Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insommia.

Some of our cats are behind on their vaccinations. Last week I made an appointment to take little Jonesie in for an exam and see if he was due for any shots. He’s only four months old, so I thought I’d have to wait for the Rabies, etc.

Since I was taking Jonesie in, I decided to take Jezibel too. She was behind on all of her shots. On Tuesdays our vet has a clinic and the vaccines are half price. Of course, that’s from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. and there’s a wait. But, if you have an appointment for something else and bring a pet that needs a shot, it’s still half price.

Our appointment was for 3:15 p.m. I was told that Jonesie was old enough now to have the Rabies shot and he needed a booster for cat fever (he had already had the first kitten shots when I adopted him).

After Jonesie was weighed (4.8 lbs.), Dr. Henderson came in and checked him over. He passed first inspection with flying colors. He was not afraid at all. I had a little towel on the examining table and he just sat there and then he stretched out while I talked to the doctor. Then the technicians came in and got him and took him back for the shots. The technicians all oohed and ahhhed over him. Well......he is very cute.

Then it was Jezibel’s turn to get her shots. It didn’t take long and soon we were on our way home.

Jonesie was fine after his shots. He ate his dinner, played, napped. Everything seemed normal.

Jezibel, on the other hand, was not normal. She didn’t eat her dinner. Then she started pacing around the house. She does that at night sometimes, but this was different. Usually she settles down and goes to sleep. We tried putting her to bed and she was restless and couldn’t be still.

I put her up in the cat tree, but she wouldn’t stay. Then she started biting her front leg like it was itching. I tried to rub her leg to see if it would help, but she wouldn’t let me. As someone who has faced Jezibel’s wrath, I don’t push her when she is upset like that.

We tried putting her in her bed again. When I checked her later, she was standing on top of her litter box. Something wasn’t right. I had a feeling she was having a reaction to the shots she’d gotten earlier.

Around 11:00 p.m. I was getting ready for bed. I brushed my teeth and Charlie said he was checking on Jezibel. I went out to see her too. We noticed that her front legs and feet were swollen.

We got her in the kennel and took her to the emergency pet clinic. The doctor examined her and said it was most likely an allergic reaction to one of the shots. She had Rabies, FVRCP-PN (Cat Fever) and FELV (Feline Leukemia) injections. As far as we could remember, she’d never had any reactions before. She’s 11 years old and had always had these shots.

The doctor gave her an injection of antihistamine and a steroid to calm her itching and help with the swelling. We brought her home. By then it was after midnight. She still paced around the house and couldn’t settle. We could tell that she was exhausted, but she couldn’t lie down for long.

Charlie stayed up awhile to make sure she was okay. I tried to go to bed, but I was also worried about her.

Finally, I heard her go into my closet. I checked on her and she was in the corner. By then it was 2:30 a.m. We finally went to bed.

In the morning we woke up and checked the closet. Jezibel wasn’t there. We looked all over the house for her and couldn’t find her.

As I was checking the closet for the third or fourth time, Charlie came in and said “I found her”.

She had burrowed under the cover on the couch in the family room. She still was swollen, but she had calmed down enough to sleep and didn’t seem to be itching.

I tried to give her some breakfast, but she was not interested. She paced around the house all morning. I had the door to the garage open for a little while and was doing some laundry.

She settled in the cat tree and we hoped the effects of the shots would wear off soon. Later we were going out to run some errands and wanted to make sure Jezibel was okay before we left. We couldn’t find her anywhere. We looked upstairs and downstairs, closets, patio, etc. No Jezibel. We looked in the garage several times. Behind things, under things. No Jezibel.

We were puzzled. We knew she was in the house somewhere. Charlie finally found her in the little round barrow bed at the bottom of Debby’s cat tree in the garage. She must have gone into the garage when the door was open.

She was looking for a quiet place to sleep it off. I’m sure she didn’t see Debby at the top of the cat tree. Debby wouldn’t have bothered her, but Jezibel dislikes the cats that she was raised with. She hates cats that she doesn’t know.

She was asleep and seemed comfortable, so we left her there. When we got back she was still there.

Our vet, Dr. Henderson, called to see how Jezibel was feeling. The emergency vet had notified her that we had brought Jezibel in. She also agreed with the diagnosis of an allergic reaction. She suggested that we should probably give Jezibel the injections every three years or so since she’s built up her immune system.

Dr. Henderson told me that they are trying to be smarter about the immunizations they give. They now say that strictly indoor cats may not need some of the shots that are given generally. The only one that an indoor cat might need would be the FVRCP-PN “cat fever” shot, because it’s an airborne virus.

Jezibel goes out into the yard, although as she’s gotten older, she stays in our fenced-in backyard and is out only during the day. We do give her the whole series of shots though, just in case a stray cat comes into our yard.

Jonesie did not get the FELV “feline leukemia” shot because he is indoor only. He and the twins, Jason and Kaci are not allowed outside at all. The cats who still go out, Jezibel, Mr. Creme, Toby and Lexi, are fully vaccinated.

We started letting them outside in the yard when they were younger and we haven’t been able to keep them in anymore. So, if you want your cat to be indoor only, NEVER start letting them out!
Anyway, getting back to Jezibel, I tried to get her to eat something at dinner time. She wasn’t interested. We put her in the cat tree and she went to sleep. At least she was not itching anymore. She had not eaten all day.

The next morning she still didn’t feel well and wasn’t interested in eating. I was going to give her a few more hours before taking her back to the vet. Later in the morning I found that she had thrown up in the cat tree and the floor nearby. At least she had tried to eat, but couldn’t keep it down.

She slept all day and at dinner time, she showed up in the kitchen to eat with the twins and Jonesie.

This morning she was back to normal. She’s not swollen and she’s eating. She went outside to sit in the sun and watch the birds. I’ll keep an eye on her, but I think she’s okay now.

Jonesie was just a little sleepy and lethargic for that first night and part of the next day after his shots.

We found out that the twins do not react well to shots. They get one shot at a time. We take them back for the other one in a week or so. It’s more trips to the vet, but after Kaci went into a coma-like sleep for hours one time, it scared me so much that it’s worth the extra trips.

Jonesie has discovered the fun of bird-watching from the family room window.

More later..........