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March 02, 2008
back home....but greeted with some unpleasantness
That felt like the longest flight ever. But we're home now. It was a great trip and a report will be posted probably sometime at the end of the week.....
Well, getting home at 11:30 at night and finding a wet spot of pee* isn't fun. We figured out it was Otto when he went to the kitty litter box twice before we went to sleep. We figured the pee was just a one time thing, showing us he was pissed (hehe) we left him alone. We decided that we'd monitor him in the morning, in case of blockage and slept.
When we woke up, that's when we found the other puddles here and there....and discovered there was blood in the urine. Off to the emergency room this morning. 2.5 hours later we know he doesn't have any blockage. Whew. Turns out he could have been so stressed that he gave himself this....they aren't ruling out any sort of urinary tract infection but there was no pee for them to analyze. We've got some anti-inflammatories and pain relievers to help ease the tension on his urethra. Hopefully this will all pass in the next 2-5 days.
The other unpleasantness (yes, there's more) is that apparently our furnace is on it's last legs. We have been told to not count on using it for next winter. We got an email from our cat sitters on Wednesday who noticed the furnace wasn't turning on. They called the furnace guys who got it working and gave the diagnosis. No idea how much it will cost to replace. Don't want to know at the moment. Want to still be in post vacation bliss-state.
*So you're probably wondering why the cat sitters didn't notice the pee? Well, it appears he started this in the past 2 or so days. And he did the peeing in places our cat sitters would never have found (upstairs). On top of that, our kitty litter is the kind where the urine passes through, so unless you actually clean it all up and refresh you aren't going to exactly notice. Besides, we don't know the last time they scooped out the kitty litter and since we think it only started the past few days, they may have scooped right before it started. For future trips we're going to have to ask them to spot check this kind of thing on their daily visit. *sigh*
Posted by jennj at March 2, 2008 02:15 PM
Clue-ments:
Welcome back. Sorry to hear about Otto.
Is he named after that Otto?
Posted by: Fritz. at March 3, 2008 04:43 PM
Fritz - thanks. No, not that one. It's short for "Ottoman", as in "Big as an Ottoman". We expected him to be a big cat and while he's 15 lbs,. which is big, he's by no means the size of an Ottoman. Oops.
Posted by: cf at March 3, 2008 06:58 PM
Just want to say welcome back and I'm glad you had a good time. I hope Otto is feeling better.
Posted by: Donna at March 4, 2008 11:39 AM
Ah, well, I thought a black cat (I didn't catch Otto's color) who is really stupid (not implications there, either) named Otto would somehow be apropos.
Posted by: Fritz. at March 5, 2008 09:04 AM
Donna - thanks. He appears to be fine now. High stress cat who internalizes emotions. Greeaat.
Posted by: cf at March 5, 2008 09:51 AM