Holy cow ... errr ... holy cat, what a day!

My day started with me waking to discover two kids in bed with me. Then my cat hissed at me while trying to take her outside, something she never does. After looking her over, I noticed she had some swollen nipples and looked like she'd lost 10 pounds, when she only weighs 8 pounds to start with. A call to the vet netted us a 3:30 appointment. Until then, we steered clear of the injured hissing cat.

We went to "Charlotte's Web" for our Tuesday movie, which thankfully, was not the cartoon version, but a real version with talking animals and all. Afterwards we rushed home to Fluffy, the sick cat but only after a stop at Home Depot.

We came home from Home Depot with sandpaper and black spray paint to refurbish our porch bench. I was showing Alex how to sand when he discovered he was covered in wood dust particles and asked if he could go. After more sanding, some weed spraying, and half cleaning out my small yard pond, it was time to take Fluffy to the vet.

First of all, I'm afraid of her when she hisses. So I didn't dare pick her up and put her in the cat carrier. Long story short ... after 35 minutes of trying to trick her into it, we just packed her and the 10 kittens up in their box and off we went to the vet.

At the vet Fluffy realized she was locked into her box and busted her way out. That made the kids run for cover. So I had an injured busting-out cat (who was just dripping milk and infection and blood by the way), 10 kittens, and 3 kids scared against the wall. I tried to maintain a "got everythin' under control" exterior but inside I was so wishing I wasn't there.

At last the nurse took us back to the room where they discovered Fluffy had had a severe case of mastitis (infection of the mammery gland) and had developed an abcess. Abcesses are quite messy and they did a small surgery on her to drain her and clean her up. It also relieved a lot of the pressure and she didn't hiss anymore at us.

But now, I have a cat on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds, 10 kittens who need to be fed every 4 hours by bottle and so far on try #1 none of them want anything to do with a rubber bottle.

And yet I've enjoyed my day. I'm sure we'll tell the "remember when Lance went fishing and Fluffy got sick and we bottle fed her babies for 10 days?" story for a long time. Tip of the day to try and live by? It's the journey not the destination. And today I did a much better job of that than I ususally do.