Executive Assistant went to the vet last week

[erinptah]

Easiest and happiest vet visit he’s had!

First was 2 years ago, when Marshmallow Fluff was still staying at arm’s length from me — he stopped eating, but was still determined to hide and not be touched, I couldn’t get him in until he was physically too weak to put up a fight. Second was last year, bladder issues. He was happy to get picked up in general by then, but managed to scramble away the first time I tried to put him in the carrier.

This year he was in perfect health. They just can’t keep refilling his prescription food without an annual checkup.

Got him in the carrier first try, this year. He always comes out to investigate when I start doing yoga or stretches on the carpet, so I used that to lure him out of his napping spot. He got unusually tense when I scooped him up — he must’ve sensed something was amiss — but relaxed enough for me to dump him in.

I was prepared with the carrier braced between two chairs, turned so the open door faced straight up. (The enemy’s gate is down!)

…next year I’ll be even better prepared, and have a towel laid out underneath it.

I wrapped the carrier in a blanket for the trip, mostly to keep him calm, partly because it’s Cold outside.

Visits 1 and 2, he had to stay overnight for treatment, which was confusing and scary and got a “warning: will scratch people” note in his chart. Visit 3 was much shorter, I was right next to him 95% of the time, and he was…well, probably still confused and scared, but not threatened enough to fight about it.

Very unhappy, for sure. Did not authorize this. Wants to hide under his bed, but nobody will tell him which direction it’s in.

He weighs 15 pounds! (Last year it was 14. When he was originally picked up by Animal Control, from a household that was reported for neglect, he weighed 6. They had him on a special high-calorie diet to get his weight up before rating him healthy enough to put up for adoption.)

BCS is still a healthy neutral, so it’s not that he’s overweight. He’s just Big. If anything, I think he’s less well-rounded in the tummy than he was a year ago.

He was supposed to get a rabies shot while he was there, but they were all out of stock, with the delivery behind by several days. They said they were expecting the truck within the next few hours. I said, given how difficult all this is for the fluff, we’ll wait.

So I sat in the little room reading fic, and the fluff sat in his little carrier doing a disgruntled hunch, and we waited. A vet tech brought a bowl of water; he never got thirsty enough to drink it.

After the full few hours were up, the delivery truck arrived!…and the rabies shot refills were not on it. So we packed up and went home. Much to the cat’s relief.

He kept a safe distance from me for a few hours, but adjusted pretty quick after that.

They said I could bring him back later, once the rabies shots were re-stocked, and they’d give the fluff his for free.

Part of me wants to spare him another Horrifying Ordeal so close to the last one. On the other hand, maybe it’ll reinforce the uplifting lesson of “hey look, you can stay calm and non-defensive and it’ll all work out fine, you get to go back home at the end.”