When I had posted on Facebook about winning a radio contest telling the story of my cat’s ridiculous surgery, I was shocked at just how many people were unaware that this happened. I tell this story to everyone I come in contact with and the reactions range from shock to horror to questions about whether or not I can put food on my table as a result. I’ve done stand up almost exclusively around this story. My roommate has used this story to get laid. And it works – for him. It works because I think these women sympathize with the fact that he has to live with a person like me. It was weird when he’d bring them home after the first date and his lady date would say “I’ve heard so much about you!” And this is, in fact, so much about me.

A few years ago I went to Hawaii with a group of friends to attend the highly exclusive nuptials of my friends, Ruby and Juan. About three days into the trip I got a message on twitter from one of my roommates that says “DID [OTHER ROOMMATE] TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR CAT?” He hadn’t, but now I’m panicked. Mickey was laying lifeless on the floor. The plan was take him to the animal hospital the next day. That certainly wouldn’t do, so I called a friend who brought Mickey to the hospital and waited for 4 hours.

I got a call from the vet explaining that Mickey had kidney stones and one was blocking his urethra. He was in a ton of pain. She then gave me about 40 seconds to make a decision about whether I wanted to unblock my cats urethra or put him down. The problem with me, and most pet owners, is if you say “We can save your cat with this surgery” over the phone, there’s a 99% chance we’ll agree to whatever thing you want to do to our beloved pet.

“Good news. We unblocked your cat. Bad news. He has more kidney stones. Now we need to widen his urethra so the rest of the stones can pass.”

“You can’t just squeeze him really hard?”

“….No.”

“…Fine.”

In order to achieve this, they would be enlarging his penis. They would widen his urethra to the point where he’d have a less than 1% chance to ever creating a kidney stone that he could not pass. He will create that kidney stone. (He hasn’t. Yet.)

I spent the rest of the week in Hawaii. Mickey spent the rest of the week, mostly shaved everywhere, in Woburn.

Due to the time difference, I would get calls from the Vet ICU at around 5:15am with updates.

“Hi Dana, just wanted to let you know that Mickey’s doing okay. His penis is healing.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“You sound tired.”

“It’s 5am here. I’m in Hawaii.”

“OMG I AM SO JEALOUS”

“Goodbye.”

The invetstigation (high fives self) yielded a diagnosis of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and I would now need to administer IV fluids to him every other day. While he doesn’t necessarily enjoy this process, he now tolerates. It didn’t help matters that the first few months I made someone hold him down while I came at him with a needle screaming “I HOPE I DON’T KILL YOU!” Whatever. Cat’s don’t know.

When he came home he stunk, because he was unable to clean himself. He had a plastic cone that he ripped off like a bad ass repeatedly and I spent the first few nights sleepless and following him around the house playing a weird game of what I like to call “Dick Stitch Chicken.”

Having him at home and not at the hospital meant that I had to examine his dick stitches daily and then report to the vet what was going on.

“What does it look like today?”

“A dick?”

Every day. I said that everyday. I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. The surgeon was happy with how it healed when she removed his dick stitches so I guess I did something right.

Well, I was looking at a vagina. After using The Google, I learned that this particular surgery turned the penis into a vagina. The urethra was widened so much that it brought the penis up inside of him. They did such a great job that his new vet said “I thought you said he was a domestic male short hair?” NAILED IT, Mass Vet Hospital. NAILED IT.

Once the cone was removed it was a solid DAY AND A HALF of vaginapenis licking. And I had to watch all of it to make sure that it didn’t somehow rip open. Now, when he does that, he comes over to me, plops down in front of me, and just goes for it, because he thinks I want to see it.

He’s not in any pain and lives a pretty healthy life. His last kidney values showed slightly elevated levels, but nothing concerning. He’s almost 16 and we’re a hospice only situation. Plus, I won a $100 gift certificate to a restaurant I can’t ever remember the name of last night. Only about $999,999,900 left to recoup!