What you go through when your animal is ailing

You kind of find God and start bargaining. "If she gets through this, I will be so much better about brushing her teeth regularly." You start appreciating the everyday annoyances ("why is she not in my face as I'm trying to get breakfast together?"); you just want to hear her whine, annoyingly, again.

The night before Gracie got sick, she was especially whiny (and I was really, really tired); I'd come home and fed her, and thought the least she could do was shut the f* up while I was trying to get my own dinner together, instead of reminding me, vocally and persistently, that she wanted to go outside. I finally let her out, and that's probably when she rolled around and cut herself on something on the ground. But who knows; it could have happened earlier.

The next morning, she wasn't whining for her breakfast. I thought, maybe she swallowed a stink bug and needed to sleep it off. That night, she was better, but not by much, and the next day, I noticed that she was also sore as well as lethargic and unhungry (which, by the way, are the symptoms of all kitty illnesses). So I took her in, panicked. They figured it out and fixed it, and soon she'll be good as new. But now she looks ridiculous, with a shaved backside and a conical collar on her head, and you can hear her from a mile away, since she bumps into everything with the collar (she and I are about equally spatially inclined). But she's eating again (just as of today, really) and her spirits are up. I'm so glad that she's back.