my cat

My cat is alive and doing reasonably well. One year ago, he was on the verge of succumbing to septic shock and all the bad stuff that is associated with being unable to urinate. This would cause his bladder to overflow and open wide the opportunity for infection to set in. I'm no doctor or veterinarian, but that didn't sound cool. When I was younger, my pets seemed to always die when I was away from home. For instance, every time I went to Johns Hopkins' CTY program in the summer, one of my guinea pigs would die. I didn't want my cat to fall into this category as a mere statistic, so I made sure my parents did what they could to help him.

This started when after ~9 days of being away, my cat stumbled into the house late at night. My dad had been worried by himself (my mom was in Taiwan dealing with family affairs), and he wrote me an e-mail as soon as he discovered my cat and all seemed to be well. It took my mom coming home from Taiwan a couple days later and seeing my cat for my parents to realize that my cat had broken bones and was unable to urinate. We concluded that either he was hit by a menacing bicycle, or he boldly jumped down from a high platform and hurt himself.

My parents ended up taking him to the vet twice a day each time to get his bladder expressed. That must have sucked and been awkward for him, but at least my cat didn't have to pay money for it.. my poor parents did. The vet was kind enough to charge my parents only once per day instead of twice. Anyway, after a few weeks, my cat was finally able to urinate by himself.

Thanks Yichen for reminding me to write this. I'll see you in a few weeks bro(ther).