Cystotomy

The weekend started out great... Erin and Simon came over for dinner, the food was good, she really liked the hat I made for her, and we talked (and knitted) until midnight.

Early Sunday morning we noticed that Brookline was noticeably worse. Her behaviour was the same, still the same good kitty, but her pee was bright red - it looked like blood. Commence freak out. We called the Alexandria Veterinary Emergency Service at the Alexandria Animal Hospital (thank god for them!) and brought her in for an ultrasound. There was a stone in her bladder. When I looked at the picture, I swear it was a quarter of the size of her bladder. On top of that, the antibiotics they gave her for a urinary infection (what they thought it was) was giving her the shits. More medicine to treat that and we scheduled surgery for today. No food after midnight.

We brought Brookline in at 6:40am, signed some papers, put down a huge deposit, and then... all we could do is go home and wait. I was supposed to go to the dentist but rescheduled because there was no way I could handle it. As it was, there was only a little knitting done, mostly just to fill the hours but all this... it's just so draining. Dr. Donohue called us at 3:30pm and let us know that Brookline was okay. They had removed a sizeable stone - how unimaginably painful for my little 8 lb cat - and that she was awake and looking around. She was freaking out a little bit too, running a little fever and probably wondering where the hell she was, and so they gave her a tranquilizer to "cut the edge." (Could I get one of those?) Brookline will stay the night for observation and then come home tomorrow. A new diet will help prevent the stone from forming again.

As promised, pictures of Erin's hat: