Bad Parenting

Waiting to see the vet and not too sure how she feels about it

Quick Update:  Tigger's x-rays showed no foreign objects in her intestine, so the worst case scenario did not happen, thank goodness!  Looks like it was a false alarm and she is doing just fine.


To some people, pets are just pets.  Similar to other household items, they are just one more thing to take care of and should it become inconvenient to keep a pet, they find some way to get rid of them.  To other people, pets are family.  They stick with you and you plan around their needs just like any other family member.  These people would do anything to save their pets.  Of course, these are 2 extremes and most people fall somewhere in between.


Trip and I both treat our pets like family.  I believe that even though they are not "people", they are still living and breathing creatures with distinct personalities and they deserve to be treated as such.  I recognize that pets are not the same thing as children, but part of the reason we brought Jack and Tigger to Malaysia (and we will take them back to the US with us) is because we took on a responsibility when we adopted them and we take that seriously.  Unfortunately, just like caring for children, caring for pets is not always easy.  We started out by being very conscientious caregivers; the kind who would never let a regular vet visit slip by and who would notice the second something seemed amiss.  However, living in Malaysia has made the regular vet visit difficult (they don't do preventative medicine here), and lately I feel like I keep missing things that I shouldn't be missing.  


Poor Jack had an allergic reaction to the flea spray that the vet used when we put him up for boarding one weekend, and it took his hair falling out for us to notice (how did we miss his itchiness?!).  Sweet Tigger hasn't gone to the bathroom in a couple of days and it took that long for me to even notice!  As soon as I did, I took her to the vet, but I'm afraid that my negligence means that the situation is not going to be good and she will suffer for this.  I hate knowing that it all could have been prevented too.


I brought some balloons home after my baby shower (post about this to come soon), which was mistake number one.  I should have remembered that our vet had told us not to have anything with strings around because Tigger would eat the strings and that could cause some major problems.  Mistake number two was when I caught Tigger eating said balloon strings and still didn't remember what the vet said.  We did get rid of the balloons, but the damage had already been done.  On Saturday, Tigger threw up 3 times, but then started acting relatively normal.  We watched her on Sunday, but she seemed to be doing fine, so we promptly forgot about it.  That was mistake number three.  Yesterday, I noticed that she hadn't used her litter box, and we decided that if she still hadn't by the time we got up this morning, we would have to take her to the vet, which is where I just got back from.


The vet was very nice and I know that Tigger is in good hands, but I could tell that he was worried about her condition.  She is running a temperature and might have an infection, but the worst part is that he thinks her intestines are blocked.  If this is the case, then we will have to do surgery to fix it, otherwise they will go necrotic and she will die.  I had to leave her at the Animal Hospital so that they can do x-rays and watch her overnight and it is killing me!  This is all my fault and if I had not been so caught up in what was going on with myself, I would have noticed this sooner and things wouldn't be so bad.  How could I have become such a neglectful pet parent so quickly?  Am I going to be like this with my own children?  I feel like such a bad mom right now.