Bernie's Adventures in Snot.

Bernie has had a rough couple of weeks.  She'd been congested and sneezing (sometimes blood) so we took her to the vet almost a month ago.  A stuffy nose on a cat can be, well, a stuffy nose or you know, certain death.  After that first appointment we had to give her antibiotics and steroids for 10 days to see if it cleared up.  I got the feeling that if that didn't clear it up we'd be walking down the "certain death" path.  Not to sound dramatic, but it's either a cold or something fungal which would be treatable or a nasal tumour which would cause my cat to first begin looking like the Elephant Man and then, certain death.

I know she's not the youngest girl, but 13 years old just doesn't seem like the right age to be talking about certain death.  I know way too many cats who have lived to be the age of college co-eds.  And not all of them have had Bernie Boo's winning personality.

As it turns out the 10 day course of medicine really did the trick and she was snot-free and up to her old tricks.  About a week after she finished her medication she became congested again.  She's been snotty and lethargic and, quite frankly, I've been a mess about it.

Today she spent all day at the vet.  After getting sedated she had her nose swabbed for testing, they cleaned out her nasal passages and sent her home with some nose drops and a shaved forearm.  She still seemed a little stoned about an hour after she came home and wandered out onto the front porch - which is completely against type.  She was all "Whoa man...why didn't anyone tell me I could go...whoa...GRASS!" It was weird.

She's hanging out with me now in my home office, and she won't shut up.  It's like she just woke up and she has lots of stories to tell me about the mean, terrible people who knocked her out, shaved her arm and how brave she was.  I'm guessing there's a part where she peed herself or swiped at somebody, but she's leaving those details out.  I'm not going to press the issue.

She has the crazy eyes, but cut her some slack, she's had a rough day.

We will hopefully have the results of her tests early next week.

In the meantime I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she stays snot-free this weekend.  There is going to be some serious cuddling going on here tonight.  I bet you're getting itchy just thinking about it.