I Kidnapped My Cat (A Memoir of Taking My Cat to the Vet) by Shelley Epstein, VMD

Today, I kidnapped my cat. She was sleeping peacefully on my pillow when, from her perspective, I shoved her into a cat carrier. She won’t tell you that first I stroked her, apologized for the upcoming events, kissed her, then gently tried to coax her to voluntarily go into the carrier. When that didn’t work, I tried to scruff her by the neck, intending to gain control to gently place her hind feet first into the now-vertically-positioned carrier. But she defied that attempt by tensing her neck into the Scruffless Wonder version of my cat. Finally, with the carrier sitting on it’s back end, I just gently lifted her up and slowly lowered her, hind end first, into the carrier. Sometimes less is more.

Then began the 20-minute commute and her running commentary of her opinion of this.

I should tell you that her name is Ellie. She’s going to be 16 years old, and we had named her after Jodie Foster’s character Ellie from the movie “Contact.” Ellie was a strong-willed, intelligent, independent-minded character, and endearing like our precious Ellie.

Our Ellie is hyperthyroid. She requires twice-daily oral medication to keep her thyroid hormone levels normal, and, because she’s doing so well, travels only semi-annually for check-ups and bloodwork. She’s been this way for at least 3 years and leads a normal life: eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, and looking disdainfully at the dogs when the opportunity arises. She actually is a great communicator, and has dozens of different meows that, believe it or not, I understand. We have entire conversations sometimes. I’m not sure I should repeat everything she said on the car ride to the vet today.

Regarding her vet, whom Ellie is quite fond of, I must provide full disclosure here. I am her vet.

Back to that car ride. 20 minutes of 10 times per minute meowing. I had the opening of the carrier facing me, and this allowed me to poke my finger in there to comfort her. One mile from the Marsh Road exit of I-95, Ellie laid her head on my finger and rested. For 2 minutes. Then the meowing resumed.

Once at WAH, she was a model patient. I was thrilled that her heart sounded great and her kidneys appeared to be functioning quite well. She cooperated wonderfully for the techs who drew her blood, and then rested quietly and unobtrusively in a cage until I finished work.  No surprise that she willingly got in the carrier for the return trip, and that the frequency of her meows decreased to just one or so a minute.

But Ellie’s a real sport. I think she knows I do this because I love her and want her to live forever. Once home, she ate her dinner immediately and resumed our normal conversations. As I type this, she’s asleep on the bed behind me, snoring.