Cricket 911

Last night I got my first (and I hope only) taste of being a feline ambulance driver. Karen’s cat Cricket (the sweetest little cat I have ever met–and I can say that because I know my three aren’t reading this) had a severe asthma attack last night. Karen called around nine, and within minutes I was racing down to her house and then through the streets of Chicago to get Cricket to the Animal Emergency Room ASAP.

Poor little Cricket was lying on her side on the back seat of the car, limp, with her tongue hanging out, panting like crazy. She had a wide-eyed crazy-scared look of panic that just broke my heart. I drove as fast as I could without breaking any (major) laws and thanks to Karen’s supreme calm in the face of a bad situation, I remained calm and refused to accept that we’d not get there in time. Cricket looked that bad.

As soon as we got there, the doctor whisked Cricket off to get her some oxygen immediately. They said she was cyanotic, meaning her tongue was turning blue, so it was a close call. When we saw her again, less than 20 minutes later, she was looking 100% better, sitting up alertly and cleaning herself, the best sign that a cat is feeling herself. They gave her a shot of albuterol, the same asthma drug that’s in my rescue inhaler, and when we left she was resting in the fresh air of her own oxygen chamber.

They kept Cricket overnight for observation and by this morning her personality had one everyone over in the clinic. (Cricket can make even the most hardened dog lover a cat fan.) She’s home now and doing fine, pretty much acting as if nothing happened. It seems that Cricket will be joining the club of us who live day-in and day-out puffing on an inhaler as a way to treat our asthma. (We’re allergic to her, so maybe she’s allergic to us??) Having been rushed to the ER myself for an asthma attack many years ago, and having juggled medications and treatments until the right balance was found to get me to a place where I’m pretty much symptom free, I’m confident they can do the same for wee Cricket.

Glad you pulled through Crickatoni!