Oh no zombees

Tonight, my housemate’s nine month old kitten threw up twice in the span of four hours. It was brown and sludgy and entirely liquid.
He hadn’t been eating, barely drinking, and he was curled up in a tiny ball of kitten. He was purring constantly, and yowled piteously when pressure was applied to his little kitty tummy.

To make matters worse, a cursory examination of the house revealed cleaning supplies (namely, Clorox bleach powder), knocked over. A considerable amount of the powder was laying about.
Naturally, being a conscientious pet auntie, I assumed the worst; the adventurous eat-anything kitten had tried to give the bleach a lick.
However, his owner, my housemate Heather, was out with her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day.

She is, at best, a benignly negligent pet owner. The kitten escapes on such a regular basis that the entire neighborhood knows where to return him when he shows up. (It should also be noted that at one point, Kobe disappeared for four days (in the middle of January) and she did not bother to so much as put up signs. I ended up putting a Lost Kitten posting on the university website, and he was identified and returned four hours later. His collar had snapped off.)
Last week, I noticed he was missing two toes (one on each paw). She did not, until I pointed it out.
Once at the vet, it was also discovered that he was months behind on his vaccinations. He was brought up to date, and given a course of antibiotics for his toes.
Today, I find out that she hasn’t bothered to give them to him (which makes the vomiting all the more troubling because it’s not a reaction to something predictable).

Regardless: She hasn’t really bothered to take him to the vet. After the second instance of vomiting, I called the Emergency Vet Line that I found, and was informed in no uncertain terms to Bring Him In.
I called a different vet for a second opinion and received the same order. Bring Him In.
So, legitimately concerned for this kitten’s health, I tried to contact Heather. Her phone went unanswered. I called the Emergency Vet again, to see if he could wait, and was informed that if I suspected Clorox poisoning, the issue was extremely time sensitive and could not wait.
I wrapped him up in a blanket (because he does not have a cat carrier, despite my repeated attempts to get Heather to purchase one), and my housemate Zane and I drove (at 10:30 pm) to the nearest Emergency Clinic.
(During the ride, I hit a pot hole and the kitten screamed in pain. He was not doing well.)

Once at the vet, we were put into queue behind a family who needed to put down their 16 year old dog—seeing grown men so devoted to this dog made me tear up. It was painful. (I did offer them my condolences for their loss—it’s a horrible thing to lose a pet.)

When it was our time to see the vet, I explained the circumstances and the potential that he’d gotten into the bleach. An examination ensued and the vet said that it likely wasn’t bleach poisoning (yay!) but that it was possible that he had an obstruction (boo!). Though the vet couldn’t manually detect anything, the vomiting was troublesome. I should be careful to keep an eye out—coffee ground colour/textured vomit was very bad, as were dark or tarry stools.
He also informed me that, should Kobe vomit at all in the nest 24 to 36 hours, we were to return him immediately for full blood-work and x-rays.
In addition, he was running an infection in his injured paws, and should be restarted on the antibiotic ASAP.

By that point, it was nearly 1:30 am. We had tried to reach Heather and had succeeded some time around 1:00 am, at which point she seemed alright and I assumed she knew we’d taken her kitten to the vet.
However, when I returned home (and it should be noted that I a) drove my mother’s car b) and she is deathly allergic to cats, ergo c) today will include a FULL detailing of the car which means d) more work for me), Heather immediately ripped into me.

• How dare I take the cat to the vet without her permission?

• How dare I saddle her with the bill?

• Don’t I know she’s on a student budget, and didn’t she take him to the vet not two weeks ago and didn’t that vet say he was just fine?!

• And look at him, he’s walking around just fine and who gave me the right to do anything with her animal and don’t get her wrong she appreciates it but how hard would it have been to wait until she was home and why didn’t I contact her and etc etc etc.

So I’m not ashamed to say that I lost it.
I have approximately this ][ many fucks to give about the feelings of someone who mistreats or neglects their animals, and so I was cutting.

I explained to her that if she’d answered her phone, she would have been informed, but that three separate vets had recommended I come in, and that both Zane and I were concerned that her kitten had eaten FUCKING BLEACH, and if that was the  case, he didn’t have the time to dither while she and her boyfriend played Valentine’s Hanky Spanky.
I also explained to her that if money was the issue, I would damn well pay for it, because I was a responsible pet owner whose primary concern was the health and well-being of the dependent animal in my care.

In front of a living room full of housemates, I took the two papers that the vet had given me (one, the invoice with a full list of expenses and two, the complete care sheet/diagnostics that I had requested the vet write up for me so that Heather could get a full idea of what the vet recommended as the next step in care). I tore them apart and shoved the diagnostics sheet at her.
I told her, very bluntly, that THAT was the only piece of paper she should be concerned about—how to take care of her animal.

She tried to tell me that “He was fine”, and I repeated to her that no, he was not fine, he was simply not imminently dead. He still had something wrong with him, and that he still had to be monitored and that he was immuno-compromised.
She tried to tell me that “I started his pills yesterday!” and I nearly laughed in her face, because she was supposed to have started them the day after his return from the vet, which was nearly ten days ago.

I was not polite, and I was not particularly friendly.
I was shaking with rage by the end of it, and Heather disappeared downstairs to her room to have a cry. I very quietly stated that I was disgusted by the fact that she didn’t seem to understand that Kobe relied upon her for his life, and then I went upstairs.

I’m still so mad I could shake.
Because seriously, what the hell.

So now things will be awkward with my housemate, and I don’t even care. I made sure that the kitten was alright. It was $140.00 (which Zane paid on fucking OVERDRAFT), and it was nearly 3 hours of time, but it was worth it to ensure that a kitten was safe, and not actually in distress.
That is the only thing that matters.

Not her precious little fee~fees, not anything.
But I am still so mad that I could just scream.