Cat in the Box

I suppose everyone who has pets has a similar experience of having to cart the animals off to the vet at least once a year. My cat, Shadow, is extremely sensitive to any signal that seems to suggest such a visit is impending. She particularly is suspicious of the box in which she travels. If it makes an appearance, she disappears, so I try to put it out a long time before I will have to take her, and when nothing happens, she will eventually come out and eat and use her litter box, forgetting about the presence of the carrier.
I only have to mention the word "vet," or make a phone call in which her name is mentioned, and that is enough to make her suspicious. She is a smart little thing. The other cat, Whistler, beautiful though he is, with his turquoise eyes and sweet face, is not so bright. He is too fat to escape me when I go after him to put him into the carrier, and he usually ends up sadly submitting to my efforts to cram his bulk into the box and zip it up.
Quite often I cannot catch Shadow, and must cancel the appointment. Luckily, they don't penalize me for that. I'm sure it happens to many people. Even if I get her there, if she has a prescription for medication, giving it to her is often impossible. She is a very nervous cat. I think she was mistreated before I got her, perhaps because of her bowel problem, since she leaks quite a lot, and I don't mean pee.
I hope I have luck in corralling her today. She needs to go to the vet.