He just feels bad that we don't have a pool.

When we last discussed Jasper's health, he was coming off of an epic bout of diarrhea. The prescription food our veterinarian recommended did indeed fix that little problem, and we have since increased his insulin dosage as well. Smooth sailing!

Except that a couple of weeks ago, he started urinating on the floor. And not just little pee puddles, but lakes.

LAKES.

Lake Michigans of dilute, nearly invisible diabetic cat piss in my laundry room, just waiting to be stepped in. So I bought another litter box and tried a couple of new kinds of litter, in case he suddenly found what we were using objectionable.

For those of you keeping score at home, we now have five cat boxes. FIVE. Tidy Cat should give us a bulk discount.

But it wasn't the litter or the box. So I put down old towels in his go-to spots to at least soak up some of the mess. I've been washing a load of soaking wet towels nearly every day. I moved litter boxes into those target spots. He started peeing in the middle of the room instead.

The frequency of the pee lakes increased and I began to watch his behavior more closely. It was not normal. He would circle the laundry room, meowing and inspecting each pristinely cleaned box, then eventually hunch over the linoleum to do his business.

We knew he wasn't OK, so Jason took him to the vet today. They stuck a needle through his belly, withdrew some urine from his bladder, and stuck it under a microscope. Sure enough, poor Jasper has a bladder infection.

Cue me feeling like a horrible cat mother for not figuring it out sooner. But now I know the symptoms, and when it happens again, I'll be ready. And I say when, not if, because apparently diabetic cats are prone to bladder infections.

I'm thinking about renting us a room at the vet's office--we're there enough to have VIP status. I feel like I go there on a weekly basis. In addition to Jasper's frequent appointments, I also buy insulin, syringes, and food from them. We never run out of those things at the same time, of course.

Treatment for kitty bladder infections is simple in theory--just administer a course of amoxicillin.

Jasper, however, laughs in the face of simple, and turns into a biting, clawing beast when I try to squirt a syringe of liquid into his mouth. Our bathroom wall in Massachusetts was permanently stained with hot pink spatter marks from the last time we had to give him liquid medication. I imagine it'll go equally as well tomorrow morning when we have to give him his next dose.

If I'm lucky, maybe he'll pee on me, too.