Last week, Sal gave me a bit of a scare.
She started having recurring sneezing fits that would wrack her entire little body. Tzzz tzz tzz tzz! Her head would shake and her rump would fly up in the air! She woke me up at night with her sneezing, it was so bad. After almost 48 hours straight of this sneezing, I decided I should take her to a veterinarian.
Ughhhh. I’ve taken Sal to approximately one vet’s appointment, and it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences. I was a wreck, and the poor cat was terrified out of her mind! She tore most of her claws up trying to fight getting into her carrier. She peed all over the place. She hissed and spat. She meowed as if she were enduring the worst of tortures for the entire car ride to the animal hospital. And once she got there, she was completely uncooperative, turning into one rigid, stone ball of fur on the examination table.
So as you can imagine, I wasn’t thrilled to have to be doing this again. But my fear that something was wrong with my kitty prevailed, so into the carrier she went! I made my husband do that deed while I went to get the car. I pulled up in front of our apartment building and watched (almost in tears) as he toted the carrier holding my poor scared cat. I could hear the meows of terror from across the street!
I was so concerned about her that I almost drove off the road a number of times during the short car ride. At one point, I stuck my finger through one of the holes in the carrier, and she rubbed her wet nose against it, momentarily calmed. In turn, I was momentarily calmed.
I think my cats have proven to me time and time again how empathic they are. My emotional state constantly affects them and the same is true in opposite. Yet I’m constantly surprised by it.
Sal nuzzled my finger one last time before my husband got out of the car with her. It was then I realized that I had to calm down to help her get through this.
Sal was a little agitated at first, but everyone in the examination room (including myself) was calm and patient with her. She slowly calmed down in the arms of the vet’s assistant, who stroked her head and back. By the end of the appointment, she was her usual self, completely phased by nothing!
It turns out she just got a little dust in her nose and had an allergic reaction. A few hours later, with the help of a little anti-histamine, she returned to normal!
I held her in my arms that night and she looked up at me as if to say, “Don’t you worry about me, I’m fine!” And I knew it was true.
—Jessica Bloustein
How do your cats handle trips to the vet? We’d love to know! Email us at lovedemcats@guideposts.org.
