Hammett Is Bleeding

I thought I was safely ensconced in my bathtub. I guess I forgot to put on my safety belt or raise the bulletproof shield.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I noticed there was a reddish streak on the yellow comforter cover, obviously produced by Hammett, obviously blood. It didn’t smell like anything at all. I hoped it was a fluke. It was not.

This morning (and I apologize; I thought we were going to be able to drop the subject of cat poop for 15 or 20 years) I saw in the litter box some lovely firm turds and a pile or two of diarrhea. Next to the box was a drop of pure red blood. I got my measuring stick so I’d be able to tell the vet this afternoon exactly how big it was, instead of saying, “Really big!”

It was a half-inch in diameter, which does seem like a lot of blood for a small cat, and maybe explains why he hasn’t been quite as frisky in regard to chasing things as I had assumed he would be; I hope it doesn’t explain his bouts of seemingly random meowing. I hope those aren’t cries of pain.

While I’m hoping, I hope he isn’t seriously ill, and I hope I don’t have to spend $1600 on an endoscopy, and I hope the SPCA doesn’t say, “If he’s ill enough at six months old to need an endoscopy, bring him back and we’ll euthanize him,” and I hope I don’t have to take him back to the SPCA in his little box and leave him there for good.

I called Mission Pet Hospital and asked if Dr. Press by any chance had a cancellation this morning. James asked excitedly, “Did you get a new kitty?” He is the one who sent me a condolence card for Thelonious such a short time ago.

I told him about the blood and he said, “Uh-oh.” Now, maybe he meant, “Uh-oh, I’m sorry things aren’t quite right,” rather than, “Uh-oh, I’m sorry your new cat is going to die right after your other cat died,” but I would have felt better if he’d said, “Oh, really?” and sounded a little bored.

They are booked solid this morning, but I have an appointment with Dr. Gordon this afternoon—an introduction to a non-SPCA vet that the SPCA funds—so we’ll just have to wait until then.

Maybe it’s not serious and I’m freaking out because it’s so soon after Thelonious’s fatal illness, though I also called my father and he said they’d never experienced that with any of their cats.

Needless to say, I have been in tears since seeing the drop of blood, and I also have felt extremely angry at moments: How dare those bastards at the SPCA stick me with a dying cat? Don’t they know I’m at my emotional limit for this season?

I even felt enraged for just a second or two at Hammett for walking on Thelonious’s carrier box, which is the same cardboard box in which she was brought home from the SPCA long ago and which is my last reliable source of black hairs that were hers. I’m afraid Hammy will fall into it and contaminate the pool of hairs.

I have plenty of black hairs around, but one can no longer say whether a given hair is hers or his. Without a doubt, the ones in that box are hers and so no other black cat must access that space until I have gotten around to picking the hairs off the folded yellow towel and taping them to a note card.

It’s odd that two and a half weeks after Thelonious made a bloodstain in the hallway, Hammett bled not eight feet away, and Hammett has lately been sitting in the exact spot that Thelonious developed a fondness for in the last couple of months of her life, under the computer table.

I hope he is not going to follow her into the great beyond right away, but beyond taking him to the vet and doing what the vet says, there is nothing I can do.

If Hammett needs any medical treatment in his first 30 days after adoption, the SPCA will do that for free. I just spoke to them and they said he likely will need treatment, so I have an appointment there for tomorrow morning, as well as the appointment this afternoon at Mission Pet Hospital.