Maxie

I’m still not entirely sure what I’m going to do with this blog, so for now I’m going to do whatever appeals to me. Today I am sharing about my live-in feline companion, Maxie. He’d been acting weird the last couple of days. I work from home and am a homebody at the moment and I am very close with my two cats, Maxie and Noodle. I treat them as people-cats and try to understand who they are, what they like, and I try to make their lives living as captives in my home as wonderful for their little cat selves as possible. So I observe them a lot and pay attention to their behaviors. I know them fairly well. So it stuck out to me when Maxie started acting weird. We’ve only been roommates for 3 years, but he did this one before 2 years ago and it ended up being some kind of urinary thing. So I called around today and found him a 2pm appt at a vet clinic we had never been to.

He did not enjoy it. Well, actually, he was really good on the way there. I know my cats don’t understand English but they do understand behavior, behavioral patterns, and tones. So I did my best to explain to Maxie that we were about to do something pretty stressful and some moments may be painful but that I am absolutely not going to let that last longer than it needs to and I’m going to make sure he is taken care of and not suffering. This little dude trusts me a lot. I put him in the kennel and he only briefly resisted. In the car, he was marginally chill. We got to the vet and I’m guessing the two dogs in the lobby didn’t help. By the time we got into a room, he was shivering a bit. He’s a mama’s boy so he preferred to be held close to me while we were waiting. We did discover his eyes are starting to fade a little. There was a word for it. It’s an old age thing. I’m not too worried about it. And his teeth need a cleaning. Next year. Maxie did not like being poked and prodded. He’s always been very good at letting others know when his boundaries are being passed. He did a good job with that. But unfortunately, we had to get a urine sample so they had to take him into a back room, make him into a purrito, and stick a needle into his bladder for a sample. They were struggling to get a sample because he was screaming and fighting so hard (which I heard from the room and had to breathe deeply because I hate hearing my boys in pain). But then I guess when they were lifting him up, he just started peeing on the counter, so they collected from that (LOL). Turned out he had a bacterial infection which they doubt came from the counter since it was disinfected and the bacteria was present significantly. Maxie also pooped his pants on the way back to the vet room which was a surprise blessing because I had been meaning to do a stool sample of him for a while but it’s hard to isolate poops when you have two cats and two litter boxes. So I sent that treasure off to be analyzed as well. Maxie was very upset when he got back into the room but still wanted to sit very close to me, so I cuddled next to him while we waited for the results. Anywho, I’m telling this out of order. They gave us two meds, an anti-biotic and an NSAID. $260 later, I’m grateful for my excellent budgeting so I’m not sweating the visit. I doubt pet insurance will refund me anything, but I submitted the claim regardless. Back home, I took a closer look at the meds. The antibiotic is fluid so that shouldn’t be too hard. But the NSAID is a tablet. It’s very small and I got some good advice from my boyfriend Adam. I smashed the pill a little and put it into a small bowl of Churu or whatever the hell it’s called. Maxie lapped it up. Later tonight I’ll try the antibiotic.

So! That’s all done. It was a rough day for me anyways. I woke up with Aaron and was feeling woozy even then. But I prioritized my cat and got him what he needed. Now that I’m back home, I can prioritize myself.