I'm never ever going back there again!

I looked up at her and thought to myself, "I hate you and I'll hate you forever."

SEVERAL WEEKS EARLIER

My first few months in my new home were as close to perfect as a little kitten could wish for.  I had all the food I could eat, a nice warm cosy bed, a human who loved me and who I loved back, and the best brofur (Gunna) in the world.  I was living a charmed life until tragedy stuck.

It started off with a sniffle.  It was one of those sniffles that normally you wouldn't give a second thought to.  But soon the sniffle was accompanied by a sneeze.  And then my eyes developed a mind of their own and were rolling around in my head!  What was happening to me?  Was I going to die?  Surely the universe wouldn't be that cruel as to let me find my purrfect home only to immediately rip me away from this earth!

"Don't worry Leroy," said the human.  "We'll get you all fixed up."  I wasn't convinced.  I could hear the fear in her voice and knew she was trying to persuade herself as much as she was me.

What happened next is highly traumatic and I would suggest to any young kitten reading this to stop immediately.

The vet was just new in town.  The human had seen her around and decided to give her a chance with me as the unfortunate guinea pig.  The waiting room experience augured badly for what was to follow.

We entered the worn down old building with me in my cage and the human carrying me.  "We have an appointment for Leroy," the human told the receptionist.  The girl, who looked not a day more than sixteen, started a new record for me.  I listened with appal and dismay as the receptionist continually referred to me not as Leroy, but as Levi.  "My name is not Levi!" I screamed out.  "It's LEROY!  It's French for 'The King', you know!"  But despite my and the human's protests, the name was not changed and I was thereby known at that vet clinic as Levi.

The vet called Levi through to the consult room and I grumbled to myself, "My name's Leroy."  If I was not being carried around in my cage I would have refused to move.  She was only young, too young I thought to be opening her own clinic.  I wondered if it was because she couldn't find a job anywhere else.  Under sufferance I allowed the human to lift me from my cage.  "Yep, he looks sick," the vet deduced upon looking at me.  And when I say "looking at me" I mean she only looked at me.  No touching, no poking and prodding...what was going on?  Gunna had told me to expect to be manhandled and to have every orifice probed.  I lifted my tail up (Gunna had told me it was easier if I didn't struggle) but, guess what, no thermometer either!  I hated that vet, and I'll hate her forever.

The human and I left that day feeling shell shocked and $50 lighter in the pocket.  We didn't have a diagnosis and I still didn't know if I was going to die!

Having learnt her lesson that the grass wasn't always greener on the other side, the human took me to her regular vet.  He gave me a thorough once over and told us that I had allergies.  My runny nose, sneezing and funny eyes were all the result of hayfever.  The human and I breathed a sigh of relief.  I wasn't going to die after all!

I still suffer from allergies but the symptoms are not as severe as the ones I endured during that first Spring.  That lady vet still works in my area, but I am never ever going back there again.