Stupidity got the cat
February 19, 2024 8:58 PM Subscribe
I left some yarn out after a day of crocheting. My cat ate an unknown amount. She’s now being prepped for surgery, and I’m not coping.
I’m beside myself. This was completely preventable - it’s not like when my dog died of lymphoma last year - I could have prevented this had I not been a careless, bumbling, moron.
The cat is only 3. I bottle fed her when she was a two week old baby. And now she’s going to go under for an exploratory laparotomy because of me. We don’t know how long the yarn is, and it also got caught on furniture once it started emerging from her bum and she freaked out.
The surgeon thinks there’s a chance that some of her organs have been “bunched up together” by the yarn and might be septic or infected. That’s the worst case scenario and prognosis is poor. She said not to worry. How can I? Fuck.
If your beloved pet has gone through this, please tell me that they survived. Maybe even thrived. I need some hope.
I’m beside myself. This was completely preventable - it’s not like when my dog died of lymphoma last year - I could have prevented this had I not been a careless, bumbling, moron.
The cat is only 3. I bottle fed her when she was a two week old baby. And now she’s going to go under for an exploratory laparotomy because of me. We don’t know how long the yarn is, and it also got caught on furniture once it started emerging from her bum and she freaked out.
The surgeon thinks there’s a chance that some of her organs have been “bunched up together” by the yarn and might be septic or infected. That’s the worst case scenario and prognosis is poor. She said not to worry. How can I? Fuck.
If your beloved pet has gone through this, please tell me that they survived. Maybe even thrived. I need some hope.
i am so sorry you and your sweet cat are going through this. sending all the good thoughts your way and hoping for a good outcome <3
i don’t have this experience, but i have had a near-fatal experience with my dog with an accident at my hands— and even if it doesn’t feel this way now, please know: accidents happen. not because we don’t care deeply (clearly you care deeply), but simply because we are imperfect. there are so many things we have each done that in hindsight seem obviously poor judgment, but at the time seem safe and mundane. there’s nothing you can do but take care of yourself as best you can while your veterinarian takes care of your sweet cat. hoping for you both.
posted by tamarack at 9:25 PM on February 19, 2024 [8 favorites]
i don’t have this experience, but i have had a near-fatal experience with my dog with an accident at my hands— and even if it doesn’t feel this way now, please know: accidents happen. not because we don’t care deeply (clearly you care deeply), but simply because we are imperfect. there are so many things we have each done that in hindsight seem obviously poor judgment, but at the time seem safe and mundane. there’s nothing you can do but take care of yourself as best you can while your veterinarian takes care of your sweet cat. hoping for you both.
posted by tamarack at 9:25 PM on February 19, 2024 [8 favorites]
I’m so sorry this happened! It is definitely up there in my personal anxiety playlist, I can tell you that. My yarn stash is supposed to be in the craft room closet but it’s not like I put away my projects when I’m working on them, or, erm, after I’ve stopped working on them and forgotten them in the living room for a month… anyway. I make a point of never playing with string toys with my cats, only things on wires and fishing poles where the fun part is the toy on the end, not the string itself, because I tell myself this might help keep them from seeing yarn as a fun toy/snack. And yet every time my cat is bored and I’m crocheting he is right up on me “helping”.
Basically my point is, this was not fully within your control as you claim, because it’s really just luck. It’s a risk that all cat people who turn into yarn people or vice versa (and there are a lot of us, I think it’s fully a category of human) have to balance with their anxiety and resources. Much like having, say, a love for chocolate candies and a love for dogs simultaneously. At some point, a dog is going to eat some chocolate and if we love both and want both in our lives we have to accept that risk.
Okay cat anecdote time!
