Animal Story

Smudge has been feeling poorly for several weeks. (For those of you new to my blog, Smudge is THE cat in the sewing room) Andrea and I took him to the vet's last night after work. Poor kitty is running a fever and has an infection. The vet ran a blood count, but the results won't be available until today. Meanwhile, we have to give him an antibiotic twice a day. Mercifully, the vet gave me a quick lesson in how to give Smudge a pill. Once he's over the infection, he gets another steroid shot for his annual late summer/early fall allergy problems.

So, Smudge got tucked into his cat carrier for the trip home and I dreaded getting the tab for the visit.

While waiting to pay the bill, we met our former neighbor. His family lived two doors down from us when we first moved to Mason nine years ago. Poor Phil looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders and frankly I didn't even recognize him at first. We asked about Boomer, their golden retriever they adopted four years ago. "He died this afternoon," Phil said. "No idea what happened." The dog was less than five years old and apparently their youngest daughter found him dead in the backyard. Phil had brought Boomer to the vet's for disposal. I offered to help bring him into the office, but Phil said they had a stretcher and several vet assistants ready to help.

Suddenly, Smudge's infection didn't seem like such a big deal. Our friends are not far from my thoughts today, as well.

Hugs,
Cathy