Go Home, 2023, You're Drunk

Hello, all! Evan and I had quite the adventure yesterday. First and foremost, Evan is doing well. I mentioned in yesterday's post how he was at the vet again after having a bit of blood in his urine alongside some significant urethral spasms. Since he was just hospitalized for a urethral obstruction 2 weeks ago, which first presented itself with bloody urine, I wanted him to get looked over by our vet. Luckily, he is not blocked again, and he's been back home and resting since yesterday afternoon.

The vet thinks Evan is just still having some residual discomfort from his initial blockage, so she refilled his prazosin (anti-spasmodic) and switched his pain medication to gabapentin. He was prescribed buprenorphine by the emergency vet, but that stuff turns Evan into a very confused little zombie. So far, the gabapentin works much better.

All that said, his journey home from the vet was not what we anticipated.

That's my car. It's 13 years old and has certainly had its issues over the years, but yesterday takes the cake. Evan and I barely even made it out of the vet clinic's parking lot before there was a loud sound from the back of my car when I hit a somewhat mild pothole. Immediately after, steering the car in a straight line became essentially impossible. I managed to get pulled onto a side road, certain that a tire had blown or something along those lines. At first I couldn't see anything wrong, but after a bit I noticed that my back tires were tilting inward at the top. Turns out, though I wasn't even going 10 mph, the pothole I hit caused some rod that in some way holds the back wheels to sort of just, well, snap in half. I don't have full diagnostics yet, though I do have a picture of the thing that snapped in half. It looks expensive, and my bank account is already crying.

Luckily, my mom lives close and is amazing, and so when I realized that my car was not safe to drive home and yet I still had Evan with me, I gave her a call. And by that I mean that my phone is also not functioning properly and so apparently I can't make or receive phone calls right now, but my family uses Google Hangouts, so I called her by way of that. But I digress. My mom brought her van over, and I used it to drive Evan home while my mom waited for a tow truck for my car. I'm now driving my mom's van to and from work until my car is fixed.

Evan was such a good, calm boy for the whole car ordeal. He's always much happier and chill in his carrier when he has left the vet and knows he's going home. So he just sat in his carrier looking around, watching birds from the car windows, like it was totally normal for the car to break and for us to sit around in an unfamiliar neighborhood. I've never had to get my car towed before, and I certainly never thought the first time it happened would be when one of my cats was in the car with me.

I'd like to tell 2023 to go home, because it's clearly drunk. 2024, where are you?

Complaining aside, thank you all for the purrs, prayers, and thoughts for Evan yesterday! I am so glad that my boy is home and doing well. Purrs and well wishes to all of you!

***

Flashback Doodle of the Day

I found this wintry flashback doodle in our archives, and it seemed apt enough for today.

***

Tip of the Day

We are continuing our tips relating to ferals and other outdoor cats in the cold winter months. Today's tip is a more general one, and it relates to the fact that animals seek out warm places to sleep when it is cold outside. For example, cats and kittens, and other small animals, might climb up under the hood of a car that has recently been driven, since the engine will be warm. For this reason, especially when it is cold outside, honk, clap, or tap on your car's hood before starting it. This will give a warning to any animals who might have sought shelter there, and will give them time to find safety elsewhere. It is of course perfectly possible that no animals will be sleeping under the hood of your car, but in case a cat or other animal is, making noise before you start your car will help ensure that they get out of harm's way.