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.