Come home Jules...

Josh and I have four cats. Or, if you hit us at the right time, four little bastards who are destined for the sausage factory. Of course like children, no matter how much stuff they tear up, or pee on or puke on, or scratch us, we sorta love them. So this weekend went from normal to craptacular in 12 hours when Jules had a recurrence of his UTI.

He's been fighting this thing for about a month. After his second round of antibiotics failed to make a big difference, I wound up at the vet Saturday morning for a walk in appointment. The dr. managed to get some urine out of him and announced that Jules had crystals in his urine. They gave him new antibiotics, liquid pain meds and a special diet aimed at dissolving the crystals. Then he told me that Jules needed to be watched carfully. If he didn't urinate at all in a space of twelve hours we were to bring him in right away. If he had a urinary blockage the urine could back up into his kidneys and make them fail.

So I set off for home with my panic meter at an 11. Once home we got the meds into Jules and confined him to my bathroom with his own box. Thus Urine Watch 2006 began. About every half hour I would peek in and find him straining to go. He threw up his special food. The box remained painfully dry. At 10:15 pm I paged the vet on call. For the second time that day Jules was shoved in his carrier and loaded into the car. Only this time I was freaking the fuck out.

I had no way of knowing what if anything was in his little urethra. Was it blocked? How bad? Was urine backing up as I sped down 14th street daring a cop to pull me over? Was he going to keel over dead? Does Petsmart carry the Happy Time Harry Dialysis Machine? I smell urine, but I didn't hear any hitting the plastic. Did I just imagine that? I did. Ok. GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY IDIOT!!! I HAVE A SICK ANIMAL IN MY CAR!!!

When we arrived and met with the dr. she filled us in. After much effort to make Jules pee she figured his crystals had turned into a blockage. However since he was still awake and moving around the odds of him having any permanent damage at this point were slim.

So what Jules needed was a catherder. To put this in a cat required anasthesia. He would have this for two days. On Monday night they would take it out and if he was peeing normally they would send him home on Tuesday. This thrilling and life saving vacay at beautiful 10th Street Animal Hospital would cost us $400-500 dollars. Not counting the $118 I had spent earlier that morning. So we left Jules with the nice lady to stick a tube up his tukas and hope for the best. I spent the rest of the night pouty, praying for my baby to be ok, and trying not to cry. I also repeatedly assured Josh that we would come up with the money to pay the vet, even if it meant I had to whore myself out to all of Camelot. (Not that Josh would have said it's too expensive, we're not doing it. He adores our kitties as much as I do and would whore himself out if need be. But we take turns worrying about money and it was his turn.)

The next morning the doc called us with an update. The cath had gone in fine and they had emptied Jules' bladder. The urine was pretty gritty so it's a good thing we took him in when we did. He was getting his meds by injection and was pretty pissed, but he would be fine.

So we're just waiting for tomorrow night to see how he does with out the cath. I can't wait to have my little fluffy guy back home chasing bugs, tormenting Chloe and tossing Wally's salad. All this has taught me two things:

1. Listen to your gut. I had a mother's intuition that Jules wasn't right all last week. He just wasn't himself. Saturday I said fuck it. I know he's sick. I'm glad I did.

2. I should probablly go ahead and get my tubes tied. If this is how I react with a sick cat i'll need Thorazine to deal with a sick child.

Mommy loves you Jules!