Since today's theme seems to be stories of my pets in peril because of my idiocy, you might as well hear the worst.

Maximus once got out and was hit by a car.
Thanks to a pet emergency room and a ridiculous sum of money (lets just say, just the oxygen bubble he was in cost a hundred dollars an hour. And he was in for five days.), he made a complete recovery. I wish I had a picture of him in that oxygen tank. He was sedated but mad as hell, so one eye was closed and the other was looking like it was going to pop out of his head in anger. He was shaved in places, and bandaged, had a cone on his head, IVs in his legs, but he was on full alert against any of those evil vets that came at him with needles and thermometers. So the clear Plexiglas oxygen tank was labeled with stickers reading "Dangerous Animal" "Caution" "Do Not Handle". I had to remove his IV when they discharged him, because he wouldn't let anyone but me get close enough to do it.
Those where five of the worst days of my life.
But my tough little guy pulled through. And know he's as fluffy and as resplendent as ever. Some people thought I was insane for spending so much on him. But I just couldn't let him go because of money. If he was in too much pain, or there was little hope, I would have just let him be put down. But not over money.
Not after everything we've been through together.
When I lived in Minnesota (yes, he's Minnesotan, which is why when he meows, I always expect him to add, "doncha know".) a coworker told me that her cat had had kittens and she was desperate to get rid of them. She said she had some grey females and some black and white males. I asked her to save me a grey female, but when I got there, she said all she had left was one little b&w male that no one wanted. I thought to myself that I didn't want a male, and that there was probably a reason no one wanted it. She asked if I wanted to see him, and I said, "Sure". She told me that he was hiding behind the couch and that it would take her a few minutes to pry him out. I was thinking, "Great. He sounds social. I'm so not taking this cat."
Then she lifted him up from behind the couch and I saw this tiny ball of fuzz, and if there had been a thousand kittens in that room, I still would have chosen that one. She was holding MY cat.
I got to my car and realized that I had forgotten the cat carrier at home. So there was nothing to but let him loose in the car. He jumped onto the back seat and yowled a scared little squeak of a meow. I tried talking to him in soothing tones, and then sang the first song that came to mind, "I'd Be Good For You" from the musical Evita. He immediately stopped crying and climbed up to my shoulder and snuggled down next to my ear and purred the rest of the drive home.
So as I sat in the pet hospital, stroking his head thru a hole in the oxygen tank door and singing "Time After Time" (his favorite song) with one hand and signing approvals for more costly treatments, I flashed back to the time I moved back to San Diego with only what I could fit in a Honda Accord and he handled the trip like a trooper which was a good thing because I was already so stressed that I broke down crying on the side of the road in Nebraska with only him for company. I thought about the time I got that horrible flu and was all alone in a crummy apartment and he spent two days by my side on my bed. I thought about when I got back to San Diego and stupidly moved in with new boyfriend who decided to hit me, so we spent weeks in really scummy motels, hiding from the now ex-boyfriend and looking for a new place to live, with poor Maximus hidden in my backpack while I checked in, and him licking tears off my cheeks in really dank motel rooms while I stroked his head and promised that it would all be better someday. Well, live was better now, and he wasn't going to be cheated out of it. I had promised him. In my own way, I owed it too him. And I wasn't going to lose my loyal little friend over some stupid thing like money.
And when I see him riding the kitchen rug across the floor, or sleeping on his back with his four paws all pointing in different directions, I know I made the right choice.