I received a boquet of flowers for my birthday last week. It contained a stem of four yellow lilies along with some orange, purple, pink and yellow flowers. I know lilies are dangerous to cats, and I've never liked lilies personally. Apparently the sender could not chose the flowers or boquet, which is not good because some plants are highly toxic to pets so there should have been an option to state that to avoid sending toxic plants. Anyway, I put the boquet on the mantle, and I monitored the cats while they were in the room with me. Merlin and Lancelot are always attended when they were in the living room.
The cats did not show any interest in the flowers, and they generally ignore flowers when I've had the before. However, on Wednesday, one of the lilies dried and fell off the boquet. I noticed it but could not pick it up straight away as I was moping up spilled water, and I went to wring the towel out at the bay window. I almost picked the dried lily up on my way as the spill happened near it, but I was worried about the pollen stains and mess. Because Merlin is the snoopy cat and I was over in the same area averting my attention to the spill, he went for the dried lily as I was at the bay window. I immediately heard the crunch and turned around, but it was too late. Merlin has orange pollen all over his face. I picked a piece of dried leaf out of his mouth and scraped pollen from the top of his mouth.
Because lilies are extremely toxic to cats and will shut down their kidneys, he was rushed off to the vet hospital. He ended up staying two days in the hospital. Due to the rush out the door and the virus, the ordeal probably really upset him as much as it did me. He was forced to vomit, and he had fluids and bloods. However, he was not eating. I even took his favourite food to the vet, but he did not eat. So, I had the option to take him home. He has been eating at home and showing interest in play, but he seems a bit groggy still. He has to go back for tests later today.
Unfortunately, he smells a little different due to the vet smell and medicine smell. This has rubbed Lancelot up the wrong way. Lancelot, who never growls or hisses, has turned into a very agressive cat; he stalks Merlin and puts him off his food. At the moment, I've been keeping them apart so that Merlin can recover and gradually get his usual family scent back.
So, this week has not been a great one. There's also some family issues at the moment, and I can say that this year is so far not going that well. I just hope that it gets better and not worse.
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