Curiosity Killed the Cat: A Brief Life Update and PSA

Hello, so it’s been a while… For all my readers out there (all two of you) who have been waiting for a new post, I’m afraid I am going to keep you in suspense for a little while longer. I do have several new ones in the works, but as they are largely photo-based and I have recently had image uploading technical difficulties, their publishing has been delayed. Given the length of time that has passed since my last post, however, I thought that at least a quick update was due.

After several weeks of dealing with various WordPress errors and issues, I have, more or less, resolved all technical difficulties and should now be able to resume a regular posting schedule. Not already possessing the technical chops to fix the bugs myself nor the patience to learn, I outsourced it to an enterprising individual on Fiverr. He was able to resolve everything and optimize my site to boot (alas, there is only so much speed that a basic shared hosting plan can get you) in less time than it took for me to write out an explanation of the issues. I was out just under a hundred bucks and feeling a little more than slightly embarrassed that he resolved in minutes what had been frustrating me for weeks. But my site was fixed, which is what matters, and most importantly, I didn’t have to do it myself.

But if I’m being completely honest, the website troubles account for only part of my absence. With the technical aggravations as an excuse, I’ve been allowing the blog to fall further down the priority list, despite, in theory, having more time to devote to it thanks to all the sheltering in place that so many of us have been enjoying of late. There is another matter, and I may as well use this space to announce it even though it’s not officially official yet, which is that I recently started a new job as a copywriter. As you could probably guess, it predominantly consists of lots of writing and thus doesn’t always leave me with much brain or willpower for my own writing projects.

Actually, I’ve been working in this new role for several months now, having started in March while still employed as a consultant at my previous (and still current) company. An initial 30-day project turned into a permanent offer at the “client”, another consulting firm that is so closely intertwined with my current employer that they might as well be one in the same. I was supposed to begin the new job in an official capacity on May 18th, but my start date has been delayed for some unknown period of time as we wait for certain state courts (*ahem* New Jersey) to reopen and begin processing criminal background checks so that I can complete the hiring process and begin work as an “official” employee. This despite the fact that I have continued on in the role on a project basis under the employ of my previous/current employer until such time that my background check clears, for which I have the benevolence and aforementioned close business relationship of my current and future employers to thank.

The point is, I sometimes find it difficult to transition from writing sales and B2B content for a technology consulting company all day from my at-home desk, to writing creatively post-5:00 while still sitting at said same desk. As many others in these recent months have likely experienced, it can be tough to find the motivation and inspiration to practice our creative endeavors, despite often having more free time on our hands. I am finding that, for myself, this can be helped with better planning (i.e. brainstorming topics, scheduling posts) and time management (i.e. structuring the day, setting timers for tasks). Unfortunately, fastidious adherence to the clock and calendar can only do so much to alleviate the underlying affliction of laziness that is at the core of all my woes and is, I am told, sadly incurable.

All this to say that I know that I’ve been absent lately and I promise to do better. And now onto what I really want to talk about… My cat. Rather, cats, generally speaking, and something that all cat owners, sitters, and admirers should understand about them. Never. Ever. Under any circumstance, no matter the occasion, allow your feline friend to come within a whisker’s length of a lily. Better yet, don’t even let them share the same roof.

A PSA for all you cat owners who are not already aware (and according to online forums, that’s a lot of you) – lilies are highly toxic to cats. And not the mild tummy ache variety, but quite literally the death by garden flower kind. Lilies are in fact so toxic, that an unsuspecting cat doesn’t even need to chew on a leaf, stem, or petal to feel the plant’s lethal effects, but needs only to ingest the pollen or even water from the vase to die from its toxin. Or more correctly, to eventually die from kidney failure if not given immediate medical care. To fully articulate the dire gravity of the situation, I share with you a description of the symptoms courtesy of the FDA:

“Early signs of lily toxicity in cats include decreased activity level, drooling, vomiting, and loss of appetite. These symptoms start 0 to 12 hours after ingestion. Signs of kidney damage start about 12 to 24 hours after ingestion and include increased urination and dehydration. Kidney failure occurs within 24 to 72 hours, leading to death if the cat isn’t treated. Early veterinary treatment greatly improves the cat’s prognosis. However, if treatment is delayed by 18 hours or more after ingestion, the cat will generally have irreversible kidney failure.”

Fortunately, Odin, my cat, though braving a brush with death (that must put him around three or four lives out of nine), did not meet his end at the hands of the floral arrangement that we had negligently brought into our home. After the first couple days of peaceful coexistence between cat and plant (we usually keep him away from any flowers as best we can, keeping bouquets behind closed doors overnight and when we’re away during the day), on the third night the first signs of assault on Odin’s urinary system began to manifest in the form of regurgitated cat food all over the kitchen runner. This was sometime shortly after midnight.

Having cleaned and gone to bed annoyed but not yet worried, I was roused sometime around 5:30 in the morning to the sounds of retching emanating from under the bed. After rather unsuccessfully chasing the cat out of the bedroom before he could deposit more bile onto the carpet, I stumbled through the dark in the kitchen only to step in another pool of bile, which turned out to be one of several spreading piles that had apparently been left around the house throughout the night. Now more greatly annoyed but beginning to feel the pangs of worry that something was not right, I did a quick internet search of all the various cryptic and passive-aggressive reasons a cat might throw up and almost immediately hit upon what I knew had to be the answer – lilies.

My mounting worry crescendoed into full-on panic as I continued to read about the lethal toxicity of the lily plant while watching Odin listlessly stare at me, drooling. Though I couldn’t be absolutely certain that his symptoms were caused by lily poisoning, it certainly didn’t seem like it could be anything else. After all, I did find him playing with a chewed off corner of a leaf from the bouquet (though not from the lily, from what I could tell) the previous evening, a couple hours before he first began vomiting. Arriving at no other plausible explanation, I determined that the risk was too great to not take him in immediately. And that is how I found myself sitting outside of a nearby emergency veterinarian clinic at 6:15 on a Saturday morning.

After running a blood test to check his kidney levels and conducting an abdominal x-ray to rule out blockage, Odin was started on intravenous fluid therapy and kept there over night. When another test the following morning showed that his kidney values were still looking good, the vet advised that Odin could go home but should be brought into my regular vet the next day for more blood work, as the standard treatment for lily ingestion is a 48-hour vet stay with ongoing fluid therapy. This ensures that all toxins are flushed out and that the cat remains hydrated to help prevent damage to the kidneys.

With that, Odin was discharged to me, three of his four little legs shaved and brandishing needle marks where the IV catheter had been attached. Per the vet’s recommendation, I took him into our vet the following Monday for a quick exam and more blood work. He was cleared but will need to go in again after about a week to have his blood tested a final time to be absolutely sure that his kidney values are normal. Following that, it will be safe to presume that he is officially in the clear and will suffer no permanent health effects.

When all said and done, I will have paid out just shy of $2K for a very stressed out, but healthy, feline. And it will have been worth it, of course, but sweet Jesus that’s a lot of money. The moral of the story is obviously that cats, wise, glorious creatures though they are, are too dumb to not mess with a plant that will kill them. While you would think they would somehow innately just “know better”, they don’t. It would seem that the old proverb, “Curiosity killed the cat”, is so oft-repeated for a reason.