Results tagged “cats” from Mist Net
My cat Panther got his life saved himself about a year and a half ago. His own situation was pretty dicey—he went from Dr. Kidd's office to an emergency veterinary center in Delaware where they had more technological firepower and finally he went to the veterinary hospital at the University of Pennsylvania and it was still touch and go. It was a time filled with suffering for him, and it was very nearly his end, and I still get emotional when it comes back to me. I suppose I always will.
But they fixed him and gave him back to me. Since then we've had months of companionship and fun. He gets his back into his scratching, he jumps on the piano and watches the passersby on the street, he sniffs the moist night air coming through the window, he jumps up next to me and purrs as I read. He doesn't like getting the subcutaneous fluid any more than I like giving it, but it helps him be healthy so I stop in every month or so for the new bag. There's usually a cat in the big cage there, looking for a home, and other cats asleep on the windowsill or hanging out in the receptionist's booth. Sometimes there are dogs there too, and I'm polite to the dogs and their owners but really, for me, it's the cats that I like.
I've never met Oliver or Noor. But I'm glad, awfully glad, that she got him back. Things go right once in a while, don't they?
But you can't have too much good luck, or be too aggressive in warding off the bad. I was at my desk, doing some proofreading, and I felt a gentle tickle on my arm. It was a tiny gnat, green body and clear wings, clambering through the hair on my arm. Now, I'm not pegged to the nutso end of the animal-rights continuum. I eat meat avidly, I kill ants with bloodthirsty enthusiasm, and I catch fish because I get a charge out of it. But I had mercy on this gnat, which had done me no harm. I got up, holding my arm out so it wouldn't be alarmed and fly away. I went down the hall, holding my sleeve to avoid knocking it off. Out the door. Down the stairs. Out the building door. With a puff of breath, I sent the gnat on its way, to find whatever destiny lay before it. It would live the life a gnat was meant to live, courtesy of me. It just seemed like an opportunity to help, somehow.
Later that day the vet called with the results of my cat's renal panel—blood tests to determine his level of kidney function. It was normal. Normal! The cat almost died several times during the winter, he was a day or two away from it. He endured multiple emergency runs to the hospital, he was hospitalized for a week twice, he had two operations, he spent days attached to tubes, crouching in a cage, full of fear and misery. But they did brilliant work and fixed him, and his own healing powers kicked in, and now that number is normal. He can, for as long as he can manage, continue to be a happy little creature, affectionate and gentle. If you don't know, cats are very much capable of sweetness. People use that very term, "sweet," and he's the avatar of feline sweetness. Just a gentle soul, like Tom Hanks or Henry Fonda. And he's won back, for a time, the life of peace and comfort he deserves.
I don't think the crossed fingers or released gnat had anything to do with that, really. It was mostly good genes and good doctoring. But how did they hurt? Hmm? No answer? I didn't think so.
While all this was happening I walked around the University of Pennsylvania campus. I heard a helicopter, wondered why I was always hearing helicopters down that way, and then slapped my head: the medical school hospital. I watched the chopper come wallowing in toward the hospital roof, like a flying pachyderm, bellowing through the air. I thought of my camera too late, sorry. But it was very impressive to see, and a few other people stopped to watch.
I walked around more, browsing the campus bookstore for a while. I was determined not to be overoptimistic. I was too optimistic last time and when I found out the cat was at death's door it was rather a letdown. So I walked around. At one point, about 45 minutes after the chopper, I realized that I'd watched the damn thing, saying "cool" to myself, without giving one particle of thought to the desperately ill occupant. I didn't feel overly callous about it, but it did strike me.
I walked, I talked to other pet owners in the waiting room, I did some work on my laptop, I went out into the car to read. (It was Big Loud Dog Morning, evidently.) And finally the vet who's directing Panther's care came down. All the indicators were great, so they pulled the tube, wrapped him up with a temporary bandage I could take off that evening, and sent him home.
So home we went. It's not a question of joyful backflips or anything. I've been holding myself in too much. But he's home, and healthy, and some very skillful people are determined to keep him that way or know the reason why. The evening came, and I tried to take the bandage off. He let me unwrap it a little, but when I tried to continue unwrapping it under his belly he got antsy. He doesn't like having bandages on, but he's very fussy about when you try to take them off. You'd think he'd cooperate, but that's not how cats think. He started wriggling, and finally broke loose and made a dash for it. I reflexively held on to the bandage and it unspooled as he leapt, like fishing line off a spinning reel. I was holding it in my hand, a few feet of blue plastic and white cotton, and the cat was off in the closet, waiting for the trouble to die down. And that was it. No more bandages on him, just his black fur, and a particularly scary chapter of his story over, just like that.
I feel slightly less effervescent and ebullient than usual, and maybe part of the explanation is that yesterday I started the day by rushing the cat to the emergency veterinary hospital, where he was pronounced not that bad, took him home, worked hard at work, went home, and rushed the cat to the emergency veterinary hospital again, where he was pronounced a little bad after all. They flushed him out and said that he was now in reasonably good working order again but they wanted to keep him overnight to make sure. I got home and made dinner somewhere around 9:30 p.m., and all this is physically and emotionally draining, so I'm less effervescent. If you need someone to be upbeat I'm sure Katie Couric is on TV somewhere or other.
I realized yesterday that all this has given me a strange ambition. There was a great film that came out in 1987, The Last Emperor, about the last emperor (of course) of China. Puyi is the guy in question, and he becomes emperor when he's a toddler, and part of being emperor back in the nineteen-teens was that about five doctors made it a habit to grab the royal chamberpot and hold it right up to their faces to examine by sight and smell the royal leavings. (The French medical profession is similarly interested in leavings: I understand French doctors will typically ask you, "Comment sont vos selles?" You're expected to provide an appropriate description: Your selles have been hard, soft, a particular color, whatever.)
I mention this because for years I would clean the cat's litter box, taking its contents pretty much for granted. But in the past few days I've been watching that box, trying to ascertain how much the cat has been peeing, and whether he's been peeing all at once, or in dribs and drabs. What I've been looking for is evidence that the cat has peed all at once, frankly and forthrightly, the way he used to, and when I see that again I'll smile with gratification. I thought about that, and the image of those Chinese doctors came to mind. At any rate, that's my main ambition for the immediate future. They say the cat will probably be able to come home today, and I know that the first time he uses the litter box, I'll come up and take the lid off and peer in, like a Chinese doctor of yesteryear, my heart full of hope.
The poor old cat came home last night, and things are back to normal except for the pills. It was something of a strain on our friendship last night: Panther's bad with his hands, and laid my forearm open with one deft swipe like he was gutting a trout. (We became friends again shortly after.) This morning went much more smoothly. He wasn't happy, but there was no rodeo. I learned from this Cornell site that you can put butter on a pill to help it go down. Pretty good trick—I like this Intramanet thingie. Plus which if you're apprehensive about doing something you can go online and look for advice and you're not exactly avoiding the inevitable. At least, it doesn't look that way.
I thought I could give you some heartwarming boy-and-his-cat pictures from last night, but there's no time. Film at 11, like they say.
