Cat Poison

I'm finally getting around to blogging again, at least for tonight. I have a lot of different things to update on, so I'll do them in categories in different posts. In my last real post I asked if I had mentioned that my cat was poisoning himself. No one responded, and I checked, and it doesn't appear as though I told you that.

So the last time I updated you on my life I told you that I went home. Before I went home I picked up my apartment a little bit so that my friend Amy, who was kitty sitting for me, wouldn't think I'm a complete slob. I would like to mention here that my apartment is significantly smaller than my last two apartments have been, so I'm running out of places to put stuff. So in my organizing I moved the container of cat food over next to these cheap shelves I have. They're actually a cheap cabinet I got at Target about 6 years ago. When I moved off campus a couple of years ago the doors fell off, so now they are shelves. And they have some packing tape residue left on them from one of my many moves. It's nice and ugly orange tape, too. But I digress.

So Midnight threw up Wednesday night, and I left on Thursday. I didn't think anything of it, because animals throw up sometimes. I was glad that he chose to do it right on an old dishrag I had, so cleanup was easy (pick up dishrag, throw it away, swipe a clorox wipe over the counter, and done!) I heard from Amy either on Friday or Saturday and she mentioned that he wasn't eating much, but he was otherwise doing really well. When I got back on Sunday I found three spots around the apartment where he had thrown up. He hadn't eaten much, and it wasn't long after I was home that he threw up again. He also threw up Monday night.

On Wednesday night I had time to grab the custodian's carpet shampooer and set out to really clean the areas he had thrown up on. I picked up everything off the carpet and found four more spots he had "buried". For some reason when he throws up he tries to cover it up. It's real annoying. I had been worried before, but at that point I became real worried. The thing was, besides not eating much, he was acting perfectly normal! It was really strange. So I made sure to take him to the vet the next day.

We got to the vet and she didn't know what was wrong. Because of his symptoms she thought he might have feline colitis, but he didn't really fit that profile either. She had me get a stool sample, take his food away for 24 hours and then she gave me this soft food that he was supposed to eat. She also gave me some pills for him to take. She said if he threw up again to bring him in again. Well, I got the sample to them, he refused to eat the food, and he threw up again. So I took him in again and she gave him an anti-vomiting shot. I brought him home and tried to get him to take a pill and he threw up again. I took away his food and didn't give him any treats for another day, and after that, he became better.

Tyler had to go in for something the next week, and they told me that Midnight's tests came back negative. I said he was better, so we all figured the anti-vomiting stuff got him under control and it was some sort of strange bug or something. But then on Wednesday or so he threw up again. And kept throwing up every time he ate. He started becoming lethargic this time, and I was really really worried. I was talking to my Mom on Friday and she told me he was dying. She knows nothing about cats, but that got me to being real sad. But just as we were going to hang up he threw up again. All he had eaten was a treat. So I was getting all sad again, when I turned around to get a paper towel and saw my cat, who had just thrown up, standing on his food container next to the cheap shelves, LICKING the tape residue on the shelves! And I mean licking! He wouldn't stop!

The light bulb came on and I realized that he got sick right after I moved that food container. I moved the container again, covered the residue, and waited and saw that once I did that, he no longer got sick. My cat was poisoning himself! My students joked that he has kitten bulimia. How random is that???