Tiny Kitty Big problem!

Tiny kitty had a problem. I noticed it of course over a holiday weekend, hours away from his vet. A quick check of the internet told me that his symptoms, many of the following

• Inability to urinate or only passing a small amount of urine , Check
• Bloody or cloudy urine, Check
• Loss of bladder control, dribbling urine, Check
• Increased frequency of urination or visits to the litter box,  Check
• Straining and/or crying out in pain when trying to pass urine, Check
• Prolonged squatting in litter box, Check
• Fear/avoidance of litter box and soiling in inappropriate places, Check
• Constant licking of urinary opening
• Strong odor of ammonia in urine, I thought this was normal?
• Lethargy -nope
• Vomiting- nope
• Increased water consumption- hadn't noticed
• Hard, distended abdomen Check

Spoke to a kitty UTI. I sent the vets office an email Sunday night and followed up with a call Monday morning. I didn't even know about the distended abdomen part, but the vet caught that one right off. By lunchtime Monday, he was anesthetized and getting a catheter.  My poor kitty!

The vet called me and told me that there were two ways of doing this. way A) was very expensive and included surgery to clean out what ever was in the bladder and the insertion of a catheter for a few days - Kitty would be in the hospital. not my vets office for  several days or the B)more economical, how much more, I'll find out later, where a catheter is inserted through his urethra and whatever is in the way is shoved out of the way and the urine is freed. The blockage is either crystals (we hav a winner! Crystals and a lot of them, packed in there like a cork) or white blood cells from an infection ( go infection, still a dark horse possibility) or bladder stones ( big Boo!)  . Boy cats don't get UTIs with the frequency that  girl cats get them, but they do get them.

Vets office was veryslow getting back to me after his procedure, so I had to get back to them. He came out fine and so did what ever was blocking him. They gave him a shot of antibiotic to fight whatever infection he might have and I would bet there is wet food in our future. And a big vet bill, not as large as I had feared.  But the lab report on the urine still hasn't come back yet, so there could still be more checks to write.