cats and the emergency room

Ugh! I spent last night in the emergency room. It wasn't for me, though, it was for my kitty, India. She's our only outdoor/indoor cat. When my fiance' came home from work last night he hurried in the house asking me what was wrong with her. I ran out of the house, tripping over my Siamese on the way, to see. She was sitting in our neighbor's yard & wouldn't move. When I tried to pet her, she'd growl at me. Normally she meets Mike at his truck & meows & loves on him. She NEVER growls at us either. I tried to examine her, but she wouldn't let me. I went & got her favorite, a can of cat food, & set it out for her to see if she'd come to it. She was able to run to it, but she looked kind of crooked & stumbled to stand up & limped on her back left leg.

We called the emergency Vet @ our old college (LSU). We left dinner on the stove & went straight there. We were there from 7:30 until MIDNIGHT. I was STARVING. It was HORRIBLE & we will definitely not go back there. They told us it would only take about 30 mins. to 2 hours & wouldn't let us leave to grab something to eat. COULDN'T THEY SEE I WAS PREGNANT & HUNGRY? They did X-rays, but then, to top everything off, the machine went down. The vet (who looked like she just graduated from high school) said that she only saw the radiograph for a minute, but she definitely could tell that her hip was fractured & that it couldn't be from a fall. My poor little kitty! I wonder if she was sitting out by the road & got clipped by a car. What if someone kicked her really hard? They couldn't give me any information about how it might have occurred because they didn't get to examine the X-ray for long enough. They will supposedly call me this morning after they get the machine back up. Because it's not a limb-bearing fracture, they said to just keep her in a small room. I asked for pain medicine for her...she almost didn't want to give it to me because then she might try to jump on stuff because she didn't feel the pain. The total? $200!!! What did they do? Not much of anything! Like I said, we will not be going back there. There are other emergency vets & I'll take my chances with a different one should the need arise (hopefully it won't)!

Now I have FIVE cats in my house. We had been trying to figure a way to let all of our cats be indoor/outdoor before the baby comes, but now I'm truly at a loss. We had been searching for a house that was safe enough for them to roam around outdoors, but that just didn't end up being in the cards for now. I don't even want to let India go back outside. The only reason she's the only one that gets to go out is because she DEMANDS it by using the bathroom (#1 & #2 at the front & back doors) & trying to beat up the other kitties. I'm not sure how we can co-exist with FIVE indoor cats, THREE birds AND a newborn baby in our small 2 bedroom house! Getting rid of any of them isn't an option. Buying a new house isn't an option. Putting them outside isn't an option. I'm not sure WHAT to do! The closer it gets for baby Isaac to arrive, the more claustrophobic I'm feeling with all of our animals in the house. I keep having dreams about chasing the birds (& other birds that aren't ours) around the house & trying to put them in their cages & the cats keep getting in their room & I'm fighting with the cats trying to keep them out & from getting the birds, fighting with my brother for leaving the door open letting the cats in & fighting with the birds who keep sneaking out of their cages so that they don't get eaten by the cats!