The weather was extremely pleasant yesterday, so I turned off the air-conditioning (the rant I have about that is a post for another time) and opened up the front windows. One of the windows was being a bit stubborn, so I took the screen out and gave it a push. As I did that, I stepped in a puddle of sorts that had formed on the floor.
The dogs were acting like jerks so I thought maybe one of them had finally gotten angry enough to pee on the floor. That would have been incredibly out-of-character for both of them, however. I got a paper towel and wiped it up. It didn't appear to be pee (I smelled it), or anything but water, so I chalked it up to the random oddness of the universe and went over to fold laundry.
Carl loooooooves laundry. It's his 2nd-favorite thing, after sleeping. He likes to help, by sitting on whatever pile I'm about to fold and shedding on everything in the world. I tend to sit on the couch and use the ottoman as my folding table. Carl was wandering around my folding enterprise and I noticed there were drops of water or something on the ottoman.
I immediately looked up at the light fixtures on the ceiling, since we'd had some leakage issues there over the winter, but it hadn't rained in a couple of days and there aren't any water pipes running through that bit of ceiling, so it couldn't be dripping from there. I spent a couple of minutes completely stumped until I looked at Carl and noticed he was drooling.
Well, not so much drooling as "becoming a fountain." I've never seen a cat drool quite like that!! It was rather alarming, so I broke the First Rule and went over to the Google. A search for "my cat is drooling" led me to WebMD (of all things) that said, as it always does, the cat drooling could be a sign of anything from "your cat is a jerk" to "your cat's liver has failed."
CAN'T HAVE THAT.
I called the vet instead and they suggested I bring him in so they could have a look at him. I managed to get him in the crate all right and by the time we got to the vet, he was drenched. The doctor did an exam and decided to keep him for awhile so they could do fun things like x-rays and bloodwork. She explained to me what they were going to do but all I could hear was "$$$, $$$ $$$$$$, $$$$$$$, $$." Ugh. Poor cat.
It turns out that he's got SOMETHING blocking his small intestines, which was making him nauseated, which is what caused the drool. The x-rays weren't very clear as to what it might be. Could be food, poop, a piece of something something something something, or something. SIGH. Rather than have them keep him overnight or transfer him to a different vet where they could do ultrasound or similar, I elected to bring him home. He's currently on a very bland diet, and I'm hoping he will poop at some point today so I can get on with my life and not have to consider taking out a second mortgage on the house to pay for his treatment.
Oh, cats.