I’m not even sure how to intro this story, so I’m just going to jump right in…

A few weeks ago, I was hand quilting in my bedroom. I’d been working on a queen-size quilt (just the one that I mentioned on my last post). Throughout the project, I’d do a little here and there–even if it was just one length of thread, it was inching me closer to finishing.

Anyway, I have a little pincushion that I made *specifically* because I worry about my cats eating thread. It’s just a small mason jar with a cushion on top. Whenever I snip the tails of my thread, I immediately put them in the jar and put the lid on. Not taking any chances.

I also have a small sewing kit I made just for hand quilting or sewing, making it easy to move my stuff around the house with me wherever I feel like working on it. In the kit is a little needle book that holds the different types of needles I use. I try to keep a stash of five of each type in there so that if they bent or whatever, I can easily grab a new one.

I go through quilting needles probably faster than I should. On that day, I had to switch out my bent needle and I grabbed another from the book. I noticed I was down to the last needle, so I just made a mental note to add a few more later. I quilted with one length of thread and then I rethreaded the needle to start another. After I tied the knot in the end, I heard something chaotic in the living room–I don’t remember what it was–and it made me jump up to go see what happened.

I stuck the threaded needle into the pin cushion (from what I remembered) and set the jar in my sewing kit so that it wouldn’t be a totally visible beckoning to the cats for the moment. I set the sewing kit down off to the side behind a chair, and I went to check out what was going on in the living room. Of course, I got distracted and ended up forgetting about my quilting until the following morning.

When I sat down to quilt in the morning, I went to grab a needle from my book and saw there was only one in there. And there wasn’t a needle in the pin cushion.

I tried to remember all the details of what happened. Was I missing a needle? I knew that I made a note that I was down to the last quilting needle. When I looked in the book, there was one needle left. So I was questioning myself whether I used that needle and put it back in the book, or had there been one quilting needle left in the book *after I took a new one out*?

My gut was telling me that there had been two needles in the book, and I’d taken one out, leaving the final needle in the book. Whenever I’m done with a needle, I put it in the jar also, to discard later–it wouldn’t be a fun thing to find with my feet later on–but I had a few old needles in the jar so I wasn’t sure. Also, I couldn’t remember if I had already used that length of thread from the day before… had I used it and then put everything away? There was no sign of the thread anywhere.

At that point, I was pretty sure I had a missing needle and length of thread. But I couldn’t be absolutely sure and it was nagging at me! So I grabbed a flashlight and a magnet and started crawling around on my hands and knees looking for a needle. I did not find one. BUT. I found a short length of thread with a knot tied in one end. The other end looked broken, not cut.

Then I knew. I was definitely missing a needle and some length of thread. With the thread having a knot in one end, I knew I hadn’t used it yet–the other end had to be threaded into the needle. And I never tie a knot without the needle being threaded already. But there was no sign of more thread and definitely no needle.

A needle isn’t exactly something that you want to chance a cat passing naturally, so I called the vet. I asked if I could bring in both Chick and Duck for x-rays. My money was on Chick–remember when he swallowed that entire drawstring and then regurgitated it like two days later? Duck is obviously not innocent, after his emergency surgery in 2021 from swallowing four feet of yarn, but my suspicion was Chick. (Estelle never would have done it, so that didn’t even cross my mind. Same with Joey.)

I brought them to the vet right away and asked them to check Chick first. Chick thought he was being sneaky by hiding under the chair, hahaha.

When the vet came back, she showed me the x-ray and said that it was definitely Chick that ate the needle. You could see the needle clearly on the x-ray and it was still in his stomach (which is a good thing because as it travels through the intestines, the surgery can get a lot more complicated).

They said they could operate on him that afternoon, just a couple of hours later. And then we got to pick him up that evening because he didn’t have any complications (like Duck did, with his fever). He came home in a body suit to keep from licking his incision. He was SO out of it from the anesthesia that it was kind of scary to watch him. He was very restless but would only walk backwards–no joke. He would walk backwards until he bumped into something, then turn and continue on. Thankfully, it only lasted a few hours. He was stoned AF though from his meds.

His aftercare was not at all fun. He came home with five medications–FIVE–and if you have ever given a cat medication, you know that it’s an experience. Phoebe left me a sobbing mess sometimes, hahaha. There was a liquid, three regular pills, and then a big pill that had to be crushed, mixed with water, and given orally with a syringe. (Can you think of anything more bitter tasting?)

The meds had to be given twice a day. Chick also could not be jumping or playing or anything like that. That’s very hard to do when you have other cats at home and the “cat shelves” in my bedroom (Chick’s favorite place to sleep). Also, Chick could only have soft food. Wet food is a big treat to the pets and they got hooked when Duck was recovering. We got into the routine of giving all the pets wet food first thing in the morning, and dry food throughout the day, which is what we have been doing ever since.

Because Chick needed only wet food, I had to feed him several times a day (especially at first, because he didn’t want to eat–so I’d open a can only for him to shun it). Of course, I can’t give one cat special food because the other cats (and Joey) want it, too. So, I was feeding all the pets smaller portions of food several times a day to keep everybody happy and to help Chick recover.

I’m very lucky that I was able to be home to take care of all of it. I have no idea how we would have managed Chick’s recovery otherwise. He’s now back to normal and I’ve learned another lesson the hard way. This was another very expensive and stressful lesson to learn! The part that kills me is that I KNEW BETTER. At the very least, I should have thrown something on top of my sewing stuff to cover it.

Thankfully, everything turned out okay. I am so glad that I (I guess unknowingly) pay attention to the number of needles I have. I don’t deliberately count them each time I use them; I only noticed it because I’d made a mental note to add more to the book. But it was the piece of thread with a knot that thoroughly convinced me the needle was missing, whether it was ingested or just lost. Trust your intuition!

These cats keep me on my toes, that’s for sure 😉