When I got home from work last night, there were a few piles of puke on the floor. I asked my two cats which one of them had been puking and the small black female cat named Eggplant nodded towards the large black and white male cat named Jiffy. Jiffy looked back at me with a queasy expression and then contorted his whole body in a freakish way. It startled me and I yelled to Sasha that something was wrong. I followed Jiffy around the house as he wandered around very slowly, periodically contorting his back and hind legs. He lay down exhausted and I petted him for a few minutes. He did not seem to be in any pain and purred as I stroked his fur. He got up again and went into the office closet where we keep the litter box. Now I could see that his weird contortions were his way of straining to poop, but being sadly unsuccessful. Sasha had told me that while I was away this last weekend, Jiffy got a little stressed and began chewing on the plastic bag filled with corn we use for the Squirrel Bungee. Before Sasha could stop him, Jiffy consumed about 20 bites of plastic. Unable to poop, Jiffy ambled back into our bedroom, threw up and collapsed in a miserable heap. I called my friend who works at the emergency animal hospital nearby to get some advice. She said that if I suspected a blockage, I should bring him in right away, because it could be very bad and they treat it as an emergency.
Unnerved, I stuffed my poor sick cat into a small carry box and Sasha drove us to the vet where they whisked him away into another room. Sasha & I waited and waited and waited. I was wishing desperately that I had thought to bring a book, when the doctor popped in our exam room to show us some X-rays. It was kind of cool to see all of his organs and everything looked good, except his colon was indeed full of poop. The little poop cables were in clear detail, but of course it was impossible to see any remnants of a clear baggie.
They said they could keep him overnight and give him a few enemas to see if that did the trick. If the blockage cannot be moved in this way, then they will have to go in and manually squeeze it out. We asked the cost of an overnight stay & some enemas. She said $500 to $800. We opted for them to give him one enema and that we would take him home and hope he had a movement during the night. We waited about another hour as they filled Jiffy�s colon with some warm water and lube and then we were on our way after THREEE HOURS AND THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
We got home at about 1:00 am and Jiffy immediately hid under our bed. We were worried that he would have a sudden release of poop and let loose, but after 10 minutes he came out and went into the litter box. I could see him straining again, but then I thought I heard a plop and then I smelled it. It was the most bizarrely fowl odor coming from the deep recesses of Jiffy�s bowels and it was the best thing to have ever entered my nostrils.
It is true that I am madly in love with my cat and my favorite days are when we just lounge around together and occasionally make-out. Lets hope he poops freely from here on out.