A not scary one, just funny: my gorgeous wonderful soul cat Korben (rip) was not a super playful cat, he preferred to mostly lounge and be admired, but he had a weakness: curling ribbon. You know the plasticy thin gift ribbon that you can run scissors along and it curls or that is often used to tie to balloons? I always kept my ribbon in a specific box and only took it out when wrapping something and even did that in the basement where Korben was not allowed without adult supervision. Well. One holiday season I had some gold curling ribbon and I just could not get a bow right. I ended up scrapping a thing that was basically a puffball of inch long pieces of curled ribbon knotted together and then in my frustration forgot to fully close the basement door behind me when I stomped back upstairs. When I returned to finish wrapping that night I did not notice the scrapped bow was gone. Cue the next two weeks from Hanukkah to New Years: gold sparkles in my cat’s poop. And the best/worst was Korben’s very fluffy butt being matted with a little diarrhea that I was worried about so I took a closer look and a piece of ribbon was fully sticking out. He had lifelong IBS issues so this certainly was not easy for him, but also he lived many years after this festive incident.
Okay a more relevant to you anecdote: my friend’s boyfriend at the time, now husband, had a roommate who randomly decided to foster a mom cat and her four kittens. Of course this guy and my friend ended up keeping one of the kittens, and when the lease was up he moved in with my friend and brought along all the foster kittens. So it’s been ten months right and the two they decided to keep are in that lanky teen stage and this guy, who I did not know well at all and who I was actively judging to see if he was fiancé material for my good friend, calls me up in a panic. He is basically in tears like, please, you are the only person I know who probably has the time and cares about cats as much as I do! I need a big favor! And I’m like holy shit what’s wrong? Turns out the adventurous one of the two kittens ate two whole entire shoelaces!! And she was currently in surgery, and he was worried about all the same things you are worried about. And also he had to be at work and do a code crunch thing and it was the worst possible timing. So could I please pick her up from the vet hospital and do her post op care overnight and he would come get her first thing the next day. So I was also very worried about this kitten who I had held in my palm a couple weeks after she was born, who I had been planning to get silly gifts for every time I visited my friend for an occasion, who was supposed to be the lively chatty friendly one of the kitten group, who they kept specifically to pair with the shyest most scaredy-cat of the group so she could bring out his confidence. I got text updates from the guy every time he got news about the surgery. She made it through and when I picked her up I had to figure out how to keep this drugged yet rambunctious void from hurting herself with her cone and help her drink water and not rip open her stitches and it was quite the night. She took a while to recover, too, evidently the end bit of one of the laces had done something nasty? And yet, this past Saturday I was over at their house and petting this same cat, now thirteen years old, and watched as she climbed all over the guy and made cute noises and looked like she was playing our board game with us.
Sometimes these surgeries go well, sometimes they don’t. The hardest thing as owners is the not knowing. Please take this time to do something simple and methodical, to express the energy you are winding up inside right now in some way. Try not to stew in your worry, move your body around. If you have someone you can talk to where they will let you express your emotions without trying to solve or soothe them please give them a call, it’s important to feel like you are not alone.
posted by Mizu at 9:48 PM on February 19, 2024 [8 favorites]
Basically my point is, this was not fully within your control as you claim, because it’s really just luck. It’s a risk that all cat people who turn into yarn people or vice versa (and there are a lot of us, I think it’s fully a category of human) have to balance with their anxiety and resources. Much like having, say, a love for chocolate candies and a love for dogs simultaneously. At some point, a dog is going to eat some chocolate and if we love both and want both in our lives we have to accept that risk.
Okay cat anecdote time!
A not scary one, just funny: my gorgeous wonderful soul cat Korben (rip) was not a super playful cat, he preferred to mostly lounge and be admired, but he had a weakness: curling ribbon. You know the plasticy thin gift ribbon that you can run scissors along and it curls or that is often used to tie to balloons? I always kept my ribbon in a specific box and only took it out when wrapping something and even did that in the basement where Korben was not allowed without adult supervision. Well. One holiday season I had some gold curling ribbon and I just could not get a bow right. I ended up scrapping a thing that was basically a puffball of inch long pieces of curled ribbon knotted together and then in my frustration forgot to fully close the basement door behind me when I stomped back upstairs. When I returned to finish wrapping that night I did not notice the scrapped bow was gone. Cue the next two weeks from Hanukkah to New Years: gold sparkles in my cat’s poop. And the best/worst was Korben’s very fluffy butt being matted with a little diarrhea that I was worried about so I took a closer look and a piece of ribbon was fully sticking out. He had lifelong IBS issues so this certainly was not easy for him, but also he lived many years after this festive incident.
