Zoe

Thursday morning we almost lost our dear, sweet Zoe. It was a pretty stressful start to our day. ZoZo woke us up around 7am howling & moaning. It was so weird, we didn't know what the heck was wrong so we bolted out of bed. She looked distressed but we couldn't figure out what was going on. She kept moaning and then started relieving herself all over our bedroom floor and in the living room. We thought, crap, she hasn't been using the litter box! We bought a cat door and moved the litter box into the garage almost 2 weeks ago so we thought maybe she hadn't been using the litter box as we thought she had. So Jerry took her into the garage and encouraged her to go into the litter box.

At this point, Jackson was screaming bloody murder. All the chaos woke him up and scared him half to death. I went upstairs to get him and bring him down for breakfast. A few minutes later Jerry went into the garage to check on Zoe. I was busy in the kitchen getting Jackson's breakfast ready. Jerry then runs into the house and says he needs to call the vet because Zoe doesn't look good. I said, what!?! I ran into the garage and saw what I still can't get out of my head. Zoe was under my car completely lethargic. She was lying on her side, barely able to move, frothing at the mouth with her tongue hanging out. She looked horrible. I freaked out and immediately started bawling...and I mean BAWLING! Which of course scared the daylights out of Jackson so he started crying. Amber was freaking out as well. She kept hissing and scowling. I tried to comfort Zoe but she couldn't even move or respond to anything. At that point, I realized also that her breathing was extremely labored. Jerry then runs back in and says that the vet's office said to bring her in right away. Usually getting Zoe into the cat carrier is a HUGE ordeal but since she was in such distress Jerry was able to just slide her in. He told me to say my goodbyes to her because things did not look good. Oh god, that killed me. I called her name and all she could manage to give me was an eye blink. I told her that I loved her and that I was sorry for what we did to her. I was convinced that she was all torn up inside from having held her bowels for almost 2 weeks. She's a real scaredy cat so we assumed that maybe she had been too scared to use the litter box in an unfamiliar place. Oh man, I felt so incredibly guilty.

So Jerry left for the vet's office and I was a complete mess. I couldn't stop crying as I was trying to come to terms with the fact that my ZoZo cat was probably not going to come home. What a horrible way to start the morning. Jackson, Amber, & I managed to all calm ourselves down though and we were able to get through breakfast. Around 8 Jerry called to let me know that the vet tech took Zoe back, gave her oxygen, and started her on an IV. The vet had just showed up and was going to go assess Zoe and take some x-rays. About half an hour later, Jerry called back and said that Zoe's x-rays looked good. Her bowels were fine. Turns out she ended up having an acute asthma attack but was doing much better and she would probably be sent home later. I thought, seriously!?!? I couldn't believe it. I really wasn't expecting Zoe to make it. Apparently, neither did the vet staff. Everyone was surprised that she pulled through. My ZoZo, she's a fighter!

The back story is that Zoe was diagnosed with asthma about 2 years ago. Only 1% of cats have asthma and lucky us, we have a cat who is in that 1%! It's most common in Siamese cats and Zoe is 3/4 Siamese. Poor ZoZo, it was inevitable I guess. She's been on meds and has never had a severe asthma attack so this took us totally by surprise. We now have to make a monthly trip to the vet so that Zoe can get a steroid shot which should help control her asthma.

Thank goodness things turned out well. I was not and am not ready to lose my Zoe cat. I was so torn up that morning and couldn't bear the thought of losing her. She's been such a great cat to me. I'm glad we still have her in our lives and I hope we get many more years with her. We love our ZoZo dearly! Here's to Zoe!