They took his temperature (which was down 10
degrees) and his oxygen level (which was half of normal), and the vet
declared: "This cat is in serious shock. We've got to sedate him and get
him out of there immediately." When I asked if it was OK to sedate a cat
in shock, the vet said grimly, "We don't have a choice." With that, he
injected the cat; Rudy went limp; and the vet squeezed about half a tube
of K-Y jelly onto the cat's neck and pulled him free.
Then the whole team jumped into "code blue" mode. (I know this from watching a lot of ER.)
They laid Rudy on a cart, where one person hooked up IV fluids, another put
little socks on his paws ("You'd be amazed how much heat they lose through
their pads,? she said), one covered him with hot water bottles and a
blanket, and another took a blow-dryer to warm up Rudy's now very gunky
head. The fur on his head dried in stiff little spikes, making him look
rather pathetically punk as he lay there, limp and motionless.
At this point they sent Rich, Mike, and me to sit in the waiting room. While they tried to bring Rudy back to life I told Mike he didn't have to stay,
but he just stood there, shaking his head. "I've ever seen anything like
this," he said again. At about 3 am, the vet came in to tell us the
prognosis was good for a full recovery. They needed to keep Rudy overnight
to re-hydrate him and give him something for the brain swelling they
assumed he had, but if all went well, we could take him home the following
night. Just in time to hear the good news, Officer Tom rushed in, finished
with his real police work and concerned about Rudy. I figured that once
this ordeal was over and Rudy was home safely, I would have to re-think my
position on the police.
Rich and I got back home about 3:30. We hadn't unpacked from our trip, I
was still intermittently dizzy, and I still hadn't prepared my 8:40 class.
"I need a vacation," I said, and while I called the office to leave a
message canceling my class, Rich made us a pitcher of martinis.
I slept late the next day and then badgered the vet about Rudy's condition
until he said that Rudy could come home later that day. I was working on
the suitcases when the phone rang. "Hi, this is Steve Huskey from the
Norristown Times-Herald," a voice told me. "Listen, I was just going
through the police blotter from last night. Mostly it's the usual stuff
breaking and entering, petty theft but there's this one item. Um, do you
have a cat?" So I told Steve the whole story, which interested him. A
couple hours later he called back to say that his editor was interested,
too; did I have a picture of Rudy? The next day Rudy was front-page news,
under the ridiculous headline "Catch of the Day Lands Cat in Hot Water."
There were some noteworthy repercussions to the newspaper article. Mr.
Huskey had somehow inferred that I called 911 because I thought Rich, my
husband, was going into shock, although how he concluded this from my
comment that "his pads were turning blue," I don't quite understand. So
the first thing I had to do was call Rich at work, Rich, who had worked
tirelessly to free Rudy -- and swear that I had been misquoted. When I
arrived at work myself, I was famous; people had been calling my secretary
all morning to inquire about Rudy's health. When I called our regular vet
(whom I had met only once) to make a follow-up appointment for Rudy, the
receptionist asked, "Is this the famous Rudy's mother?" When I brought my
car in for routine maintenance a few days later, Dave, my mechanic, said,
"We read about your cat. Is he OK?" When I called a tree surgeon about my
dying red oak, he asked if I knew the person on that street whose cat had
been in the garbage disposal. And when I went to get my hair cut, the
shampoo person told me the funny story her grandma had read in the paper,
about a cat who got stuck in the garbage disposal. Even today, over a year
later, people ask about Rudy, whom a 9-year-old neighbor had always called
"the Adventure Cat" because he used to climb on the roof of her house and
peer in the second-story window at her.
I don't know what the moral of this story is, but I do know that this
adventure" cost me $1100 in emergency vet bills, follow-up vet care,
new sink, new plumbing, new electrical wiring, and new garbage disposal, one
with a cover. The vet can no longer say he's seen everything but the
kitchen sink. I wanted to thank Officers Tom and Mike by giving them gift
certificates to the local hardware store, but was told that they couldn't
accept gifts, that I would put them in a bad position if I tried. So I
wrote a letter to the Police Chief praising their good deeds and sent
individual thank-you notes to Tom and Mike, complete with pictures of
Rudy, so they could see what he looks like with his head on. And Rudy, whom we originally got for free (or so we thought), still sleeps with me under the
covers on cold nights and unaccountably, he still sometimes prowls the
sink, hoping for fish.
Origins: This isn't exactly what we had in mind when we created a "Dubious
Disposals" section, but it seemed the obvious location for this
side-splitting tale of the hapless cat who catches his head in a garbage
disposal, and the ensuing comedy of errors as his family attempts to free
him.
A report of these events did indeed appear in the Norristown Times-Herald,
and it is indeed a true story. The article reproduced above is an account
prepared for friends by Rudy's owner, Patti Schroeder, a professor in the
English department at Ursinus College in Collegeville.
I laughed so hard while reading this! OMG I could just image her screaming in the back of the car while the cat with the kitchen sink around his neck is biting her and causing him to lose the cop they were following and being asking by the cop, "Why are you following me"? I had tears coming down my face that is so funny!
I am glad the kitty is alive and well!