Dec 03, 2009 22:08
JoJo (my 3-year old, ittybitty cat affectionately known to the world as MoJo-JoJo-Josephine-Baker or "Nyquil Kitty" because she puts people to sleep when she curls up in their lap) swallowed a two-inch sewing needle (one of the big ones meant for putting stitches in denim or canvas) this morning about 4:30 am.
I was at my desk, heard her start to hack, turned around and found her sitting on my sewing table where she likes to pull pins off a magnetic pin tray, bat them off the work table, and strategically place them for collision with bare feet. I noticed the absence of a large sewing needle where I had just two days prior lazily tossed it on the magnetic tray instead of putting it away, thinking, "I hope JoJo doesn't decide to eat the thread on that like Russ Matthews's cat and choke." (Aside: Thankfully, Russ's cat also survived. He found her while the needle was still in her mouth, and he took the time to write about it on livejournal where it seeded my memory and prepared me for the day my cat, too, would play "seppuku".)
The vet that I bombarded with apologies at 5 am told me to *try* to feed her bread and bring her in when the animal clinic opened at 7:30. I corralled JoJo into the bathroom so she couldn't hide under a bed or in the back of a closet. I sat on the floor,
she curled up in my lap, we waited for two hours of barely-controlled panic while her retching went from hysterical to occasional to once-a-quarter-hour.
When I was able to take her to the animal clinic, the vet tech, Mark, whose charming face was all smiles and six inches of a lovingly-tended, luxuriant chin beard (no mustache or side beard, which is an unusual sight), could sense the worry in me and whisked JoJo away for an x-ray. We were lucky - the needle was enormous and JoJo tiny, so it couldn't go very far. The needle had lodged in her larynx and not her stomach, which could have poked holes in her organs and necessitated surgery. So the vet sedated her and pulled it out via her mouth, and all is well. A couple days of amoxicillin and Izzy growling at JoJo for smelling like "the evil place", and we'll be back to normal.
I hope JoJo and I both have learned our lessons - I will put my sewing needles away and she (I daresay) won't pull a lady-and-the-tramp with a deadly object ever again.