Friday night. Bleh.

Benito flew to Houston kinda last-minute for reasons I won�t go into, and I had that on my mind. Top that with feeling like poop for a very stressful work week, and I was thankful that all of the girls were also in a funk. We watched Legally Blonde 2 while balled up on the couches and called it a night soon afterwards.

I awoke on Saturday morning with more of the blahs, and apparently Hambone did too. I went into the hallway, and there were small puddles of wetness, about one centimeter in diameter, three feet apart and all of the way down the hallway.

Hambone would walk three feet, stop and strain, leave a droplet of pee, and then continue along his way. He was clearly in pain, and I didn�t know what to do.

While I was downstairs gathering phone numbers to all of the nearby vets, Hambone was upstairs being miserable, and I got a text message from Benito with bad news on his part.

I couldn�t call him right then, as I was on the phone with various vets and clinics, trying to get into ANYONE who was open and taking pet emergencies. I couldn�t bear to call him in the wake of his bad news, knowing that it would turn into a Hambone affair -- not appropriate for the moment.

Like a jerk, I just didn�t call. I figured if he wanted to talk, he would have called. Instead, the text message let me know what was going on, an FYI from 1300 miles away. My heart went out to my boy, but my head couldn�t do anything about it at that moment.

I was still running around with Hambone stuff, having gotten an appointment at a vet a couple miles away for 1:40. It was now a little after 11, and my cat was in pain. I wasn�t going to wait almost three hours for a visit when he was crying and dropping pee all over. I made the decision to throw the cat and a towel into a box, hail a taxi, and head over to the vet immediately.

If they were willing to squeeze me in at 1:40, certainly they�d see what was up and squeeze me in sooner.

It�s a good thing I got there early. We were the only ones there since it was time for the vets� lunches, and the vet tech wanted to come and pet on Hambone. She asked what was up, and after describing his odd peeing behavior and her hearing him crying, she called a vet immediately.

General anesthesia. Catheter. IV.

And hour(ish) later, my cat returned to me, leaking pee and saline out his nubbin of a wee-wee and drunk as can be.

His catheter was difficult to get in, showing that his urethra was quite blocked. His urine sample got looked at under the microscope and revealed blood and crystals.

$210 later, I took my still-drunken cat on a cab ride home, picked up a prescription for Hambone Keena at the local drugstore, and spent the rest of the day with him not leaving my side.

The vet�s last words were, �I�m glad you didn�t hesitate. His bladder was so full that it could have killed him.�

After finishing reading The Secret Life of Bees (it was a reading weekend since I barely left the house after the vet incident, I finished The Secret Life of Bees, The Lovely Bones, and Unfit for Command while reading parts of How Science Solved 100 Crimes and an anthology of the best science writing for 2004), Hambone was awake enough to eat his new, prescription $11 a bag food and take his antibiotics.

The kitty morphine I got from the drug store was in pill form, and that didn�t go down once he was no longer sedated.

After the scare he gave me, the least he could do is take his medicine like a big boy. Alas, like a big boy with big claws, he scratched my face and ran off. He doesn�t appear to be in too much pain (except when he tries to pee), so I�m okay with not giving him the morphine every twelve hours.

After getting home, I set up a litter box for him in his bath tub. He�s tried a few times to pee, but very little has come out. I�d have rushed him back to the vet yesterday had he not left a good-sized puddle on the hallway floor that morning.

So let�s just say that he ends up under anesthesia, with another catheter in him, and everything we try doesn�t work. What happens then?

Cover your crotches, boys. This isn�t pretty.

If nothing dietary works to prevent this from happening again, Hambone will have some of his urethra removed.

Let�s think about this for a moment. Where�s the urethra? Um, yeah. Snip-snip to his nip-nip. My poor, emasculated kitty.

On Saturday evening, after hours of sitting up while reading, toting Hambone around in a Weber Grill BabyQ box (since I realized that I don�t have a cat carrier), and all of the week�s stress, I got a massive backache. MASSIVE.

I turned to the ol� prescription drugs I�ve come to know and trust.

I popped one of those puppies and waited 45 minutes. No effects were felt, and my back pain was just as persistent as before.

I popped another, and all seemed all right. My back pain was finally subsiding, but I was unfortunately feeling a little lightheaded. Seeing that it was plenty late now, I was okay with just going to sleep.

But then it hit me.

I got that nasty taste in my mouth. That horrible, you-know-what�s-coming-so-you�d-better-run-to-the-bathroom taste in my mouth.

I completely forgot about this side effect from that medication, but I certainly remembered it as I leaned over the garbage disposal and let it rip.

I haven�t thrown up in a long, long time, but I must applaud my genius for hurling into the garbage disposal.

No clogged sink drains. No splash-back from the commode. I just ran a little water, flipped the switch, and all was taken care of instantly.

I read five books this past week, for a total of exactly 1600 pages. I�m considering scrapping NaNoWriMo�s writing of 50,000 words and instead reading 5,000 pages, but I�ll move along with the original plan.

I don�t think The Cons of Lawn will be this year�s entry, as I�m remembering something from a psych experiment I read about a few years back that might be of interest to me.

Also, after outlining a bit of the original idea, I was bored with it. The psych experiment will be off the top of my head, requiring no extra work on my part now that November has snuck up on me and it�s time to start writing.

I got to work 15 minutes early since I had to recover from a horrible dream that woke me up at 4:30 and wouldn�t leave my head afterward, only for Benito to login at 9 instead of his usual 10 o�clock. Apparently someone forgot to set his alarm when he get back from Texas... But it gave us a little bit of Hello/How Are You time before hitting the grindstone that both of our jobs have become.

Speaking of that grindstone, it�s time for me to get back to it. I�ve got a late night at work ahead of me, and I�d like to not make it any longer.

Hope your Monday isn�t full of cat pee, puking, or bad dreams. �