Why did I cancel our reservations I made at Cal-Neva, Tahoe, back in 2007? I asked Ian, my husband, the other day. Neither of us could remember. Then I found this old blog post I wrote:
Ian walked into our living room and found our kitten, June, choking. He yelled to me, “The cat’s choking on her toy!” The toy’s a little fuzzy pom pom with a mouse face on it and a string of yarn with a bell on the end for the tail.
I ran into the room to see Ian sticking his fingers down the kitty’s throat, trying to pull out the toy. I jumped in and performed some kitty Heimlich thrusts with my thumbs. Nothing! So I, too, stuck my fingers down her throat. What do you know. She didn’t like that. Not at all. So she ravaged my hand with her little kitty teeth and claws.
With my bloody hand I grabbed my car keys and with the other hand I grasped the kitten, and ran to the car. Our daughter ran behind. We sped to an emergency vet down the street. The kitten was still breathing. Great. But the the object would be speeding its way down her stomach. We needed to move fast
Stupid emergency vet. He couldn’t see the kitty toy on June’s x-ray. So, in a huff, my daughter and I sped her over to a more trustworthy vet. We told them about the silly vet who couldn’t see the mass. They nodded their heads in sympathy, served us chai tea lattes (This is LA, after all) and reasoned the best we could do would be an endoscopy (put a tube with a camera into her stomach) to find the object and pull it out. So June would need to stay for the over night procedure.
1:35 am – My phone rang. I knew it’d be the vet. My heart raced.
Me: Hello? How’s my kitten?
Vet: Sorry.
Me: Excuse me. (My heart dropped)
Vet: Sorry, you cut out…what did you say?
Me: My kitty, how is she?
Vet: Uh, fine. But we can’t see any object other than food in her stomach.
6:30am – I left to pick up our kitten. She needed be taken, with catheter in tow, to our regular vet for further examination.
7:15 am – June the kitten – who the last vet assistant lovingly referred to as “Butthead” for her obstinate personality (it runs in the family) – and I drove (well, I did the driving and the kitten ran around the car clawing at her head cone) toward our vet. Maybe, I thought, the object was lodged too far down?
7:20 am – My cell phone rang. I pulled over from driving and dug my phone out of my purse.
Me: Yeah.
Ian: I found the toy.
Me: You WHAT?!
Yep, the kitten never swallowed the toy. We suspected her tooth was just caught on her too large collar (which my daughter said in the beginning) and so it looked like she was gagging.
I said to Ian, after realizing we now could not afford to go on vacation, due to the cost of this fiasco, “Hey, don’t worry. Let’s move forward. Think of it as making a deposit in your karma bank.”
I really wanted to believe that, because a week in Tahoe would’ve been a lot of fun. Anyway, apologies to the vet we found to be lacking in medical knowledge. I guess that degree on your wall does mean something after all. (*A few years later, Cal-Neva would close. Turns out June saved us from a nightmare. Read this man’s review of Cal-Neva.)
*In my previous post, “Wedding vs Marriage,” this could be added to my suggested wedding vows:
I (provide name) promise to stick with you even if you imagine our kitten is choking on her toy, which then causes hours of chaos and drama so expensive, we can no longer afford to go on vacation.
Oh well, June AND Ian are worth it.
