I currently share my house with a 7 year old male cat named Wade. He is almost completely black, thick as a tree stump and the pure epitome of cat in every sense of the word. I have had him since he was a kitten and spent his day terrorizing the puppy with flying leaps from above. He has grown and matured into a 15ish pound foot warmer.
Early this fall we added a new member to our family. My sister talked me into a kitten that needed a good home and I guess mine was good enough. She was a tiny thing they called Gizmo. I changed that to Gidget for a brief time but after witnessing the ferociousness with which she attacked all aspects of life, a good friend of mine did a little research and re-named her...again...Atalanta from Greek mythology. It seems to fit her to a tee and we call her Attie for short.
Attie was born on April 1st and that should've been my first clue that she would not be like any other cat I have ever owned. We took her to the vet, because I am a responsible pet owner, to get her check-up and initial shots done, set up more appointments and decided around when she would be old enough to be spayed, as I have no desire to raise or try to find home for more kittens. We decided right around the first of October would be good, that being about 6 months after her birth. It was a good plan, a sound plan, a well thought out and responsible plan; we should not have made this plan in from of Attie as she apparently did not like the plan.
About 2 weeks before she was going to go in for her "procedure" I noticed she wasn't eating very much and every time she drank, she would throw up. This is not a good thing for a cat; actually, it's not good for any animal that I know of, including me. It had me worried and after this going on for about 3 days, we took her in to the vet. I had no idea what I was getting myself into but what other choice did I have? The vet found a string wrapped around the bottom of her tongue leading into her throat. It was all the way through her intestines and knotted by that time and she was in pretty rough shape. We had to leave her there for emergency surgery. I hate that I had to ask, but I had to ask the bottom line, after all it's not as if I have animal insurance and these things can put a serious crimp in a savings account. It sounded like it would wipe out a good portion of my "set it aside for an emergency" fund but we gave the vet the go ahead, the child had a few teary moments and away we went.
I called the next day and she had come through the surgery ok and they were waiting to see how she did in recovery. Day after day we waited and called until they finally said we could come get her and take her home. They gave me a total at that time and I just about fainted. it was over $200 more than the quote estimate I got when I first gave the go ahead! Now it was up over the $1000 range and that is a pretty big chunk for a kitten who can't even play with string without binding herself up! I was livid to put it mildly. By the time we got to the office they had found over $100 to take off the cost, then informed me I needed to bring her back after about a week for a check-up. I thought that meant take out the stitches but no; it was just to see how she was, look down her throat, show us the string and gouge another $30 out of me!
The kitten is fine. She will go in for her "procedure" sometime next month, probably a different vet office as I am still not ok with the total cost from this last fiasco and we have changed her name yet again. I now call er Atalanta Grande, the cat that cost me a grand! (She is awful cute though)
Lesson Learned: No matter what they say, cats and string should NOT be in the same place at the same time!
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