Okay a more relevant to you anecdote: my friend’s boyfriend at the time, now husband, had a roommate who randomly decided to foster a mom cat and her four kittens. Of course this guy and my friend ended up keeping one of the kittens, and when the lease was up he moved in with my friend and brought along all the foster kittens. So it’s been ten months right and the two they decided to keep are in that lanky teen stage and this guy, who I did not know well at all and who I was actively judging to see if he was fiancé material for my good friend, calls me up in a panic. He is basically in tears like, please, you are the only person I know who probably has the time and cares about cats as much as I do! I need a big favor! And I’m like holy shit what’s wrong? Turns out the adventurous one of the two kittens ate two whole entire shoelaces!! And she was currently in surgery, and he was worried about all the same things you are worried about. And also he had to be at work and do a code crunch thing and it was the worst possible timing. So could I please pick her up from the vet hospital and do her post op care overnight and he would come get her first thing the next day. So I was also very worried about this kitten who I had held in my palm a couple weeks after she was born, who I had been planning to get silly gifts for every time I visited my friend for an occasion, who was supposed to be the lively chatty friendly one of the kitten group, who they kept specifically to pair with the shyest most scaredy-cat of the group so she could bring out his confidence. I got text updates from the guy every time he got news about the surgery. She made it through and when I picked her up I had to figure out how to keep this drugged yet rambunctious void from hurting herself with her cone and help her drink water and not rip open her stitches and it was quite the night. She took a while to recover, too, evidently the end bit of one of the laces had done something nasty? And yet, this past Saturday I was over at their house and petting this same cat, now thirteen years old, and watched as she climbed all over the guy and made cute noises and looked like she was playing our board game with us.
Sometimes these surgeries go well, sometimes they don’t. The hardest thing as owners is the not knowing. Please take this time to do something simple and methodical, to express the energy you are winding up inside right now in some way. Try not to stew in your worry, move your body around. If you have someone you can talk to where they will let you express your emotions without trying to solve or soothe them please give them a call, it’s important to feel like you are not alone.
posted by Mizu at 9:48 PM on February 19, 2024 [8 favorites]
Accidents happen, please be kind to yourself. Plus cats are really dumb about this, which I will never understand. I literally cannot remember exactly what she got into the day that taught me that my cat Echo can never ever ever be left with any type of string or string like substance within her reach, but I do clearly remember on that day I came home to so so so much vomit snd the resulting panic to the emergency vet. She was under 1 year old at the time and is now 15 and still going strong (and currently hogging my pillow!)
And then there was the time my other cat vomited up literally at least 6 or so (i didnt count too carefully) hair elastics tangled into a ball with other goo. And her vet (who I would trust with my own life) was oddly unworried as otherwise she seemed perfectly normal. And she was indeed fine and lived many more happy years.
So take a deep breath, brace yourself for an expensive vet bill, but know that if your vet says not too worry thats because theyve probably seen this hundreds of times and thats their experience talking, hopefully that will put your mind at ease at least a little bit.
posted by cgg at 9:57 PM on February 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
And then there was the time my other cat vomited up literally at least 6 or so (i didnt count too carefully) hair elastics tangled into a ball with other goo. And her vet (who I would trust with my own life) was oddly unworried as otherwise she seemed perfectly normal. And she was indeed fine and lived many more happy years.
