Pussy be expensive, yo.

Today I got a call-back from Jake's doctor telling me that there was a small amount of bacteria in his urine. So small that it could have easily come from the dye that they put on the urine slide so they can see stuff. The full laboratory testing is three days away, but the doc said he recommends going with a new regime of antibiotics plus a bladder relaxer plus a pain-killer plus an anti-inflammatory medication so that he's not suffering unnecessarily. I agreed, because it's been two weeks and the poor guy is still peeing ten times a day. And the fact that he is always sleeping on me might be an indication he's in pain or upset.

So off I went to pick up Jake's drugs.

Now, I fully admit that I was radically unprepared for the sticker shock that came from my cat's medications. When added to yesterday's vet visit and labs, we're past $500 now ($2,500 total since his initial visit four weeks ago). Some of that I'll get back in insurance reimbursement. But still... wow. I'm poor.

But the cost is not even the real pain here.

One of the pills has to be dumped out of a gel cap, dissolved in water, then shot into your cat's mouth with a syringe. This is the same stuff Jake was on when he came back from his procedure and it's fine. Jake doesn't like it, but he's chill enough that I got this. Kinda stupid they don't just sell it in liquid form, but whatevs.

I asked if it was the same routine with the other pills.

Of course it's not.

The pills taste awful, so you have to coax your cat into swallowing them. Something tells me that Jake will most definitely not be as chill as this cat...

They gave me a pen, but said it just makes things harder for some people...

And so... I'll give it a go. A part of me wanted to ask if I could give him the pills rectally since that's probably going to be easier than in his mouth, but I resisted. Somebody appearing to be anxious to shove pills up a cat's ass would probably have their cat taken away from them.

The final medication is a liquid. Oh happy day.

Or so I thought.

I asked if I could just drip it on Jake's food... but, alas, that was met with a resounding "no." Apparently it's even worse tasting stuff, so you really have to shoot that into their mouths so you can be sure they won't turn their nose up at it.

Some questions...

1. Why in the hell do they have some medications come in pill form that have to be dissolved in liquid when they should just put it in liquid form to begin with? This is monumentally stupid.
2. Cats eat some heinous smelling stuff. Like fish guts. So how hard could it be to make their medication taste like something they want to eat when it's gotta be fairly easy to camouflage?
3. Is it actually easier to shove pills up a cat's ass than administering them orally? Enquiering minds want to know!

And... on top of all that... it's Halloween!

Last year I made the stupid, stupid mistake of scheduling a colonoscopy on November 1st so I had to pass out candy while undergoing my clean-out prep. Good Lord was that the scariest Halloween I've ever had.

Though this year was not without incident. Every Halloween I deep clean my kitchen while passing out candy. In the middle of it all, a plate slid off of a pile of other dishes and shattered into a billion pieces. Ironically, this is the Corelle stuff I bought for my mom to eat off of because, in her confusion, she ended up breaking a lot of dishes. It's supposed to be super-tough, but just look at this (please ignore the cat hair I managed to find)...

It took me a 45 minutes to clean up the breakage because shards of glass went everywhere. All the way from the kitchen though the dining room and into the living room! Such is the peril of having an "open concept" home! But I wanted to be sure I did a good job because I didn't want my cats getting hurt. I can't afford any more vet bills.

UPDATE: I figured since the liquid antibiotics tasted horrible, I would try being smart about Jake's pills. First I forced him to swallow the antibiotics... THEN I dropped his pill in some crunchy food. Since his mouth was already full of awful, maybe he wouldn't notice the bitter pill? AND IT WORKED! Totally chomped down that pill! Thank heavens. I am so grateful that I didn't have to shove that down his throat too.