Second Verse, Same as the First

Another vet home-visit has come and gone.  Much of it went the same as the last one.  Elroy and Reggie were both particularly frightened and non-plussed, respectively.  Wanda needed three people to hold her down so the vet could examine her while simultaneously holding on to all of his digits.  (Seriously, that little 12-pound body packs a lot of punch.  A vet tech and TWO big buddies were struggling to keep those vicious little jaws and claws at bay.)   Mango scaredy-scatted everywhere (as usual) and Otto thought this was a big party where he was the guest of honor.  He purred through the whole thing, even the part where they had to draw blood out of his little leg, and basked in all the attention.  After he was done (I think we did him second), he hung around the examining table, nonchalantly cleaning his paws, as if to say, "when's it going to be my turn again? Not that I care or anything..."  Sadly, Otto only got one turn.


Mister was the only one whose behavior changed appreciably from the last time.  When I caught up with Mister, whose turn was a couple of cats after Wanda, he and Wanda were hunkered down under one of the love seats in what appeared to be an athletic huddle or at least a very serious pow-wow.  While part of me made note of the alliance at the time and tried not to make too much of it, it turned out that Wanda must have been giving Mister some tips on how to handle the vet.  Perhaps she'd taught him a few jujitsu moves too, in the short time between her examination and Mister's.  All I know is that Mister came off the ropes like Mike Tyson in a bad mood and on some kind of cheap hallucinogen.  I tried to tuck him into my body and hold him so he couldn't see, with my hand slightly over his face, because usually, not being able to see seems to help him with his anxiety.  He responded by biting my hand in this quick little chattery, knawy manner that was kind of like being attacked by a sewing machine needle.  He did not, however, break the skin.  I think he was just sending me a warning volley with his teeth that if I did not let him off this table right now, he was going to be plenty mad at me.  We were supposed to take his blood too, given his challenges with his kidneys and his thyroid, but we all realized, a few more warning volleys later, that this was not going to happen.  One of the other weird things that Mister was doing was making noises the frequency and pitch of which have probably only been heard in deep space.  I have never heard an animal make the kinds of noises Mister was making before.  I'm thinking that natural selection probably takes care of that.  


Even though I managed to make it out of that particular scuffle unscathed, Dr. McKisson unfortunately did shed some blood over it.  He took it all very good-naturedly, and was pleasantly surprised to see Mister back to his old self again, after his apparent stroke and subsequent full recovery.  


All of the buddies seemed to be doing well, except for Elroy, who had some gingivitis and is going to need a dental next week, and Mango, one of whose front claws had gotten ingrown and had impaled her paw.  Ouch.  It's not like we are able to have any contact with her or get close enough to her to realize there was an issue, but it's hard not to feel guilty nonetheless when one of the buddies is in trouble and we don't even know it.  Dr. McKisson was able to extract the claw, which produced a fair amount of bleeding from poor Mango, but he said she should heal up and be fine in just a few days.  Clearly, we will have to make more of an effort to catch her more frequently and make sure her claws get clipped.  


Otto's blood work looked "gorgeous," per Dr. McK, so we're thankful for that.  And also thankful that we're not going to have pay for anyone's finger-reattachment surgery, at least after this go-round.