So take a deep breath, brace yourself for an expensive vet bill, but know that if your vet says not too worry thats because theyve probably seen this hundreds of times and thats their experience talking, hopefully that will put your mind at ease at least a little bit.
posted by cgg at 9:57 PM on February 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
I have had at least 4 FBI (foreign body ingestion) incidents with Frank that required ER visits, and he’s only 11. (Yes, he’s insured.) I have felt all the feelings you are feeling.
posted by matildaben at 10:14 PM on February 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by matildaben at 10:14 PM on February 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Vet just called me. SHE SURVIVED SURGERY, and it was less complicated than she expected! There were no lacerations though her GI tract is understandably very inflamed. No resections at all needed. She’ll be ok, we think. My finances are pretty much ruined but I can breathe now. I am so grateful for the commenters who left stories to keep me distracted.
posted by antihistameme at 10:54 PM on February 19, 2024 [168 favorites]
posted by antihistameme at 10:54 PM on February 19, 2024 [168 favorites]
I'M SO HAPPY FOR THE UPDATE! Thank you for letting us know <3
posted by augustimagination at 11:18 PM on February 19, 2024 [11 favorites]
posted by augustimagination at 11:18 PM on February 19, 2024 [11 favorites]
The breeder where I get my dogs - she has been in this over 30 years - just had this happen - a dog in her care had to have a blockage surgical removed and it turned out to be a wad of hair. He has a huge scar! I thought it was interesting when she told us this had never happened to her before. Puppy is fine!
posted by cda at 1:51 AM on February 20, 2024
posted by cda at 1:51 AM on February 20, 2024
Listen, I put my dog through radiation and chemotherapy for "cancer" and then massive doses of immune suppressants and steroids for "an auto-immune issue" that turned out to not actually be cancer or an auto-immune issue, and the whole time we were going through it people kept telling me "maybe you should take her to that greyhound specialist vet in Wisconsin" and I DIDN'T, for SO LONG, because I thought I could trust the vets I was working with.
Then I eventually, finally did, after her heart and kidneys were nearly destroyed by all the drugs, and the greyhound specialist vet took one look at her and told me she was misdiagnosed and the limp that we thought was a nerve tumor was actually just a corn in per paw pad. A CORN. Which is a greyhound thing, and a greyhound thing I had heard about in my 20+ years of owning greyhounds, and yet I let my perfect baby girl get misdiagnosed over and over and nearly die from the side effects of the meds for 18 months. It took another year for her body to recover from the side effects but now she's back to being happy and healthy at 9 years old and I only occasionally still feel the pangs of guilt for not doing things differently.
Also, my cats have also gotten into my yarn from knitting and crocheting and it's only luck that they didn't eat it.
posted by misskaz at 4:50 AM on February 20, 2024 [12 favorites]
Then I eventually, finally did, after her heart and kidneys were nearly destroyed by all the drugs, and the greyhound specialist vet took one look at her and told me she was misdiagnosed and the limp that we thought was a nerve tumor was actually just a corn in per paw pad. A CORN. Which is a greyhound thing, and a greyhound thing I had heard about in my 20+ years of owning greyhounds, and yet I let my perfect baby girl get misdiagnosed over and over and nearly die from the side effects of the meds for 18 months. It took another year for her body to recover from the side effects but now she's back to being happy and healthy at 9 years old and I only occasionally still feel the pangs of guilt for not doing things differently.
Also, my cats have also gotten into my yarn from knitting and crocheting and it's only luck that they didn't eat it.
posted by misskaz at 4:50 AM on February 20, 2024 [12 favorites]
... we need to see the cat. Show us the cat. I don't care if it's a pre-incident picture. CAT TAX MUST BE PAID.
posted by nkknkk at 5:16 AM on February 20, 2024 [20 favorites]
posted by nkknkk at 5:16 AM on February 20, 2024 [20 favorites]
Oh wow thank you for the update! That's awesome.
And please, please be kind to yourself. This was an accident, and leaving yarn where a cat can get it is absolutely not "OMG what were you thinking" or neglect.
It's a freak accident, and freaks like that are unfortunately part of pet ownership.
What would have been a problem is if you just left the situation to sort itself out, or gave up on the cat, the way many actually neglectful people would have.
