Cats and Tylenol PM - Weak Stomach Alert!!!

QUESTION: What two things do not go well together....

Last night, I got a reminder of what it's like to have a newborn baby with colic. I wasn't looking to be reminded. However, when you have 4 young kittens in the house, accidents are bound to happen.

Alan was taking a Tylenol PM last night before bed and one dropped out of his hands onto the kitchen floor. Before he could even say "Dam it - I dropped one" the kittens had pounced, and because there was a mad dash for the surprise kibble, the kitten who was the fastest immediately swallowed it whole. Now, a 500mg Tyelnol pm is at least 4 times bigger than the flea/tick pill that takes two people to force down a cats mouth. Who knew that all you had to do was drop them on the floor????

So, Alan comes to me and says "One of those kittens is going to sleep well tonight." and then proceeded to tell me what had happened.

I immediately freaked out! I screamed "Which ONE? Was it Panther?" (because everyone knows he is my favorite, and if it was any of the others, I could at least relax a bit because hey - we have 5 other cats...-PETA supporters, please note this statement is in jest).

Alan replies "I don't know which one. One of the black ones."

Oooh - thanks for narrowing it. Of the 4 kittens - three are black...

"What??? You mean you don't know? Didn't you pick it up to try to get the pill back???!"

Alan: "Well, yeah, but he had already swallowed it....it was one of the boy kittens."

ME: "Yeah, okay, all three of the black ones are boys....are you sure it wasn't Panther??!"

Alan: "Is Panther one of the black ones?"

ME: "YES! Was it a black one with the white in his ears? Because that one is Pandy and the skinny one is Fatty. Panther looks like a Panther..."

Alan: "I don't think it was Panther."

So, of course, I am panicking and am ready to call poison control and the veterinary clinic and he is like "Calm down - it isn't poisonous. You can feed them to kids." (the pills - not the kittens)

ME: "Yes, but you wouldn't feed one to a newborn, and that's exactly what a kitten would be considered. Plus - it's not a human baby - it's a kitty baby..."

Anyway, Alan went upstairs to watch a movie with the kids but I immediately went on Kitten Patrol. I put all the kittens on the living room floor and they were playing like any normal kitten does so I just had to wait until one started acting like a kitten might act if they had taken a tylenol p.m.

For the record, they would act like a young toddler who might have drunk a whole beer. Sure, it's not going to kill the toddler, but it's going to make him cry and get sick because he doesn't know what is wrong with him. By the way, you must trust me when I say that I do not really have first hand knowledge of how a drunken toddler might act, but I'm sure it's not much different than this was.

Before long, Panther (of course!!) started wailing like a banshee and trying to stand up straight, but he could not. I immediately scooped him up and for some un-Godly reason proceeded to bounce him like a crying baby. He responded much as you would imagine; with claws out and loudly screaming as he climbed his way up to my head. I peeled him off and starting shushing him and telling him it was going to be okay.

Then I thought – I know what I should do; I should feed him some kittten food. If he has something in his tummy, maybe it won’t be as bad. Picture your high school or college days and Taco Bell after the bars close. You know, when you think you’re hungry, but you’re just buzzed, but you order everything off the menu anyway? Panther ate his fill and he ate it hungrily like he usually does, so I didn’t worry too much. Just in case though, I gave him a little saucer of milk. Well what would YOU have done??!!

Then he started wailing again, so I picked him up and started shushing him again. Of course, I was crying and he was crying – we were a mess. I sat in the la-z-boy and decided to lean it back because I had already figured to be in for a long night; and after the “bouncy baby fiasco,” I figured rocking him was pretty much out of the picture.

So, there I sat, cooing and petting and crying as he kept swishing his tail violently back and forth (I would liken this to a drunken swagger…) and mewling and sniffing. The other three kittens were decidedly jealous so they joined us in the chair and began their own concerned grooming of Panther and of me. We were a lovely site and I thought that when Panther started fighting the sleep, as his eyes were rolling back in to his head and he was nodding but trying not to, that we might finally be down for the night. So, I started to doze.

And THEN I heard the gagging..

Well, I’m no fool! I recognized the signs and I tossed him to the floor just in time for him to vomit up the cat food and milk he had just eaten (no pill in site, in case you were wondering). I was thinking to myself “I can do this, I won’t get sick…I won’t get sick” until the other three kittens decided to jump in and have a little snack. OMG! I threw up a little in my mouth just typing this….

So I had to scream for Alan to HELP!! HELP ME!!! HEEEELLLPPP! He came running down the stairs and when he saw the mess he yelled: “Well get me some paper towels – QUICK!”

Uhm, hello – I'm the one straddling a horde of vomit eating kittens and trying to drag them out - you do it....

And you should know, when I screamed for help, our 60 lb Great Pyranese decided she needed to come to the rescue too, so she had come running and she slammed into the back of my legs and nearly knocked me down – straight into the mess. Boy, wouldn’t that have made for a good story?

Needless to say, we got that little messed cleaned up and I went back to the La-z-boy for my kitten watch and Alan, of course, went to bed.

Poor Panther…he cried and slept some and cried and slept some. I finally had to just make him a bed in the la-z-boy and go to bed myself because I had to work the next day, but only after I was kind of sure he’d be okay.

When we got up the next morning – there were little piles of Panther's sick all over the living room floor and Panther was looking pretty exhausted, and HUNGOVER – if you will. Alan felt so bad about the pill that he cleaned up all the little messes (as if I actually would have attempted…).

We had to set up a little kitty hospital in our bathroom for the day with some water, his own litter box and a bed. He was sleeping drowsily when we left this morning. Poor baby. I hope he’s okay when we get home. If not - Alan is in some BIG trouble!!!

"One of those kittens is going to sleep well tonight..." Famouse LAST words.