NEVER EVER EVER let cats near lilies

Though this picture is the MOST ADORABLE thing you'll see all day, it's REALLY BAD and you should NEVER give cats access to lilies. Lilies are poison.

My kitty is fine now, but last week I was scared to death because he ate part of a lily. And lilies are poisonous to cats.

Lilies kill cats. (Click for more information.)

So make sure if you have cats, you don't bring home any lilies for Easter or anything.

SERIOUSLY your cat could DIE.

-------------------

Here's what happened with my little angel:

So, I had some lilies in a bucket (yeah I don't have a vase...) on top of my fridge. You know, it's high up where Kitty can't get it. No worries. At this point I didn't know they were bad for kitties.

Everything is going fine, they're blooming and my apartment smells so nice.

But then one morning, I got out of bed and found SOMEONE had barfed on the couch, and there were some lily petals on the floor. The flowers were starting to die, so they had fallen down.

Ah. Great, why do I have a cat? So I cleaned it up and didn't think about it much, until the afternoon when I remembered my mom and sister had told me lilies are very poisonous for cats. I started looking for information online, and wow, cats can DIE from that. It causes kidney failure. It's really really bad.

So I'm like, eh I don't want to bother with taking him all the way to the vet, eh, sounds too complicated... but then I started getting more and more worried.

I looked up the Chinese word for "lily" (百合花 bǎi hé huā), and I'm thinking, "man, it's possible that if I didn't speak Chinese, my cat would DIE." And I called the vet and asked them what to do. (From this point on, you can assume all dialogue is in Chinese.)

The guy on the phone asked when Kitty ate the lily and when he threw up, and if he's eaten any cat food today. I am such a bad cat owner, I actually had forgotten to feed Kitty that day. Wow. So I said I don't think he's eaten, and the guy on the phone said to see if he eats or not- if not, I need to bring him in that night because it's very serious.

I put food in his bowl and he ate some, but then I decided just to be safe, I'll take him to the vet.

And I threw out all the lilies.

So I told the little munchkin that we're going to the vet, and I tried to put him in a bag so I could take him, and he was really really not a fan of that- it took many tries to get him in.

Then we went out and took a taxi to see the vet. And you know, when the woman at the front desk sees me come in, she's not sure what to do because I'm white and oh no what if we need to find someone who can speak English. This kind of situation drives me crazy, but I get why people think that way- a lot of white people live in China and can't speak Chinese. So I have to be the one to talk first and then it's all good.

We go into one of the examination rooms and put Kitty on the table, and oh he's so nervous. Sticking a thermometer up his butt didn't help.

I told the vet all about it, and she said a lot of stuff I couldn't understand- probably the Chinese word for "kidney failure." She said it's very serious and cats can die from eating lilies. And she asked a lot of questions about when he ate it, when he threw up, how many times he threw up (I don't know but there were 2 spots on the couch, so...), did I actually see him eating the lily, etc.

She told me they would do some tests- I don't know enough medical vocabulary to understand it, but I knew it involved blood tests and I couldn't catch the rest. She told me it would cost 830 RMB. I said okay.

So then some other vet people came in and helped stuff Kitty into a sleeve where only his head and one leg was sticking out- man, he hated that. And they put the cone of shame on him. And I kept reassuring him in Chinese that it would all be okay. And the vet is petting him and calling him "mimi" (咪咪) which means "kitty" to try to get him to calm down.

Yeah and then they stuck a needle in his arm to get the blood sample and he started hissing at everybody and I told him, if you didn't want to come to the vet, you shouldn't have eaten a lily.

Okay so that's done, and they removed the cone of shame and took him out of the sleeve and let him be free. The vet said it would take 15 minutes for the results to come back. So I just hung out there in the examination room, alone with my poor sad little animal, who kept tensing up every time a dog would bark in the next room over.

The vet came back with the results and said it all looked normal, but we can't necessarily be sure yet- it may be too soon to tell. I should keep an eye on him and bring him back immediately if he throws up again.

And she said, you know, it's normal for cats to just barf maybe once or twice a month, maybe he just has hairballs or something and he didn't eat the lily. No one actually saw him eat it.

I don't buy that- really, I find lily petals on the floor and barf on my couch on the SAME DAY- I think there's a connection. But I think he only ate a little and then threw up, so it got out of his system and he's okay.

The next day he was eating just like normal, and running around causing chaos just like normal, so he's fine.

All right. Ah this cat is so much trouble and I had to spend a lot of money for that, but I told him, it's okay, you're worth it.

AND WHAT DID WE ALL LEARN FROM THIS? I will never bring lilies into my apartment again.

Giant bears, however, are safe for kitties.