A Trip to the Vet

Both Gardenia and Lady Killigrew (the calico and the muted calico) were off to the vet today to be spayed. The calico and the muted calico.  All went smoothly for Lady K (or "Maggie" as I call her) but poor Gardenia has to stay overnight. 

Apparently when they opened her up to do the operation, she was full of infection inside.  It seems we took her in just in the nick of time.   She'd had a bloody discharge from her rear end a few days ago, for which I had called the vet, who told me it was a sign she was about to go into heat and that we should bring her in to be fixed sooner than later.  I was in total agreement - having lived through 5 days of meowing, howling, pacing and constant general cat noise from Maggie last week as she went through her cycle, I wasn't looking forward to doing that again!  But there must have been more going on inside than just that although she hadn't shown any signs of distress (as cats normally don't, they tend to hide any symptoms as a protective mechanism, often until they are feeling so bad they just can't hide it any more).  However, when I went in tonight to pick up Maggie, I was told that Gardenia was doing fine and resting comfortably, they are just keeping her in as a precaution and hopefully she will be able to come home tomorrow.

the glamourous Gardenia

In the meantime, her kittens seemed to be doing fine on their own today.  Their soon-to-be new human mom came to meet them for the first time and they are now officially "on hold" until she can come back to pick them up next week.  Before all this happened with Gardenia at the vet today, the idea was that the kittens would have one more week with their mom before being adopted but I'm not sure how that will shake down now that momma girl is going to be taking some antibiotics and recovering from a no longer quite as simple procedure.  But we'll see.  One day at a time.  Right now, everybody is where they should be and doing well.


Maggie, in one of her new favourite spots (photo taken pre-surgery
but she's stretched out there now too!)

Hey, did you know that the calico is the state cat for Maryland? Apparently because their colouring resembles that of the state bird, the Baltimore Oriole.  I read this on the Internet, so it must be true. :)