Last night, I accidentally poisoned my cat. Didn't realize it at first but I quickly realized it about the time she was having a seizure and spraying foam everywhere. A quick call to the emergency veterinary hospital gave me what I needed to help her and I did it. It worked, but I ended the night with a haggard two hours holding her until she stopped suffering and went to sleep. In the morning, she was fine but I'm exhausted and beating myself up.

It started on Friday. I picked up Paks from the in-laws and spent some quality time with the others. It was a late night--we are in overtime mode at work so I'm doing 10-11 hour days--so I didn't have that much time. Just clean the litter box, grab the cat, and wander off. She looked really bad, like when she was normally stressed, and it hurt to watch her crawl into a corner and just hide.

Saturday, I ended up putting in an eight hour work day. She was hiding from me when I got home, but got cuddly for a little bit. I was burned out, so I played Zelda most of the night and crashed. When she came to visit, I was actually happy, but she spent most of the night scratching so I didn't sleep well.

Sunday, finished Zelda (great game). Went to visit the other kitties. As I was settling down to cuddle with them, I noticed that Trillian had "tenants". Little crawling brown things that looked suspiciously like fleas. After a little bit, I was absolutely sure she had fleas and that I didn't want to cuddle anymore.

Call me squeamish, but I don't want to cuddle with fleas.

They don't purr.

They are not "companion animals".

They do eat less though.

And they want to cuddle, which might help.

But, still, fleas are not pets.

I instead went out to Walmart and grabbed flea spray, collars, and the spot stuff. Doused everything important, which took a while, and headed out. I also had some for Paks. When I got home, I didn't find any on her, but gave her the medication anyways. A few hours later, I noticed dead fleas showing up where she was sleeping. She was also wet, I assumed from the spot treatment, and uncomfortable. But, she's been uncomfortable since Friday (and before that), so I didn't think much of it. I went to bed but started getting worried when she kept twitch. Then, I felt splatters on my face when she jumped around. Around that point, I had this bad feeling. Turning on the light, I saw my kitty with a four-inch line of foam and drool coming out of her mouth.

Now, there are a few things I know about pets. One of them is foam out of a cat's mouth means either she's rabid or she's poisoned. As a somewhat intelligent man, I realized that she was reacting badly to something and immediately took off her collar and called the vet. After hearing a brief rant from the vet about store-bought flea spot treatments, she told me that the cat was suffering from toxicity and to wash her was Dawn dishwashing soap (which is, according to Fluffy, the home remedy for fleas too).

Two puncture wound and ten scratches everywhere, I had a considerably more comfortable cat no longer doing her rabies impression. She still twitched violently, so I held her for about an hour until I was sure it was getting better. Then, I went to bed, holding her but stayed up for another two hours until she stopped twitching entirely and crawled into a better position and went to sleep on top of me.

It was not a good night.

This morning, she was her usually cheerful bitchy self so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, I'm also worried about the other cats. They won't have as much of a problem since neither is had the rapid hair and weight loss as Paks, which was the entire reason she is in my apartment instead of the in-laws. But I'll probably blow my lunch hour to drive down to the in-laws to check on them, just in case. MiL is out of town and FiL won't go near them, so I don't have anyone else to ask.