Good News About Oliver

If you're in a hurry, I'll provide a translation for the kid writing in this card I saw while picking up fluids for my own cat. "Dr. Kidd," it reads, "Thank you for saving Oliver's life. (heart) Noor."

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?