The Day The Won't End!

This feels like the day that never ends. Work was less than pleasant and I got a frantic phone call from Max saying that Gaia had puss leaking out all over on her back and she was very cranky and wouldn’t let Max get near her, hiding under a chair and hissing. Gaia has an attitude, that’s for certain, but this is definitely not normal.

I come home and find a cat that clearly needs to go to the vet immediately. I think to myself, when was the last time I even saw Gaia eat or drink or use the litter box? I than realize she was in the same spot as she was this morning when I left for work and looked visibly in pain.

I call the vet frantically and they say they have no appointments, but I can bring her in to the kitty ER for $100.00 up front, no billing allowed for ER visits. I didn’t have a choice. Gaia gets wrapped up into towel and I try to think of what could’ve happened. She was out all day on Tuesday and after I thought it, she came in Tuesday afternoon and I really hadn’t seen her much since then. She’s obviously been in some kind of brawl or got into something, thus the puss. We get her to the vet, they take her back immediately and Max and I sit down to wait. I fill out paper work and wait some more.

30 mins later, vet comes out to announce that Gaia has a large abscess, most likely some kind of puncture wound that we didn’t catch in the past that had become infected. Wondering if this was the same spot she’d gotten bitten on late last year that I thought had healed up perfectly fine, there’s been no open wound or anything creepy except a small patch of skin that appeared to be missing some fur. I figured it just wasn’t growing back or something and she’s been acting perfectly fine, high energy etc, I would’ve had no reason to believe that there was anything wrong with her.

Vet says Gaia is going to need anesthetic, heavy antibiotic treatment and they would need to irrigate the wound to ensure they get all the bacteria out. I think ok, let’s do it! She says, ok, it’s going to be about $500. I began to cry uncontrollably. I asked them if they could work out a payment plan or something, she said they could take my application for Pet Insurance and if I qualified that would pay for it and then I would pay them back each month.

I knew they wouldn’t approve me, but I tried anyway. Within 10 mins of submitting my application, the answer was obviously no and guess why? Because I have a freaking repossession now on my record. Guess what folks, that’s basically credit murder and guess WHY I have repossession on my credit? Yeah, well we all know the story. Freaking jerk. This was my first real taste of what life will be like without access to any kind of credit. I had a moment of sheer rage toward you know who, feeling all the years of my hard work to establish my credit and get my life together all shot to shit over selfish assholes inability to be responsible or even try to rectify his choices. I can’t dwell on WHY things are the way they are now….but for brief moment I thought to myself, if my cat dies because I couldn’t get the credit I needed to save her life, it is one more innocent life affected by Chance’s super shitty choices and I am the one left holding the bill and the responsibility of all of it.....my plan for forgiveness may take longer than expected.

Vet said without the pet insurance, there was nothing they could do. She found some pain medication and antibiotics that are left over from other pets who’d passed away while in pet hospice and that was about the best she could do for today. They gave me phone #’s of lots of places who might be able to work with me. I called them all, 4 different places in the Denver Metro area who provide pet care for low income families and NOT ONE OF THEM will cut me a break. I make too much money. Isn’t that a bitch? I am a single, working mother who is lucky to see a dime out of her baby’s daddy and was left about $20k in debt by a man who claimed to love her but walked away without ever looking back. Yes, I am bitter today at myself for making some ridiculously stupid decisions and at these asshole men for being born without a conscious. Cowards. Max and I have suffered enough, this feels like icing on the cake and you may wonder why I am going there…but let me tell you something, I’ve worked my ass off to build a life for my son and myself and pulled myself up out of debt before. All that work, is gone. Nothing. Means nothing. And when I need it the most, I have no resources to fall back on. None. And this a vet bill. Not even the worst possible scenario. Though, the idea of my cat dying a preventable death feels like a pretty awful scenario.

Wow.

Besides the guilt that OBVIOULSY I must be the worst kitty mommy that ever existed because of this wound and my not realizing it was anything serious at all, I am now faced with a choice. I can get behind on my mortgage (from which I would never catch up) OR I can basically allow my cat to die a slow painful death. Or I can take her to the animal shelter and they’ll euthanize her, which is absurd because this is totally treatable and survivable. It’s not like she has terminal cancer or something. She’s got an abscessed wound from a cat or dog fight, it happens all the time. It could be something older, it could’ve happened in the past week. Vet said it was probably pretty recent, if it was anything older than a few weeks should’ve been sick a long time ago. The idea of putting Gaia to sleep is not thinkable to me. Gaia is 2.5 years old. A baby in kitty years. Some choice.


And the worst part is, I’ve got about 3 days to figure it out because that’s about how much pain medication and antibiotics I have.

I am slammed at work, I have to finish cleaning the apartment on Saturday.

I’ve cried a lot, I needed to vent. I feel a little better now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll figure it out. I always do. I feel kind of angry at the moment, probably b/c this the first real instance in which I needed emergency credit and there’s no access to and I’m broke. I just paid up all my bills, I’m all caught up on everything. But I can’t come up with the money to cover my cats vet bills.

Sigh. At least Gaia is comfortable for tonight. She’s all drugged up, the pain medication they gave her is pretty strong. She’s eating and drinking water and we have her isolated, which suits her just fine at the moment from what I can tell. She even looked me in the eye as I got her all set up, I promised her she would be ok. I hope I can live up to that promise. I have another pain medication injection to give her at midnight so she can sleep tonight. She’s such a sweet cat, really brave I think because I’m this has been bugging her for a while and we didn’t even know. It would be really great if someone would come up with the ability for our pets to communicate with us dumb ass humans now, thanks. Appreciate that!