1.  Friday, Friday…

2.  Am I the only one who sang it like this?

3.

4.  That was random.

5.  Moving right along.

6.  Sweet Mittens had a week.

7.  Back in December her checkup brought some bad news about her teeth.

8.  “Bad news” may be too strong — she had a lot of plaque, two teeth were concerning, and she needed a cleaning.

9.  But a cleaning isn’t a small thing with animals.

10.  It requires anesthesia and IV fluids, two things I consider a big deal.

11.  Anyway, I told the vet I was having wrist surgery in January and she said it was fine to schedule Mittens’ cleaning for March or April.

12.  Which brings us to this week.

13.  Mittens’ procedure was scheduled for Wednesday with a 7:30am drop off.

14.  That wasn’t really the worst part — the worst part was that we weren’t allowed to feed her anything after 10pm the night before.

15.  Mittens really loves food.

16.  I knew she’d see this as a betrayal.

17.  But not as much a betrayal as what we’d cooked up to get her into the carrier.

18.  You see, Mittens sees being picked up as an attack and being put into a carrier as something roughly akin to nuclear annihilation.

19.  Traditionally this has been my battle to survive but my weakened wrist combined with Mittens’ heft meant BrightSide needed to step into the fray.

20.  Side note: I’d like to point out here that while people laugh at our very rotund girl she may look chunky but the vet says she’s a perfectly acceptable weight THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

21.  Ahem.

22.  Anyway, as she always does Mittens scurried over to her food dish Wednesday morning only to experience BrightSide scooping her up and me holding the carrier while he unceremoniously shoved her in.

23.  I’d like to add that while “shoved” sounds cruel the aforementioned nuclear annihilation threat triggers a self-preservation instinct in Mittens requiring swift action.

24.  Even so, blood was spilled.

25.  This is only unusual in that it was BrightSide who got gashed by her flailing murder paws.

26.  Typically I’m the one needing neosporin and Bandaids.

27.  Mittens got real quiet in her carrier while I got ready, but she was just preparing.

28.  She yelled at me the whole car ride to the vet. She yelled at me as we walked in, while we stood in line, while I checked her in.

29.  A guy at the far end of the counter leaned back, looked my way, and said, “Wow, yours is really talking, mine just gets quiet in here.”

30.  MINE USUALLY DOES TOO, SIR. She’s screaming because we stole her breakfast and broke her heart. Bless.

31.  There was a whole lot more hollering as she listened to the vet tech talk me through her procedure.

32.  I left her in very capable hands, wracked with a bit of guilt over the morning but convinced she’d be more comfortable once they took care of her teeth.

33.  I was thrown when the vet called to say she did great (yay!) but that they’d pulled three teeth.

34.  I knew two were a possibility but three felt like a lot of teeth to lose, and all on the right side?? Yikes. Poor kitty.

35.  At the same time, our very food driven girl had stopped finishing her kibble a few weeks ago and the best explanation for that was pain so…you gotta do what you gotta do.

36.  I whisked her home and sequestered her in a bedroom while the anesthesia wore off and she dreamed her way through the loopy pain meds.

37.  Unfortunately it’s been two days and she won’t leave the room.

38.  I was writing it up to pain and wanting to be alone while she recovered, but my daughter pointed out she might just be afraid of getting scooped up and shoved back in the carrier.

39.  Fair.

40.  So for now we have a cat who lives under the bed. I guess there are worse things.