So, on the third of the month, I pooled money with my wife, who gets SSI disability, so we could pay all of our bills early and not have to worry about it for the rest of the month. A couple of days later, I had to go home early from work, because my car is having some voltage problems and wouldn't start. I took it home and ruled out the battery and alternator immediately, so now I have no idea what's wrong with it and am effectively broke having paid my bills and expended all of my resources.
Then, around the 6th, my cat started to get really, really sick. This is my oldest cat, whom I've had since I was 16, she was a present from my dad who never really did anything for me beyond that - she's basically a reminder that he wasn't the world's biggest piece of shit. Not only that, but she's basically been my best friend since I was an angry, depressed teenager incapable of even working due to a crippling fear of change and social interaction. She's been there for me when I was at my worst.
She was constipated, had stopped eating, stopped drinking, and was losing weight at an incredible pace. Yesterday morning, she was incapable of walking very far and could barely stand. Picking her up caused her to yowl in pain. My wife and I did everything we could to help her, going so far as giving her a baby enema to clear out the constipation and feeding her wet food mixed with canned kitten milk from a baby syringe, but she didn't show much improvement, so we rushed her to a vet this morning, after a horrible, sleepless night. We were worried about blood disease or some kind of incurable disorder, thankfully this is not the case, but she is severely anemic due to a flea infestation, essentially having 10% of the blood in her body that she is supposed to have, in addition to being dehydrated and malnourished.
We'd been trying to manage the fleas, but I feel horrible that I let things get this bad. I feel like I should have done something sooner. At this point it's an unknown whether or not she'll be OK - the Vet sounded pretty hopeful about her chances of success, but there's a chance she won't recover as well. Obviously I'm going to pay any price to get my cat in better shape, but now with my priorities set like this, my car is in limbo and so is my job. I don't know if I've ever had 24 hours worse than these. I just feel dead inside.