Your sweet kitty has a fighting chance at survival *because of your prompt action *. Accidents can happen to anyone. It's how you handle them, that counts.
posted by Zumbador at 5:58 AM on February 20, 2024 [4 favorites]
And please, please be kind to yourself. This was an accident, and leaving yarn where a cat can get it is absolutely not "OMG what were you thinking" or neglect.
It's a freak accident, and freaks like that are unfortunately part of pet ownership.
What would have been a problem is if you just left the situation to sort itself out, or gave up on the cat, the way many actually neglectful people would have.
Your sweet kitty has a fighting chance at survival *because of your prompt action *. Accidents can happen to anyone. It's how you handle them, that counts.
posted by Zumbador at 5:58 AM on February 20, 2024 [4 favorites]
Knowing your kitty is OK, I feel better about posting this pet-swallowing-stuff story.
Decades ago when I was a little kid, my best friend and I were playing keep-away with our brand new collie puppy. We were bouncing one of those small rubber "super balls" -- hard rubber, bright red, you can picture it.
Well, those things bounce like crazy, and one throw ping-ponged off ceiling and floor and table and.. vanished. I was sure the puppy (unimaginatively named "Lady") had swallowed it. My mom wouldn't believe me -- until Lady started throwing up all her food.
We took Lady to the vet, they did an x-ray, and sure enough, an opaque circle was right where at the stomach valve to the rest of the GI tract. The vest warned us that surgery on a little dog might be dangerous but they had no choice. They were going to do it right away.
An hour, two hours, three, can't remember, the door opened and the two vets walked out into the waiting area, expressionless. Then one reached into the pocket of his white lab coat, pulled out the ball and bounced it to his partner. Behind him came the tech with little Lady on a leash.
Turned out they didn't have to do the surgery; they induced vomiting, got the ball partway up and from there, they manipulated it up her throat and out. Lady was none the worse for wear. The ball, not so much -- it had faded to a pale pink from the stomach acid!
Pets are pretty resilient. I'm glad yours is well.
posted by martin q blank at 6:53 AM on February 20, 2024 [9 favorites]
Decades ago when I was a little kid, my best friend and I were playing keep-away with our brand new collie puppy. We were bouncing one of those small rubber "super balls" -- hard rubber, bright red, you can picture it.
Well, those things bounce like crazy, and one throw ping-ponged off ceiling and floor and table and.. vanished. I was sure the puppy (unimaginatively named "Lady") had swallowed it. My mom wouldn't believe me -- until Lady started throwing up all her food.
We took Lady to the vet, they did an x-ray, and sure enough, an opaque circle was right where at the stomach valve to the rest of the GI tract. The vest warned us that surgery on a little dog might be dangerous but they had no choice. They were going to do it right away.
An hour, two hours, three, can't remember, the door opened and the two vets walked out into the waiting area, expressionless. Then one reached into the pocket of his white lab coat, pulled out the ball and bounced it to his partner. Behind him came the tech with little Lady on a leash.
Turned out they didn't have to do the surgery; they induced vomiting, got the ball partway up and from there, they manipulated it up her throat and out. Lady was none the worse for wear. The ball, not so much -- it had faded to a pale pink from the stomach acid!
Pets are pretty resilient. I'm glad yours is well.
posted by martin q blank at 6:53 AM on February 20, 2024 [9 favorites]
Every year Veterinary Practice News magazine runs a "They Ate What?" x-ray contest where veterinarians can submit images of the wildest things they found their patients had eaten. My favorite this year was a... sex toy. To be fair to the dog, it really looks like a Kong!
