Yesterday morning we ran our Odessa-Doll to the vet. An all day stay turned
last night into a transfer to an animal ICU an hour's drive from home.

Thurday night we got home from work to find Odessa laying on her side like a
downwd horse, coughing like all hell. We could tell there was something stuck
in there. She hadn't eaten all day.We were up all night with her; something
in our guts told us to give fluids the only way we could, with a baby
medicine syringe I got free at some local thing. Thank God and all the saints
for my fondness for free crapola. Our guts also told us to get her somewhat
inverted and pat her around the ribs.

The vet told us this probably saved her; the water helped thin out the horrid
stuff round her throat as well as simply hydrating, and the upside-down
gymnastics were a species of kitty heimlich. We learned she was a whisker
away from choking.

I called my boss and told him damn the numbers I had to call, I had a vet
visit to make and NOW. She was admitted and put into a contained cage where
they pumped oxygen mixed with a nebulised antibiotic, and later in the
afternoon we had to move her to this big veterinary complex in what we call
'the southtowns." We live in "the northtowns" and damn the gas prices at this
point, and damn the traffic laws; Louie blew them all off even as we passed
police cars in cetain localities known for stopping minorities for no good
reason. We weren't stopped, a small miracle. Probably because Louie was
breaking everything in the book. If he'd been Sunday-driving we'd hve been
pulled over for sure. It was a long drive but this hospital is the most state-
of-the-art place for animals in the area and Dolly can't be in better hands.
The shelter where we got her uses the place for their initial exams, and the
most critically injured of their rescues. Odessa is, in effect, in an ICU;
the unofficial diagnosis is pneumonia, brought on by the suppression of her
immunities created by anaesthesia from the dental operation, and subsequent
steroids that allowed the gingival infection to move to the tonsils and
southward. Ballplayers get big biceps, my Dolly gets pneumonia. Some illegal
muscles would have been nice, for Godsake...

We did go to work, at least for a while. Vince, my manager, was glad to see
me but thought I ought to be home. He didn't get that I needed the work,
would have gone nuts with worry. Louie too. When he heard that we needed to
move Odessa he signed out, thining he'd be back around 6. No such luck. We
hung about Orchard Park about 3 hours, waiting on test results and a chance
to visit Dolly before going home. She was already looking better.

God, did we sleep! We watched a Nanny tape to take the edge off, but I don't
remember it. I zonked right the hell out. It helped that I'd been a little
naughty and had taken a drink. I went to work in the afternoon in the midst
of an impromptu office party, for the collectors were celebrating that not
only did everyone "meet goal," they got bonuses all of them. Big ones. And
one of them used his to buy food for the office and a bottle of Hennessey.
Just before leaving for the afternoon, I'd decided to take me a shot, for as
tired as I was from being up all night with Odessa-Doll, I was running on
pure manic nerves. By the time we'd gotten home the shot had worn off but had
done its job. I landed in bed and slept like a rock.

We'll know later what's up, whether we can take Odessa home later or need to
leave her. If we bring her back she needs a good week of sequestering; it'll
depend too on if they can get her to eat. I know she wants too as she had
tried, but Thursday all the pep was out of her.

I warned the vet that Louie and I are absolute pests about knowing out
babies' conditions and will call so much it'll make her crazy.

The purrs have kept her going this far. Please spare a few more to bring our
Odessa-Doll though?

Blessed be,
Baha