Natasha and I went to the animal hospital tonight. She's had a constantly weeping right eye for the last three months. I'd taken her in previously, about two weeks after it first started happening. The vet (not our usual one) thought maybe the tear duct was clogged, but she thought it more likely the cat had an allergy. I didn't think so at all, since allergies usually involve sneezing and discharges rather than clear tears, but I wasn't going to argue with her, so Natasha and I went home. Yesterday I decided the eye was just not going to magically heal, so back to the vet we went. This time I requested our regular vet.
We got there on time for our 8pm appointment. There was quite a lot of commotion: cats meowing pitifully from inside their carrier (mine and two others), a Dalmation puppy excitedly greeting a young Labrador which produced a great deal of wriggling, yelping, and the staccato of toenails clicking on hard linoleum floors, a guy explaining something about Monkey Chow to a concerned doctor, and two crying children, plus lots of vets and technicians rushing back and forth. Natasha and I checked in, then were shown to a room to wait for Dr. Rogers.
We waited forty minutes before anyone came by to see us, and no one could tell us where our doctor was when I finally asked. Just like real hospitals! Only in real hospitals the patients aren't usually barking. It wasn't too terrible except for the part where there weren't any magazines in the entire hospital, and I hadn't brought a book since I expected to be seen right away, and so I became tremendously bored being stuck in a bare-walled room with nothing to look at but the array of disinfectants and swabs. Natasha pushed her cat carrier off the table onto the floor in a fit of cat attitude, mewed pitifully, and finally crept underneath my sweatshirt and sat on my lap. She moved around fitfully like a baby alien, wedging her face between my tummy and my arm, and then purred to herself from the safety of her cotton cave. I was sitting on a chair with my torso grotesquely extended on one side, apparently harboring a mobile, vibrating tumor, when Dr. Rogers finally appeared.
Natasha was her usual charming self once she was persuaded to leave the warm sweatshirt, and Dr. Rogers promptly diagnosed a clogged tear duct. Natasha was fascinated by the stethoscope, and sniffed it very, very carefully the entire time we were talking. I commented on it.
"It's got iguana all over it," Dr. Rogers said calmly. I hoped she was talking about scent only.
Diagnosis sorted, I went home clutching a bottle of tear drops to be given three times a day ("You're kidding," I said, going pale. "Sorry about that," Dr. Rogers replied, not unkindly. We both gave Natasha a dubious look. She flexed her claws.). Keiko and Dixie both sniffed Natasha thoroughly, drenched as she was in the always alluring Eau de Vet Clinic scent. Since I'm going out of town tomorrow I spared John the duty and decided to start the medicine Sunday night. Boy, I can't wait to go up against Death Kitty 2000: the Claws That Shred. It's going to be an exhausting two weeks. But I hope this will take care of the problem and keep us out of the vet clinic for another year at least. My sweatshirt needs time to recover.
NB: Susan Atherly declined to meet on the grounds that she was busy. She seemed surprisingly unmoved by hearing from me. I'm sentimental; I would have liked to reestablish contact. However, her email was lukewarm. I guess I won't try to find anyone else from my school days. Too much water under the bridge. Pity I keep standing here getting my toes wet.
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