Dawn Baca

A Crazy Cat Story

On Tuesday night I went to bed after taking the antibiotics and Codine cough syrup the doctor prescribed.

At 2a.m., jarred from a drug-induced sleep to sound of a loud bang and crash, and both dogs paws skittering across the tile
entryway. I jump out of bed and race down the hall to be met by the dogs running down the hall back towards our bedroom.

I yelled at them to go to bed, and then continued on down the hall to investigate the mayhem.

I didn’t see anything.

My husband comes into the front room behind me and said, “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I was standing in the middle of the room looking as confused as he was. I walked toward the large front window to see if there was someone or something out front that might have set them off.

“Where’s the cat?” he asked.

“Good question, hadn’t even thought to look for her yet,” I said as I open the curtains.

There she was, bundled into the tightest little ball in the corner of the window sill, she starts howling at me like a demon let out of hell.

Seriously, the sound made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“Found the cat!” I said.

“What’s wrong with her.”

“I have no idea, she’s never made that sound before!”

After sending the sly dogs back to bed one more time when they sneaked back down the hall because the sight of them stirred up the cat all over again, and after we had spent 3 hours talking, cooing, and cajoling the cat to calm her, we gave up and went to bed. It was now 5am and we were exhausted. As long as we stayed calm she stayed calm. So we left it at that.

That morning after the sun had come up and my husband was up and ready to face the world, she was at it again, howling at him the moment he came into the family room. He got me out of bed again and scheduled an appointment for her.

So off to the Vets we go!

Blood work and Urine tests done, they drugged her and checked her over and the diagnosis was either a UTI, a Urinary Track Infection or she was injured internally somehow! There was no sign of it so they were guessing. Thank you for the very vague diagnosis that cost me a fortune! But it came with drugs so we figured we’d give it a try.

She was fine the rest of the day and evening though a little skittish around the dogs and loud noises. All is well, a dose of drugs and anti-inflammatory meds in her food and off to bed we go.

Once again a wake up call. It was 4a.m. and the banshee began again. She refused to cooperate when we tried to give her the medicine. It took two of us, me to hold her and her very vicious claws, and my husband to squirt the meds in her mouth. Half in her mouth, half in my eye. She got about half of the first attempt and about half of the second attempt, and back to bed we go.

The next morning she seemed fine. She jumped up on the bed and laid on my chest for a little while as I tried to wake up.

Best we can figure is that she was stepped on by one of the clumsy oafs that look like Labradors!

We went out to dinner and came home and she was her normal self though still a little skittish. We figured we’d go ahead and skip the pain meds and see how she did.

Another 2a.m. wake-up call… but this time it was my little love bug tickling me with her whiskers as she laid on my arm and hand and snuggled up to my face. She hasn’t done that in a long time. She tucked her head under my chin and just slept as I wheezed and kept myself awake from the sound of my breathing since I was still overcoming a sinus infection and the cold/flu. Not to mention worried that if she freaked out again I might lose an eye since her cute little paw was pressed up against my cheek as she slept!

We snuggled like that for a couple hours until she got restless and I got up for more cough meds.

After feeding and giving her the final dose of the anti-inflammatory, she’s back to her normal feisty self.

And we are so glad. We joked that we would be perfectly fine living the rest of our lives out without ever hearing that awful howling sound that she made ever again.

Though we may never know for certain what happened to her, we are just grateful that she is fine, and life is back to normal in our house!