The Adventures of Kat: The day we were leaving for Rome and Poe the Cat nearly died

Long title much? And quite the cliff hanger too :) No worries it has a happy ending.

We got Poe from the shelter a cold winters day. The metro was broken and we nearly didn't get there in time before the shelter closed. But we arrived and there was one kitten. You can never be sure there are any suitable cats when you go to the shelter but one was out of the ordinary. We had some criteria as we had a youngster cat at home: the new cat should be playful (Jones was very bored and quickly becoming a brat because of it) and not too dominating as Jones is a scaredy cat.
The kitten was adorable! And taken. A mom had just left to get her kids because they wanted to be there when they brought it home. So no kitten for us.

The lady asked us if we would be willing to look at an older cat. Boyfriend had his heart set on a kitten but I didn't care. A cat is a cat to me and I don't really care how old it was ;)
She pointed at a messy tuxedo cat who looked incredibly grumpy. He was 2 years old and his owner just died. Now I would look grumpy too if my best friend had just died so we wanted to give him a chance and talked to him for a while and played with him. And he was adorable. He even walked straight into the carrier liked he belonged there. We were told that it could take a week before the two cats would accept each other but after two days they slept along side each other, ate together and used the same litterbox.

In the cab to his new home

What'ya doing in my box?

Rawr

6 months later (about a year ago now) we were going to Rome for my birthday. My little brother and his girlfriend were coming to house- and cat sit for us. A series of unfortunate events did that we didn't realise until 4 hours before our flight that Poe was indeed very sick. He couldn't pee. We initially thought it was because he had hurt his little cat penis a few days in advance (some crystal cat litter had gotten stuck to it and I had to remove it with pincers! Seriously don't buy that shit! It was a first and last for me).
But this morning it became clear that he couldn't pee, it wasn't just that it hurt and that he didn't want to. We rushed to the vet as soon as it opened and she sent us straight to the animal hospital in a taxi cab - me bawling me eyes out, cat moaning and crying in the carrier, boyfriend trying to convince me that the cat would survive and the poor cab driver just utterly uncomfortable.

He has the roundest eyes I ever saw on a cat

When we got to the animal hospital he was diagnosed with bladder stones (as the vet also had suggested). He was sedated and rushed off for operation. His blatter was maybe hours maybe minutes from rupturing. We called my brother and he assured us that they would take care of everything and collect the cat when he was well enough to come home. So we rushed back home with immense relief, got our luggage and we made our flight! The vet called when we were waiting to board and it had all gone well. He was alive and well and apart from a little fever he was fine.

I accidentally locked him in the closet

He was in hospital for 3 days and has to be on a special diet for the rest of his life. Both cats eat urinary food now. Better safe than sorry! All in all with cab fares and vet bills he is the most expensive cat I'll probably ever own (about $1800 thank you very much) but you cannot put a price on love. We only had him for 6 months at the time but it was unthinkable to have him put down. And today a year after he is a happy (albeit still grumpy looking), healthy cat in his last ever home (well, we'll move at some point but home is where the heart is, right? Or where the cat food is).

He likes computers very much

And games. Well he loves being the center of attention

They would make an excellent super villain team

Oh and we had a brilliant trip to Rome. Although it was 40C degrees and we had to stay in the hotel most of the day because it was too hot to be outside. If you ever concider going to Rome, don't do it in August ;) We learned the hard way.