Cats

Aha! I am faster than lightning! Faster than even the shutter can blink as I GRAB for the camera’s wrist strap!

I thought it was fitting to let Angst rule my blog for a week. I miss him. It’s been really hard, especially at bedtime. Every night when I’d get into bed, he used to hop up on the bed and sit on Doc’s side, waiting for me to scratch his head. He could never get enough. I’d scratch and scratch and rub his ears and pat his butt, and sometimes he’d be so happy he’d just flop over on his side and let me scratch his tummy too. This was kind of a ritual for him and me. Doc and he had lots of rituals and special things, but this was really the only thing that he came to me for. So now when I walk into the bedroom, I still half expect to see him on top of the cat tower or sleeping on the chair. Sometimes I see one of the dark throw pillows sitting on the chair and my heart gives a little jump. Last night I dreamed that a cat that looked just like him was in our house, and part of me knew that it couldn’t really be him, but I didn’t want to think that or say it because what if thinking it or saying it made it true? I kind of knew it was true but I didn’t want it to be, so I decided to live in the illusion that he’d come back or that he’d not died in the first place. That phone call Monday morning was horrible. They’d called at 7:30 and left a message on my cell phone asking me to call back as soon as possible. I knew it wasn’t good news, because if it was just a status report they would have left more information on the […]

Angst stopped eating and drinking about a week ago, near as we can tell. Last Tuesday, we could audibly hear him taking each breath through a clogged nose. He’s always been a little sneezy and wheezy so we weren’t sure if we should be worried. He stopped using the litterbox, and he stayed in the corner in the back of Doc’s closet, hiding. Thursday night we took him to the emergency hospital because we were afraid he wasn’t going to make it. His breathing sounded rattly and sporadic, and he looked so thin. He weighed 7.8 pounds, which is about 2 pounds less than he weighed a couple of months ago. They gave him fluids and antibiotics, and said if he didn’t perk up by Saturday, to take him to our vet. He only seemed to get worse. We went to the store and bought one of each different kind of cat food we could find, cans and pouches and treats and little dried fish and something called, creepily enough, “catmilk.” He wouldn’t touch any of it. Twice we force-fed him spongy canned kitten food with a pastry tube, and he tried to spit as much of it out as he could. This morning we took him to our veterinarian. He was diagnosed with pneumonia, severe asthma (and having attacks), and the early stages of liver failure. They planned to give him fluids, steroids, antibiotics, and put him in a nebulizing chamber to get medication directly to his lungs. He needs to be hospitalized until at least Monday. We just got back from visiting him, and he looked a bit more alert. Doc was able to get him to voluntarily eat some canned food. It’s touch and go, very much so; he could have an asthma attack that could prove […]

cats are kinda like perpetual motion machines, or self-cleaning ovens. they also can help me lose weight. i drew these…