It's not sad when single women talk about their cats, right? RIGHT??

This entry's not any fun. It's mostly me whining.

You've all been warned.

For the last week or two, Ike, my cranky ginormous cat, has been peeing in spots around the house, which he never does. At first, he was going in the same places my other cat, Boo (who is now an outdoor cat because of her bad bathroom habits) was peeing, so I figured he was picking up the scent and going there.

Then, on Friday night, I could smell urine on my bed. He normally uses my bed to deposit his hairballs, which I've learned to live with, but he's never peed there. I woke up Saturday morning to two intensely smelly puddles in my kitchen, giving my whole apartment the fragrant aroma of cat piss. Mmmmm.

NOT.

So, I spent Saturday morning cleaning my kitchen floor with bleach, and washing my sheets and comforter in bleach and vinegar to kill the smell so he wouldn't smell it and go again. Which sucked, because my favorite purple jersey knit sheets now look like a Grateful Dead concert shirt.

All seemed well again, until Sunday morning, I was getting ready to go meet some friends, and the shirt I had laid on my bed was wet. I flipped out, and immediately called the vet to get him in ASAP.

Ike doesn't like the vet. AT ALL. He knows as soon as we get in the car, that he's going to be poked, stuck, and fucked with. So, when I got in the car, he started crying. Which, makes me feel terrible, and I in turn start to cry (shutup). The cardboard carrier I had him in (which he is the same size as, incidentally) was on my passenger seat. All of a sudden, the top of the box rips in half, Ike jumps out of it, and starts running around in my car. Hair was flying EVERYWHERE. I was trying to drive, and deal with this fucking animal running all over the place, and I started to panic (thanks a lot anxiety, you asshole). When I finally did get to the vet, he jumped on me and grabbed on so tightly with his claws that I was bleeding. He was crying, and his eyes, which are normally a beautiful, icy blue, were now black because his pupils were so huge due to stress. I held onto him as tightly as I could and went inside. Since no one else was there, they stuck me a room immediately to see the doctor.

I found out that Ike has a urinary tract infection. Some crystals formed in his urethra, making urinating beyond painful for him, so he was holding it, and pee was involuntarily dribbling out wherever he was. But, because he was holding it, his bladder was enlarged, and filled with urine like a balloon, and was going to burst. Soon. Kidney failure would come next, followed by death. My only option was for them to install a catheter to drain the urine, and give him meds to dissolve the crystals.

And it's only going to cost me a thousand fucking dollars.

Oh, yeah. I don't have a thousand dollars. So, I had to use credit cards that are "only in case of emergency" cards, that I can't really afford anyway.

Woo.

Mostly, I feel terrible that he was suffering this whole time, and I had no idea, and just thought he was pissing everywhere to be an asshole.

Kay, after I explained to her what happened, yelled at me for agreeing to pay that much for a cat, and that I shouldn't do it because I am always bitching about how many bills I already have. But, unfortunately, I realized in that exam room while I was sitting there trying to calm down my cat, that I am what I never thought I would be - someone whose animal has become her child. If I didn't pay, Ike would die, and it would be slow, and painful, and I couldn't live with myself if I did that.

So, I just added a grand to the Andria's Mountain O'debt. I am frustrated and overwhelmed at the current situation I am in, but there's nothing I can do about it except pay and pay and pay, and hopefully get this shit taken care of. I hate money. I really do.

I find it funny (not funny "haha," but funny "FUCK!") that DanjerusKurves and I both had expensive kitty weekends.

My lesson from all of this? Buy a real fucking cat carrier.

My chest looks like I got felt up by Freddy Kruger.