the kangaroo pouch like Saturday, when I started the car he let out an ear-piercing meow. I didn’t even know he could make a sound like that. I said, “ow. Loud much?” Fortunately for my ears and my nerves, that was the only sound he made on the way there.

Well, my vet examined him, and this time his left gland was impacted. Seriously. It was clear on Saturday and two days later it was full and, er, sorry for the detail, but “sludgey”. 

She said that it was really hard to tell with these things whether it was an infection causing it or not. I mentioned that someone in the house also had diarrhea based on litter box evidence but it was difficult to tell who given there are three cats. It’s a good assumption it’s Apricot, though. (If you want to know why, look up more detail on anal glands and why they get impacted. It’s kind of gross.)

So I have antibiotic pills to give him, two per time, twice a day. (And isn’t that going to be fun.) There were bigger pills that he could have taken just one twice a day but, despite his weight, he’s not actually that big of a cat and has a small mouth. I’d rather do two ... at the moment actually. We’ll see how he takes to having a pill. Two. She said they should help with his diarrhea too.

But something really awesome did happen during the examination. I suddenly realized, wait, I don’t let the vet tech hold him, I do the holding during the vet exams. So I got up and took the pouch off and said something incoherent along the lines of, “here, let me hold him”. And put my hands on his shoulders and along his neck as I was going to move them down to hold his front legs. 

She just so happened to be listening to and timing his heartrate at the same time I did this. 

She stared at me in astonishment. She said, “his heartrate went from over 200 to around 140 the instant you touched him.”

What I said was something along the lines of “wow.” What I felt was an urge to cry from happiness. I’ve worked so hard for so long to have him feel safe around me, and to have concrete physical evidence that he indeed does feel safer with me, even just me touching him, was overwhelming.

Now as we were leaving we had to stop to pay, of course. And it was only then that I realized I did not have my wallet with me. Idiot me had left it at home, in my lunch bag. My wallet lives in my lunch bag during the week because all I do is go to work, and the lunch always goes with me, and that way it’s less random clutter in my work bag. Oops. I felt so bad. But they let me call it in when I got home. It helps to be a long term customer. 

I’m at home now. I learned from Saturday and didn’t let Apricot out of the pouch until I had the door to the tvroom open so he could go hide in his preferred hiding spot. Thimble, prevented from being a pain in Apricot’s, well, butt, took out his smelling desires on the pouch. That worked out nicely.

And Apricot just came out so I need to go have Apricot Cuddles with him, as I promised him I would when he emerged.

Apricot’s Okay

For almost a week and a half now Apricot’s been exhibiting scooting behavior, dragging his butt on the floors. But these episodes were always brief and I didn’t really think about it much, other than to note that he was doing it and he seemed to be distressed by it when it was happening.

Fast forward to today, when the scooting became much more persistent and severe and it became obvious even to oblivious me that something was wrong. So I called the emergency vet (seeing as it was Saturday and my vet wasn’t open) and the lady on the line said that it sounded like impacted anal glands.

Lightbulb.

I knew about those. I’d never had a cat with impacted anal glands but I knew it could happen. I even knew it happened more often to overweight cats (like Apricot) and that one of the signs was scooting behavior.  Did I put two and two together by myself? As usual, no. Poor Apricot. I hate it when others suffer because of my brain’s inability to put two and two together and reach a conclusion of four.

The emergency vet suggested I take him to a regular vet that was open on Saturdays and suggested Banfields in Petsmart. For those of you who don’t know this, Petsmart is a store that sells pet food, toys, beds, and anything else you can think of for pets. In the store itself is also a veterinary practice that’s financially separate from Petsmart but physically you get there by going in the store. Some stores have separate entrances and some don’t. 

The closest two Petsmarts in my area were full up so I called the third one. After having a discussion with the veterinarian the vet tech said I could bring him in any time and they’d fit me in.

Why do these things always happen when it’s raining, cold, and I’m sick? I had a sinus headache, day two. And I’d already been out grocery shopping and vacuumed the house that day, too.

But Apricot is important to me, more important than any of that. I put on the kangaroo pouch, put his harness on him and popped him into the pouch. You see, ever since he was briefly adopted and then brought back to the shelter before I met him, he thinks a carrier by himself means that he’s being returned to the shelter. A carrier with the other two cats in it is safe, though. When I have to take him by himself, I don’t use a carrier because it’s traumatic enough for him.

I took his rabies tag with me as I couldn’t figure out how to attach it to his harness, having lost the little metal ring thingy you’re supposed to use for that purpose. Only to find out when we got there that they needed the actual paperwork and the tag wasn’t sufficient. (Then why give me a tag at all?) She said she’d do it this once but next time I needed to bring the paperwork. I offered to email them a pdf of it and that was accepted. I felt bad about that too, not bringing the paperwork. They’d told me to but I thought the tag and the paper were equivalent and the tag was a lot easier to bring.

This Banfields didn’t have a separate entrance and was at the back of the very busy store. I felt bombarded by the people and their pets (mostly dogs) and the noise and the chaotic visuals of all the products on the shelves with all the smells from all the people, the products, the animals. It was overwhelming. And there’s poor Apricot, in the pouch, unable to get comfortable.

The whole ride there he was moving around, trying to find a position he was okay with, shoving various bits of himself (mostly pointy legs and knees and feet) into my stomach. You wear the pouch around your front, you see.

But they were quick. Literally the tech took him back, did the expressing of the glands, and brought him out to me while the secretary person was taking down my information! She said the left one was fine but the right one had definitely clogged. I’d done some research and asked if it was still liquid or if it had gotten to the solid point yet, because I was afraid that since I’d left him for a week and a half with this problem it had gotten past the “easy” point of fixing. She said it was a little sludgy but still okay to express, not infected or anything. 

That was a relief. And they only charged me 27 dollars which for veterinary anything is amazing these days. 

When I got home, he promptly hid under the bed (because I had the door to the preferred spot closed). I opened it and urged him to come hide in the spot he wanted to, but Colby had managed to get under the bed too to pester him and I had to drag him out to give Apricot the chance to make a run for it. 

Apricot actually emerged less than half an hour later and came by to tell me he felt so much better. Thimble promptly pestered him unbearably, trying to get all up in his butt business, that Apricot disappeared under the couch again and this time stayed there for several hours. I called Thimble a bully. About ten minutes later he came and made nice with me and cuddled up to me. And they say cats don’t understand English.

By supper time, though, everyone had gotten back to normal with each other (thank goodness). 

And I can’t believe how many clues I missed as to how distressed Apricot was. He was such a happier cat now, like his old self. He eagerly participated in treat time (which for the past week he’d either skipped or had no appetite for). He wanted held and cuddled and I finally realized he was telling me thank you.

Because I had been apologizing to him for having to take him to the kitty doctor when I know it really sets his anxiety on edge and apologizing for not paying more attention earlier ... and now he was letting me know that he felt so much better and he was okay with the doctor visit since it made him feel better.

I do so love my sweet, fat, orange cat. They say there’s something special about orange tabby boy cats and I totally agree.