Sophie went back to the vet on Tuesday; her father took her. I was concerned about her long stretches of sneezing and a weeping eye that I first noticed Saturday. Sunday night, she went potty—first #1, then #2—in my closet. Monday morning, I called the vet to see if my fears were unfounded: nope, they wanted to see her.

Her eyes looked good (I keep thinking of her sister whose eye infection caused them to remove her eye when she was a kitten...so weird eye stuff with Soph freaks me out) and her sneezing has stopped. BUT, it just isn't normal for cats to do their business just anywhere. Instinctively, cats look for soil or sand-like material to eliminate…shag carpeting does not so much meet the prompt.



So they did a urinalysis and found crystals. Feline cystitis has ruined our little kitty's life. I gave the unopened bag of cat food that I had to a friend at work. (When I handed over the Iams Naturals she exclaimed, "My cats have never eaten so good!" and somewhere Sophie was weeping at her lost lifestyle…) I want to have a vet tell it to my face before I give away her precious Fancy Feast—she will be on low pH food the rest of her life. Dr. Larsen told us that her infection is very rare in a female feline.

She is on Hill's Prescription Diet s/d for at least the next 1-3 months (at which point we would be able to switch to the over-the-counter version), but possibly forever. As I rearrange my budget to accept that I can probably live off on an English muffin a day, I am planning to call PetSmart (where I get an über low price) to see if Sophie's clinic needs to fax over her prescription for a refill, or if I can walk in there with the copy they gave Nick on Tuesday. I will also call the vet today to see what I can give her for treats since she is used to getting them in the morning (it's the only reason she gets me up at the most ungodly hours, but I enjoy her enthusiasm), and OTC treats are a no-go.

We read over her diagnosis and her new diet, Sophie sitting on the counter-stool next to Nick. He looked at her with sad eyes and said, "You know what this means, don't you? No more potato chips." And I swear, if she was any kind of a teenager she would have ran upstairs and slammed the door while screaming, "I HATE MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!"

A Life Gone By:

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I am almost afraid to mention it, but I think Spring is well on its way. It has been over 40° most of the week, and after a winter season that seemed to start in October and during which we broke snowfall records from 1978, 40° feels just about like paradise. Finally I can look both ways without edging halfway into an intersection, and that stubborn icicle on the edge of the garage has bid us farewell. Good riddance.

My car said it was 50° when I got in after work. I rushed home to turn off the furnace and open the windows and the patio door. Immediately, Sophie scrambled to the edge of the now screened door. She sniffed excitedly at the smell of real air, so excited in the exercise that she began to sneeze, sniffed more, sneezed more, and then rolled to her back, stretching all four paws in opposite directions as if to say, "I love life!"

And then she sat up to clean her butt.

She has an appointment on Saturday, March 15th: her one year check up! She has no idea, as I can assume that she's pays about as much attention to soothsayers as she does to me or Nick. She's a cat: if it isn't sparkley or jingly, why should she care? Though, I must say she always comes when called, even if she's in the middle of doing her business downstairs where the litter box resides. She's good like that—which is why Nick was alarmed Monday morning when she wasn't underfoot and did not come to his call. I, slower to stir after that nasty bout of Daylight Savings Time, awoke to his frantic looking for your favorite cat and mine. We found her in the garage. Even though it was her own lousy fault for somehow sneaking out there, I felt incredibly guilty and bought her several toys and two beers.