somniloquence

The puss-cat has been sick off and on for a while. She officially got the diabetes designation in Nov., and we put her on a kitten-food wet diet for the high-protein, no carbs effect. That went well until she stopped eating anything, protesting that she wanted her kibbles back, dammit. Most cats, when they won't eat, will eventually give in. Not Emma -- she will just resist, and yowl ceaselessly 24/7 until I give in. She figured out long ago that screaming in my face all night long will get her what she wants. But I found her a high protein, lo carb kibble (yay, Evo!) and all seemed well, except for the vomiting. And the sudden spike in water consumption, again.

I finally took her in to have her glucose tested again, which was supposed to happen after a few weeks, not months, but I was broke, so... Poor kid, when they took her in to take her blood and urine, she saved them the ultrasound trouble by peeing all over the table. Anyway, they found blood in her urine, which was bad, but they gave me some antibiotics she doesn't want to take and they're going to do more cultures, because they found that she has kidney failure. He suspects pancreatitis, as well, and he says that a kidney infection would explain the Exorcist-level projectile vomiting (I'd only ever caught her puking on the tail end, but the other day I saw the whole thing and it was just kind of... shocking, how violently she was barfing. Kinda reminded me of my gallbladder episodes.)

Anyway, the vet was trying to explain to me that 75% kidney failure isn't as bad as it sounds, because you can donate a whole kidney, yadda yadda, but I couldn't really take everything in because all I could hear was the spastic little Gwyneth inside my head running around flailing her arms screaming, "My baby has kidney failure!!" or putting her hands to her head and moaning "woe, woe." I know everyone will now tell me that it's no big deal, liquid shots, whatever. But it is a big deal to me. For one thing, she's a wretched cat to give any kind of treatment to (witness the fact that if I give her antibiotics, I end up either wearing most of it, or with large chunks of my fingers missing and my face decorated with scratches). And another thing is that right now, treatments of any kind, illness of any kind, for people or animals I care about just about does me in. I'm not a good person for this, and I know a lot of it is PTSD and the treatments and surgeries my sister had and all, but... I'm not a good person for it.

Em's all I've got left, and it hurts to keep taking her to the vet, doing these awful things to her, and know that it's not going to get better. I'm going to have to keep poking her and forcing meds on her and taking her to the Place of Evil... arg. And of course, the bills. Yesterday was bad enough, but the future's going to be worse. This stupid BPAL addiction has sucked up all my money recently, and I very much regret that now. I know people would say I was doing something to make myself feel better, but it feels very foolish and I wish I hadn't spent so much on this. Or that I was going to the con next month.

After months and months of trying, I finally caught Emma on tape carrying her beloved flea comb around. It was very hard, and it's just a quickie video, but it's a rare sighting -- only a few select people have ever seen her do this. She carries it from room to room, talking loudly to it in meows, trills, and beeps. She no longer does a lot of her other seriously cute, weird behaviors, like hooking her back claws into the carpet, behind her head, and twisting around with her butt up over her head, but I'll settle for the flea comb because it's just high-larious. I set up an imeem account to upload the video, which is here and I also hope to upload more pics of her there so I won't have to deluge LJ with stupid cat pics. that sound in the background isn't a baby crying, it's her talking. She is really loud. Notice also the broken teeth -- years of carrying it have taken most of the teeth off on either end.

ETA: I sent it in to Cute Overload, my very favorite web site. I don't know if I'd be lucky enough to get it on there, but it can't hurt to try.