motorfirebox

Wow. I haven't been this angry in a while. My hands are shaking badly enough that I have to type slowly or miss letters. I'm not mad at my cat, Hagashi, but I'm definitely mad near her. She scared the fucking shit out of me. I was doing my bike routine when my housemate came in and told me there was something wrong with her. So I go downstairs and find her balled up in the corner with a red thread coming out of her mouth. She'd found a spool and ate about two feet of it. This is apparently a not uncommon thing for cats to do, but I'd never encountered it or even heard of it. She was freaking out, trying to get the string out, so I sat her down on my lap and began slowly and carefully pulling. I'd get an inch or two, and she'd start kicking and squirming. Good thing I clipped her nails yesterday; even clipped, she damn near eviscerated me. I held her and worked the string out for a while, and then it must have triggered her gag reflex or something because she chucked the rest of it out and ran upstairs.

Having poked around online, I've discovered I did the wrong thing. You're supposed to clip the string near the mouth and let the cat swallow the rest, then take them to the vet to make sure there are no complications. If you pull it out, like I did, the string may cut their throat or stomach. Hagashi doesn't seem to be in pain; I got her to come to her food bowl and she downed a treat with no apparent discomfort. I'm watching her litterbox for the next few days, to see if there's blood in her poop. She's running around and playing again, though, so I'm guessing she's okay.

For now, though, I'm going to get back on the bike until I'm too tired to be mad anymore.