I Didn't Become Catman, Sadly

Recently, some neighbors of ours were going out of town for a few days, and my dear wife Katie agreed that we would go over and take care of their two cats while they were gone.  Really, though, this means that I would be going over to take care of the cats, since one of them kind of scared her the last time we did this.  No big deal...I just go over, refill the food and water, and endure a little litter box action if needed.

The first day of cat-sitting went more or less without incident.  However, I did find that one of the cats had gotten himself locked in the bathroom for some significant length of time, considering he had pooped on the bath mat and [sensibly] peed in the shower at least once.  I'm estimating he was in there 20 hours.  Anyway, it didn't seem to make much sense to get a load of laundry going, so I instead cranked up the shower as hot as it would go, and I threw the bath mat in with a BIG dose of body wash.  That's probably the first ever poop-stained body-washed bath mat in the history of the world!

If I consider the first day of cat-sitting more or less without incident, day two was completely uneventful.  It's hardly even worth mentioning I went to see the cats on this day.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is day three.  I took my daughter Penelope (age 4) with me to check on the kitties, and in true girly girl fashion, she wore a tiara and took her pink parasol for our stroll down the street.  It was raining out, so the umbrella was functional as well as fashionable.  Anyway, we arrived at the house and were greeted by the kitty duo.  The non-incarcerated one was pretty nice to us, but our isolation-torture-survivor was all hissy with me and made it obvious he didn't want to see us.  Ignoring the cat, I went to the kitchen to find a Fancy Feast, since that seemed to make him happy earlier in the weekend.  After locating his treat, I bent over to grab the treat dish off of the floor and HE BIT ME!  Right on the forearm!  It was a solid bid too, with two fangs punching significant holes in my flesh.  So I started bleeding and yelled at the cat "YOU KNOW WHAT?  YOU'RE NOT GETTING THAT TREAT NOW!  BAD CAT!".  He didn't seem saddened by that one bit, however, since he kept on hissing and spitting at me.

At this point, Penelope started to cry since she was getting scared, so I picked her up with my good arm, and brandished her pink parasol at the cat with my bloody arm as I backed out the front door.  Once we were safe, we went on back home and I washed the tar out of my arm, since cats lick their butts.  After washing my wounds, I carefully applied some bacon-themed bandages to begin the healing process.  And those cats didn't get any more treats the rest of the weekend.

A couple of days later, I was back at work talking about my adventure with some of my friends, and they noted that my arm was looking a little infected. I hadn't really payed attention to it before, but it was definitely rash-like and red in the area surrounding the fang-scars...so I set up an appointment for the next day (nothing was available that afternoon).

The next day arrived, however, and my arm was looking much much better.  Hardly any redness or tenderness around the scars.  *sigh*  Do I cancel my appointment, or do I stay the course and go on in?  I waffled a bit as I considered my health, and eventually decided to keep the appointment...just in case I had a sudden onset of Cat Scratch Fever.

I went to the doctor's office, knowing full well that this was going to be an unsatisfying visit, given that I was more or less in perfect health at this point.  It's always disappointing when you've been suffering some malady for days and days and then an hour before going in to see the doctor, you miraculously heal and the doctor just looks at you and sighs and writes you a prescription for placebos or chicken-noodle soup or something.  You really just want him to acknowledge that you were in fact suffering and that you aren't just some crazed hypochondriac looking to deplete your FSA.  So I got checked in by the nurse, and temperature/pulse/blood pressure all looked perfect.  I admitted to her that it was looking much better than just a day ago, and that I felt a bit silly coming in, and she tried to keep my spirits up, saying "Well, you can never be too cautious with Cat Scratch Fever...".

Anyway, the doctor came in, and he did his best to not make me feel like a fool for coming in...but he just couldn't do it.  His first words upon greeting me were something to the effect of "Well, it sounds like you've had a wild weekend!".  I'm pretty sure he was smirking when he said this.  Anyway, he did give my wounded arm a good looking-over, and even went ahead and prescribed an antibiotic and ordered a tetanus booster, since it had been forever since I've had one.  What killed me, though, was he decided it would be good to hand-draw a picture of my arm in my chart complete with fang-scars in the right location.  He wasn't the best sketch-artist, though, so my wounded arm looked decidedly cartoonish, and he went a little overboard with the amount of puncture wounds.  And this is now in my permanent medical records.  I'm going to be a respected elder in my community someday and a youngish whippersnapper MD is going to get a laugh out of it...  *sigh*

Now that I'm taking my antibiotic and back on my feet again, I'm feeling at peace with the incident.  Sure, that cat has now tasted man-flesh and will probably become an orc-cat and try to devour the neighborhood, but at least I'm moving on...

Mike