I love my cats. I really do.

I've been needing to find a vet here in Arizona for the girls. They are about due for their annual checkup. It always sucks to have to find a new vet, it goes along with a new dentist, a new dr, a new everything....

So among my list of things to do today was to find the girls a new vet, mostly so Dot could get her nose checked out.

When she was just an itty bitty kitten, she had this black dot on her nose. She was born with it, hence her name, "Dot". Not to be confused with "Spot". (which is what some people call her). When I first took her to the vet they said "ahh, it's nothing, it should go away" and it did.....

There has always been a sort of "lump" on the bridge of her nose but just in the past few weeks the spot started to lose hair and grow larger. And purple. Like it was full of blood or something. She's usually pretty good and lets me do stuff to her face (ie: get her eye boogies, pick her nose and look at her teeth). It never seemed to hurt her or bother her so it wasn't really a big deal to us I guess. We knew that we should take her in but, since it wasn't bothersome it wasn't a priority...

I was up and moving around today, it wasn't the best of mornings. I woke up with a headache that my coffee did not heal and the worst most horrible cramps imaginable. Just before I was getting ready to attempt my morning workout I decided to lay on the bed for a minute to stretch out my back and hope that it'd help my aching tummy. That's when I heard Lily making scratching noises towards the foot of the bed....I looked and sure enough she was using her paw to scratch (so totally not normal for her out of her litter box) and as I looked further, I saw it. She peed. On our bed. A lot. (let me reiterate...A LOT). I sat up quickly not even wanting to scold her, but more or less worried about my $200 down comforter and even more so my couple thousand dollar TempurPedic mattress! When she saw me sitting up she jumped off the bed and kind of froze. I pulled my sheets and blanket and mattress pad off of my bed and started them in the laundry....the comforter, sadly, can not be saved :( It is not salvageable and it sucks. Thats not something I wanted to spend money on right now.

Laundry started, next task? Get the girls in to the laundry room so they are confined while I find a vet. The first thing that came to my mind was "PetSmart". They have a vet clinic inside that would be quick and easy and hopefully pretty reasonable price wise. Bingo....she said I could bring them in right away.

As a side note, I knew something was off. Last night Lily was extra snugly and stayed either on my stomach or right at my side all night long. Almost as if she felt something was wrong. I honestly thought she knew I wasn't feeling well so she was loving up to me. I think it was her that wasn't feeling well....

I get them to the vet, checked in, weighed, looked at by the nurse and she says the Dr will be in shortly. As I'm waiting in the room, I look down and notice that Dot has blood all over her paw and on her face! Her little lump burst open a bit. Ok, so my day is not going at all as planned... 1st Lily was the priority and now I'm thinking it may be Dot..... The doctor comes in, I explain what's wrong with each of them and she gives her prognosis...Dot needs to see a specialist. Since it's a "growth" it would need to be biopsied and the place that it's in is not exactly the best place to be removing something. It's right on the bridge of her nose and it's just horrid :( So....she is going to a dermatologist/oncology office tomorrow morning. (While I am typing this I am thinking "what the hell? I have been needing to go to a dermatologist for how long and I don't go because I don't want to spend the money yet I'm going to take my cat without thinking about it? Gonna revisit that one later). Bought Dot an E-collar and brought her home. She's moping around the house, meowing, looking for her sister....who, we had to leave at the vet. Dr noticed she was tender in a few spots in her abdomen and she also felt a lump in her bladder area. She suggested an X-ray and urine sample. Could be as simple as a UTI or she could have what they call a bladder stone (which I still haven't researched online). Still waiting for them to call with the results as I type.

I'm a mess.

1. I love my cats. So do Paul and Joey and none of us want something to be wrong with them. They have been a part of our family for 2 1/2 years now and like I just said, they are a "part of our family".
2. $$$$$$$$$$ CHA CHING! So expensive. I had to have the gal retype the estimate and not have certain tests run like three different times until I got the price to one that Paul and I saw fit to pay just to find out what's wrong. (that's the sucky part, we dont even know what it will cost to fix her...)
3. Joey was not too happy when he came home from school 20 minutes ago to find that Dot was wearing a cone and Lily was no where to be found....nothing worse than seeing your childs heart breaking. (luckily he has since been distracted by more birthday presents that came in the mail)

I'm out of words. I'll probably read this later and it won't make sense. I have to think about what to do. What is right without breaking our wallets. What do people do in these situations? Seriously? We can't spend all of our savings on them.....we just can't, but we also can't just give them away sick.....

Can I have a tissue please?