I woke up at four or five this morning because Zombi was making the most awful noises. Noises sorta like her regular ‘lonliest kitty in the world’ meows, but somehow more horrible.

Something was not right.

I go out to check on her, and find two little puddles of slightly frothy white kitty-puke. That special grossness that happens when they have nothing in their stomach to bring out. Shortly after that, she brought up more.

A few hours ago, I found the first vomit of the night. With my foot. So that was totally pleasant.

So, off to the emergency vet. No getting dressed for the outside world. I did not care. My cat was sick, and it seemed very bad.

I wrapped her in a towel and we drove down. She was disturbingly listless. Alert, but she didn’t look around, or move at all.

The vet weighed her, and took her temperature, and discovered that she has a fever. 103. Not a high fever, for cats, but it’s there.

They listen to her insides, and I guess that all sounded fine. And then they took her off to the back for blood tests, and two injections.

The blood tests came back wonderfully healthy. So, that’s no help.

The two injections were something for the vomiting, and subcutaneous fluids. It left her with a disturbing, slightly mobile hump.

They brought her out–she’d perked up a bit, and actually jumped off the table–I wrapped her up in the towel again [and refused to put her down, even to sign paperwork. Who gives a shit if my signature barely looks like mine. It wouldn’t, anyway.] and Gremlin made sure I could get into the car [unlocked it, opened the door for me, all that]…and we were on our way home.

Zombi was much livelier on the way home. She stretched over to get pets from Gremlin, she peered out the windows, she sank her claws into me to drag my head down to her.

Home again: doors all opened so I can get inside quickly. And Zombi starts up that crying again. But no vomiting.

In spite of the fact that I’d managed to go to sleep at, like, nine last night, I was exhausted. I wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep, but I couldn’t.

Instead, I grabbed my blanket and my Ikea Happy Sausage [I don’t know what it’s actually called, but it looks like a sausage, and I’m pretty sure it’s happy] and curled up in the hallway. I’ve napped in worse places. I’ve napped on bathroom floors, and, once, for about a minute on the side of a road, in the prone, with my helmet resting against the rear sights of an M-16. I can curl up in the hallway to make sure Zombi’s okay if Zombi wants to be in the hallway. At least she’ll know exactly where I am.

She eventually retreats to preferred hidey-hole number one: under the bottom shelf in the bedroom closet.

I can work with that. I can see her, and I can be on the bed. So, I curl up at the foot of the bed.

Zombi decides that hidey-hole one isn’t good enough anymore. She wants hidey-hole number two: one of the end tables we’re using as night stands.

Gremlin doesn’t want her in there, but I’m at the point where I’d let her nap in a fucking crisper drawer if that’s where she wants to nap.

Back out to the hallway. So I go back out. She uses the litterbox. I post about it on Facebook like I’m announcing that I’m having a baby.

Back into the bedroom. Back in I go.

I set up a subscribe-and-save delivery at Amazon for her water dish charcoal inserts, because dear-fucking-hell-what-if-not-changing-that-made-her-sick? I get up, leaving Zombi out of my sight for the first time all day, and begin furiously scrubbing her water dish.

I do this three times.

Toward the end of the third time [actually, during the twelfth thorough rinsing] Zombi comes out. She inches over to where her water usually is, stops, then turns and looks at me.

I look at her.

Eye contact is established.

A moment passes.

She belts out her most urgent OH MY GOD I NEED WATER WHERE IS MY WATER? meow.

I hurriedly do another rinse, fill the bowl, do a test run to make sure it doesn’t get all soap-foamy, and put the dish back.

She drinks.

I post about it on Facebook as if I were announcing life on Mars.

She’s not 100% better yet, but I think she’s on her way.