Dammit, Cat!

I'll skip the backstory and cut right to the chase:

This afternoon, The Amazing Husbandini and I found ourselves hurtling down the interstate to the vet's office, with Big Acoustic Kitty drifting in and out of consciousness in the carrier in the back.

Not many minutes earlier, we'd heard odd noises coming from the bedroom and found BAK stretched out on the floor next to his food dish in a limp, drooly, twitchy pile. After a few minutes, he did manage to rouse himself, but then his back end just refused to respond when he tried to stand up. And it was painfully obvious to us that he just wasn't "there". We managed to get through to our vet and they told us to bring him over right away.

We got to the vet and they took him right in to the exam area and did a quick check on his blood sugar ... turned out it was 130, which is a totally fine result, considering his diabetes. So, his current difficulty was not caused by an insulin reaction. Good news there, but what did it mean? We were thinking maybe heart trouble, maybe stroke ... but something horrible, obviously.

The vet and a tech came back in to the room where we were waiting and put BAK down on the floor where he proceeded to stagger around ... his movements were better than they had been, but still very much nothing like normal. The vet then starts telling us that maybe the quarter-tablets of BAK's new medication might be a bit much, and it looks like an eighth-tablet might be better.

Brief backstory - this was our second trip to the vet with BAK in two days. Yesterday was a fairly routine checkup to see how he was doing and to see if there was anything more that could be done for his arthritis. They sent us home with some glucosamine/chondroitin treats and a narcotic that would supposedly help with his joint pain. It might be "mildly sedating" for the first few days, they warned us.

I looked at Amazing Husbandini and he looked at me. Then we looked at the vet as what she was telling us sank in:

Big Acoustic Kitty wasn't sick - he was stoned!

After some sub-cutaneous fluids to help wash the happy pill out of his system, and several jokes about him having a serious case of the munchies later, we packed him up and took him home, where he spent most of the rest of the afternoon zoning peacefully with his face smooshed up against the inside corner of his carrier. As of a few minutes ago, he was happily noshing on his evening fishy pudding and wandering around the bedroom as if nothing had happened.

We're hoping this hasn't ruined him for a good, old-fashioned catnip buzz.