Help poor Arnie pee good

well here we go.

About a month ago, our beloved little Arnie began acting a little funny, and we noticed we had some blood in his urine, and that he was straining to get just a few drops out. we couldn't get into the vet, and because in young male cats this could be a sign of a potentially life threatening illness, they send us to the emergency vet. They tested him for kidney stones and for infections, and sent us home with meds to ease the pain and chill him out a bit. All tests they ran came back negative, but we were warned that because there was so much blood in his urine, they couldn't really tell. That was $900. not a huge deal.

Then we follow up the next day at our usual vet, they do the same tests, find an infection, send us home with meds, a few days later he seems to be doing better, still going outside the litter box but has mostly gotten back to his chill, fun loving self. about $400 bucks. whatever, we got a tax return on the way. The new roof can wait i guess.

Did i mention Liz is 37 weeks pregnant at this point? No? well she is. Some complications, OB office visits at least twice a week, sometimes get sent to the hospital, sometimes for like, 6 hours. Big pain in the ass. But baby and Momma look healthy so whatever, life's good.

Flash forward a week or two.

Go in for Momma's OB appointment, her blood pressure is WAY TOO HIGH. Get sent straight to the hospital to try to induce labor. Do not stop home. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

I'll save you the details. Check in on Tuesday. Emergent C-section on Friday. We get discharged on the next Wednesday, Baby is in NICU until the next Friday. Everyones tired, everyones healthy, everyones for the most part very, very happy.

However.

The whole time i am running back and forth (also with the help of my wonderful mother) to check on the kitties. On the second or third day, Arnie is no where to be found, unusual for him, he usually greets us enthusiastically at the door. What is to be found, is piss. lots of piss. Bloody piss. Arnie turns up hiding under the bed. Vet appointment is made for the next day.

He needs x-rays to check for what is likely a block in his urinary tract. (we find out later it is actually a mucus plug in his urethra, which is undetectable by x-rays. that and tests come out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $400. Starting to get in over our heads.

Then comes the expensive part.

Dude needs surgery to remove the plug, and insert a catheter to clear our his manly business and bladder and kidneys and what have you. $800 bucks or something like that. we can't afford it (did i mention we're in the hospital? I did? how about the part about the week long stay in the NICU? covered it already? ok. Back to the cat.) But since he is the sweetest little boy in the world (second sweetest now that little Oskar, our son is here) We put it on the special vet credit card thing and we'll figure it out later. He just needs to have that catheter in 48 hours and we should be in the clear.

He bites it out overnight, basically rendering all progress not progress anymore.

Gotta do it again. Doc says they'll change his meds. really knock him out this time. Put a couple more stitches in. Really get that fucker in there. Then, it's smooth sailing from there. Another $800 bucks or something. Whatever, at this point money was no meaning anymore. might as well be a billion. we'll figure it out i guess.

The motherfucker rips the thing out again.

We now realize that "monitoring really, really closely" only lasts during business hours. We were more or less convinced that was our best option because of the whole being in the hospital and not being able to monitor him ourselves thing. So they put the catheter in again ($800 bucks but whos counting) and suggest we send him to the very, very expensive emergency vet that we REALLY REALLY cant afford, so now he's on our closed in porch, catheter and all, not nearly as sedated as they said he'd be, and not eating like they said he'd be, waiting it out until he can get his catheter taken out on Monday.

Hold on a sec, baby's crying. Be right Back.

Ok, fed, clean diaper, kiss on the cheek, back to bed. Perfect angel. Parentings easy.

So anyways yeah if you know Liz or I, you know how much we love Arnie. If you know Arnie, you know why. Usually i don't do stuff like this, but we really have no other option. Anything will help. Unfortunately, he is likely to block again, maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe next year. Hopefully we'll be able to figure something out then but this time, we're doing this.