Tuesday, May 12, 2020 –
I have not forgotten about the basic primer for the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. Those are coming in the days ahead, but right now my mind is elsewhere. Life took a sharp turn yesterday, and Andrew and I are stuck driving back and forth to Richmond for a day (or two…who knows?).
Yesterday, Sophie, our beloved 12-year-old therapy cat, got extremely ill. She has had tummy issues this past year and a brief battle with some fatty tumors under her skin, but for the most part she is the world’s heartiest cat and usually sorts herself out in a day or so. Unfortunately, this time she stopped eating.
She has been acting perfectly normal, but would barely touch even wet food and wouldn’t even eat a chicken nugget. Aside from Fritos, chicken nuggets are her absolute favorite. Yes, my cat eats total trash. If you have ever met Sophie, you know she LOVES food…all food. Basically, when she doesn’t eat it is a sign of the apocalypse.
Our neighbor has a great vet, so we gave them a call. After a bit of back and forth on the phone, they could not see her, but were concerned about Sophie not eating. We were referred to the local animal ER, headed downtown, and were first in line when they opened (3 PM).
In case you aren’t aware of the current pandemic, we’re in one and it is totally bonkers having to go anywhere. We have not been to any businesses other than our local grocery store, so this was our first foray into the new-world procedures.
If you too have not been out, you are in for a real treat (insert eyeroll). Seems every business is following the same plan. You pull up to a carefully marked spot with a cone next to the driver side that has a stick in it. On the stick is plastered a sheet of paper with a phone number, which is a bit difficult to read because it is basically functioning as a flag flapping in the wind.
Once you finally get the phone number from the flapping stick-flag in the cone, you call and arrange a masked pick up. Yes, someone in a mask comes out to your car to hand you things or pick up things. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a solid plan for whether or not anyone should be wearing gloves, but I digress.
In this instance, the person on the phone walked us through their new online system to register Sophie for treatment. Five billion forms and e-signatures later, a vet tech came out to get her. Things started looking a bit worrisome when car after car seemed to have their pet seen and sent home before us. We were finally told to go for a walk and they would call Andrew’s cell phone.
A couple hours later—and about 12K steps later—we got a call from the vet, who sent us an email. Back to the car we went. Thankfully, Andrew had his laptop with him (an ill-thought plan to possibly do work that didn’t pan out). We pulled up the X-rays while the vet ran through a large amount of medical terms. His biggest concern was a large mass (possibly cancer) near her very inflamed colon. He recommended a transfer down to Richmond to see their specialist down there (5:15 PM).
Sophie was brought back by the same masked tech, we signed a billion more papers, and off we went…to Chick-fil-A drive through. It was well past our dinner time and we though we might tempt our little princess with a chicken nugget. Unfortunately, the nugget was a “no-go” for her, so we stopped by the house to use the loo and hit the road (6:30ish PM).
A couple miles out of town we ran into stopped traffic; literally a parking lot in the middle of I-95. We texted some people to get the scoop only to find out we were stuck behind the burning remains of a US postal truck. What is normally an hour drive to “the big city” turned into a two-and-a-half wait behind a burning mail truck with an angry kitty, who I assume was dropping the cat version of “F-bomb” from her perch in the back seat.
Finally, we get to downtown Richmond (9PM). It’s late, we’re tired, the cat is still cranky, it’s cold, and we are lost. Andrew found a parking spot on a side street somewhere within a mile of our supposed destination: the 24-hour ER vet. Into the kitty backpack Sophie goes, and off we trek down the empty, dark, graffiti-laden alleys looking for the back entrance of the vet. Why? Because it’s a pandemic and we don’t use front doors anymore for some reason.
We finally stopped to call them and get directions of **which** dark alley to go down in order to find their coned, stick-flag parking spaces. After pulling into their dark alley and verifying which graffiti was the right one, we were met by our new masked attendant. Another 10 trillion papers later, we were told to wait for the doctor to call us.
Keep in mind this was several hours since our last loo break, so we cautiously asked if there was a bathroom. NO, but we were given directions to the local Kroger that was set to close in 15 minutes. Don’t worry. We made it, but for the record the alley was cleaner.
Back in our parking spot with snacks in tow and waiting for the vet to call, we finally got a chance to read some of those papers we signed. Did you know you can sign a DNR for your animal? That is apparently a thing now.
Anyhow, the vet called and told us she needed to keep Sophie overnight. The specialist would see her in the morning, and we were free to go, without Sophie (11 PM). We finally made it home just after midnight. Yes, the mail truck was still smoldering (12 AM).
Today we wait. It has been a flurry of calls and more papers. Sophie got a bit mouthy with the vet today and got herself sedated. She is spending another night down in Richmond, and hopefully (praying!!) her biopsies come back negative.
Tomorrow we will wait some more, and there will probably be another flurry of calls, emails, and documents to sign. Hopefully, the mail truck fire is under control.
Saint Gertrude of Nivelles, pray for us!