The truly amazing thing though, is that many if not all of the patients depicted survive their dietary indiscretions via surgery, endoscopy, or patience. Pets are resilient, and veterinarians are resourceful!
posted by Rock Steady at 8:02 AM on February 20, 2024 [11 favorites]
The truly amazing thing though, is that many if not all of the patients depicted survive their dietary indiscretions via surgery, endoscopy, or patience. Pets are resilient, and veterinarians are resourceful!
posted by Rock Steady at 8:02 AM on February 20, 2024 [11 favorites]
i am so so glad your kitty is okay! i have a cat who will start swallowing yarn WHILE IT IS IN MY HANDS AND I AM ACTIVELY KNITTING/CROCHETING. it is ridiculous. i have no idea how he does this in the 3 seconds it takes me to stop him. i now push him away every time he approaches because i don't want him to hurt himself on yarn. give kitty lots of pets and love!
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:44 AM on February 20, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:44 AM on February 20, 2024 [2 favorites]
Phew, so glad the surgery went well. I just woke up this very morning to one of the cats eating a dryer sheet. This is the same cat who ate part of a stuffie toy last fall and ended up rushed to emergency surgery for stomach blockage after 24 hours of vomiting and misery. He still chews on curtains, eats fabric, gnaws off the string from face masks, relishes plastic bags, goes after rubber bands, etc though we try to be so careful. Please don't be mad at yourself. When you are less stressed, maybe brainstorm some household adaptation strategies to reduce the chance for mishaps. Can yarn projects live in a plastic tub that latches shut? I am going to do a spring cleaning (late winter cleaning?) and get rid of dryer sheets (!!) and bring out more of the silvervine chew sticks as a distraction.
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:55 AM on February 20, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:55 AM on February 20, 2024 [2 favorites]
CAT TAX, please!
posted by Dolley at 11:17 AM on February 20, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Dolley at 11:17 AM on February 20, 2024 [1 favorite]
Surely successful surgery is cause for us to un-waive the cat tax.
posted by kensington314 at 1:36 PM on February 20, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by kensington314 at 1:36 PM on February 20, 2024 [3 favorites]
I was so happy to see the update, I forgot to share my story, which is that my kitty got to some sock yarn while I left the room for about 5 seconds once. Based on how it looked when I came back, I figured she'd bitten through the strand. Nope, she had ingested a whole bunch which I only became aware of after seeing her start shaking in pain, calling an emergency vet, and then realizing she had a teeny tiny bit of neon purple yarn hanging out of her butt :'(
She was still eating and drinking normally, so the vet's office told me to keep a watch on her butt and that if she showed any symptoms of distress to bring her in immediately. I spent about the next 15 hours hovering over her every time she pooped until finally It came. I put on some gloves so I could examine and make sure it matched the ends where she'd bitten from. It did and I was like, I have to know how much yarn this is so I measured it and it was THREE YARDS OF YARN.
I'm much more careful now about putting knitting up somewhere high if I'm leaving it unattended, even for just a few seconds because my cat will find a way, apparently.
posted by augustimagination at 2:05 PM on February 20, 2024 [1 favorite]
She was still eating and drinking normally, so the vet's office told me to keep a watch on her butt and that if she showed any symptoms of distress to bring her in immediately. I spent about the next 15 hours hovering over her every time she pooped until finally It came. I put on some gloves so I could examine and make sure it matched the ends where she'd bitten from. It did and I was like, I have to know how much yarn this is so I measured it and it was THREE YARDS OF YARN.
I'm much more careful now about putting knitting up somewhere high if I'm leaving it unattended, even for just a few seconds because my cat will find a way, apparently.
posted by augustimagination at 2:05 PM on February 20, 2024 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks to the rest who’ve added your stories. I’m hopeful today. If cat eats, she gets feeding tube out of her head and I CAN TAKE HER HOME. Let’s keep our paws crossed for the little criminal. And I’m definitely getting a closed tub for my yarn stash (also thanks to the commenters in my previous post about crochet, I’ve finally managed to get started properly. Though I sorely underestimated the rate of yarn acquisition).
posted by antihistameme at 4:08 PM on February 20, 2024 [15 favorites]
posted by antihistameme at 4:08 PM on February 20, 2024 [15 favorites]
antihistameme, just a heads up because.... our cat refused to eat at the hospital, they kept him an extra night and then we were asked to come in to see if our presence would get him to eat, which didn't work so then they just said we should take him home because some cats are so stressed out at the vet/hospital that they won't eat. And so we took him home and he ate!
