We woke up yesterday morning to a limping Hippo. Something was clearly wrong with his right front paw, which he would hold up piteously in between limping along. The situation was not bad enough to prevent him from making some small jumps, but I figured if I waited to see what would happen, I’d only end up with yet another valid excuse to miss work on Monday.
So I sucked it up and lugged him to the vet, where he was no longer limping. “I swear,” I told the vet. “He was limping five minutes ago at home!” She believed me, in part because who would lug a 22lb* cat in for fun, and also because apparently the adrenaline of the car ride can make cats forget their pain, plus he was kind of slinking around the exam room in fear, which masked the limping.
Sent home with a few doses of an anti-inflammatory and instructions to bring him back Tuesday for sedation and x-rays if he wasn’t better (along with an $88 bill), that darned cat was walking just fine by afternoon.
* We took advantage of the opportunity to weigh him and it turns out he has dropped from 22lbs 15 ozs in October to 22lbs 4 oz. That’s almost 3/4 of a pound, and while that may be a mere 3.3% for what has been a lot of trouble, I remind myself it is the equivalent of my losing 4.5 pounds, which is not too shabby. Then again, I’m not about 30% over my healthy weight. (Yikes.)
Oh hippo. I always wonder about these things. Sometimes we pull a bit of a muscle and look a bit hobbley. But, then, the poor cat can’t say “let me walk it out”. So in your mind, they are very sick- and really – any responsible owner WOULD take them into the vet.
And then they have a nice stretch and all is well.
But congrats on the weightloss! I hear Jenny Craig is out a spokesperson…
Is anyone giving you a hard time about missing work? That is always scary on a new job.
I hate it when pets are sick – at least I can medicate my dogs on my own a bit, but cats are a whole different animal. Well, obviously, but you kwim.
Cats are assholes. Including my cat, the one that I love like he is the younger, smarter, more adorable version of my human child. I LOVE my cat. But he is an incorrigible asshole.
Geez you had to bring up weight, right? I am a cow right now.
Hope Hippo is doing better. The doggies go limpy like that all the time and it’s (thankfully) just been because they’ve played too hard…but it’s the saddest thing to watch.
I feel your pain. With five (which was SUCH a good idea) animals, our vet bills are like another car payment.
So how did you get Hippo to drop the L.B.s? If we cut back on our cats’ food they act like they’re going to eat US — relentless with the meowing and hovering.