Tale of a Calico Cat Mishap
I noticed on a recent Saturday night that my sweet-natured kitty
cat was not playing in her usual way and that she had stopped
eating or drinking. When I picked her up, she would give an
uncomfortable-sounding meow, almost as if she might be in pain. I
wanted to wait until her regular vet opened on Monday morning, but
I was alarmed to see her becoming more lethargic by the hour.
Tale of a Calico Cat Mishap
I noticed on a recent Saturday night that my sweet-natured kitty cat was not playing in her usual way and that she had stopped eating or drinking. When I picked her up, she would give an uncomfortable-sounding meow, almost as if she might be in pain. I wanted to wait until her regular vet opened on Monday morning, but I was alarmed to see her becoming more lethargic by the hour.
I spent a lot of time calling vets, trying to find someone who would see her in Gilroy on a Sunday, to no avail. One vet’s recording recommended Capitola, but I really couldn’t see making Twinkie ride more than 40 miles when she was feeling so badly. I tried calling vets from Morgan Hill to Salinas, and their offices suggested emergency clinics in Monterey or San Jose. The closest one was 25 miles away.
So my sweet two-year-old girl ended up spending all night at an emergency clinic in San Jose – the doctor said he could see indications of something (a “linear object”) present internally. He said that if it were his cat, he would not delay surgery.
Twinkie is a cute calico with a lot of affection to give who had been abandoned to die in Christmas Hill Park as a kitten and then was rescued and nursed back to health by a kind-hearted resident of Princevalle Street. I had searched far and wide to find just the right cat after the death of my previous cat, Spookey. After a year, I finally found Twinkie.
She has a super shiny coat with black and brown patterns against pure white fur and the pinkest little ears, nose and paws. I was surprised to see that the black and brown pattern of her fur is repeated on the skin underneath, so that even if she were shaved, she would still be a calico cat.
Twinkie underwent emergency surgery which required three incisions in her abdomen. Her fever climbed to 106 degrees. I came home for just a few hours and then hurried back up to San Jose by 7:30am (the emergency place only keeps animals during off-hours). I drove her back to Gilroy to get her checked into the vet hospital here as quickly as possible. The San Jose clinic gave me her IV bag to carry, just like you see on medical shows, only it was kitty-size.
They also gave me what had been removed from her tummy, like an auto mechanic showing me the defective parts: it seems she had swallowed about four yards of dental floss which then wrapped itself around her intestines.
Two thousand dollars later, she is all stitched up like Frankenstein and has that undignified cone thing on her head and two bandages on her feet. The vet says it was a very close call and that I am one lucky pet mom.
At one point, I left her alone for a few hours, and she managed to tear the protective cone off her neck. Not only that, but she hid the cone, and in spite of extensive searching, it has yet to turn up. How far could it have gone? For one awful moment, I wondered if she could have eaten it. To keep her from tearing open her stitches, I stayed awake and watched her the entire night. Then the moment the vet opened, I was back on her doorstep to get a new cone.
One friend told me that she calls her Gilroy vet when needed during off-hours because she was able to procure his home phone number, but of course, it wouldn’t be right to give that out to anyone else. I wonder what people do when a life or death emergency occurs in which time is truly of the essence? If an animal is hit by a car, for instance, is there really no treatment available for any animal in Gilroy? In a community with so many animal lovers, how can this be? If you have any suggestions about how to access a vet during off-hours, please write in and let us know how you would handle a pet emergency.
Kat Teraji is communications coordinator for a non-profit organization benefiting women and children. Her column appears every Thursday in the Take 2 section of the Dispatch. Reach her at ka****@ve*****.net.