Also what a fabulous adorable tabby cat. Thank you for the photos!!! (My fabric-eater is also a tabby).
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:17 PM on February 20, 2024
Also what a fabulous adorable tabby cat. Thank you for the photos!!! (My fabric-eater is also a tabby).
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:17 PM on February 20, 2024
Going to add our story real quick, despite seeing that kitty is doing ok.
We had a cat eat one of those kids' ponytail holders with the little yarn/thread loops. She had part of it wrapped around her tongue, and the rest down in her middle. She was somewhere between a kitten and two at the time; it was at least 15 years ago.
$900 later, she was a very expensive cat whose white tux front now stretch up her chest and chin to her mouth, and she survived until just a few years ago - six years after ANOTHER brush with death where she'd been given weeks, at most, to live. (They were also similarly cautious in their estimation of the survivability, but everything went absolutely perfectly.)
(And as for cat potentially not eating - they had some kind of canned food at the vet during her second brush with death that they sent me home with, saying that if she refused that food at home after we got her fluids stabile, then it was pretty low odds she'd eat anything at all. The vet's office considered that exact food to be practically magic - and it's true, she was quite happy to gobble it down. (And no, they weren't trying to sell me on more - they didn't even charge me for it, and years later, I wish they had, or at least listed it on the paperwork, because I wanted to know what the food/brand was!)
posted by stormyteal at 9:42 PM on February 20, 2024
We had a cat eat one of those kids' ponytail holders with the little yarn/thread loops. She had part of it wrapped around her tongue, and the rest down in her middle. She was somewhere between a kitten and two at the time; it was at least 15 years ago.
$900 later, she was a very expensive cat whose white tux front now stretch up her chest and chin to her mouth, and she survived until just a few years ago - six years after ANOTHER brush with death where she'd been given weeks, at most, to live. (They were also similarly cautious in their estimation of the survivability, but everything went absolutely perfectly.)
(And as for cat potentially not eating - they had some kind of canned food at the vet during her second brush with death that they sent me home with, saying that if she refused that food at home after we got her fluids stabile, then it was pretty low odds she'd eat anything at all. The vet's office considered that exact food to be practically magic - and it's true, she was quite happy to gobble it down. (And no, they weren't trying to sell me on more - they didn't even charge me for it, and years later, I wish they had, or at least listed it on the paperwork, because I wanted to know what the food/brand was!)
posted by stormyteal at 9:42 PM on February 20, 2024
My 6-month kittens (at least one of them anyway) ate some yarn last year and I can empathize with the anxiety that your pet will die because of something that feels very preventable. Luckily in my case they just passed it naturally with a little vomiting, but I was out $1,000 from the urgent care visit for the two of them (problem with 2 cats: not knowing which one threw up unless you catch them in the act, or who exactly ate the yarn, so you have to get them both checked out). This is the reason I got pet insurance a few months ago, even though I'm pretty sure it's a racket.
Anyway, glad she made it out!
posted by knownfossils at 8:26 AM on February 21, 2024
Anyway, glad she made it out!
posted by knownfossils at 8:26 AM on February 21, 2024
Just adding another 'don't blame yourself too much' story - one of my cats lives to eat plastic. He will snatch plastic wrappers out of your hands. He will dig in my purse to find them. He will rip off the edges of trash bags currently in trash cans. He is a MENACE when it come to plastic, and it's nearly impossible to keep every single scrap away from him. Twice he has had serious blockages that I was very worried he would not recover from, and that I could not afford surgery for, and both times he eventually pooped out whatever it was after a week of stress and meds and throwing up constantly. And yet he still beelines for any hint of plastic.
posted by unsettledink at 3:21 AM on February 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by unsettledink at 3:21 AM on February 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
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Love to you and your cat!
posted by lepus at 9:18 PM on February 19, 2024 [7 favorites]