When my grandmother died in 1997, she left behind her Siamese cat named Zeke. He was an ornery old cuss who had a habit of growling and biting. He’d put my grandmother into the hospital on occasion from his bites, but she loved him dearly anyway even though the rest of the family viewed him with trepidation or outright hostility.
The hostile faction was all for euthanizing Zeke. My kindly aunt and I were horrified by this. There was just no reason to kill a perfectly healthy cat because we didn’t like him. My aunt took him in, but she already had 2 cats, one of them who was also slightly mental.
Well Zeke made himself at home by pissing all over her house and made my aunt and uncle so mad that they turned to the euthanize camp, which left only me as the spokesperson for a cat who had never been nice to me. I reluctantly agreed to take him in, since we had an unused room where I could put him and let him pee to his heart’s content. My other three cats were not thrilled with poor Zeke and would sneak into his room to whomp the crap out of him on occasion. Zeke didn’t have front claws and my cats did, so he was at a disadvantage. He had a mean as hell right hook and could punch the dog in the snoot so hard that the dog’s eyes would water and he would run off sneezing.
Not long after Zeke came to our house, he grew deathly ill with some mysterious affliction. The vet called it pancreatitis. It was touch and go for a few days, while he was in intensive care at the hospital with an IV. He pulled through it, and I was glad of that, although not too pleased with the 4 digit bill that came home with him.
Something was different once we got him home. He wasn’t growling. He wasn’t hissing. He didn’t bite anyone. He purred and walked up and bumped your hand for a pet. I called the vet to make sure that 1) we did bring the right cat home, and 2) he wasn’t still very ill, because he was acting really funny. They assured me he was indeed a healthy Zeke. The best we could figure was that Zeke had a near death experience in the hospital in which my grandmother laid down the law that he had to start being nice or else.
This cat, who previously had bitten anyone who pet him, was now the most affectionate and cuddly cat in the house. The other cats took advantage of his new passivity and beat his ass all the harder, necessitating that Zeke still be kept in his own room. It eventually calmed down enough so that we could put a baby gate up to keep him there (he either couldn’t or didn’t want to jump over) and occasionally my other male Siamese, Gus, would hop over and have a nice visit.
Well, after a couple of years of living happily, old Zeke got deathly ill again. I walked in one day to find him unable to make it to the cat box, with puke stains all around him and his eyes sunken into his skull. He had developed acute renal failure, and that afternoon after an examination the vet recommended euthanasia. So in the end, the euthanasia camp got their wish, as I sat with a very sick and frail cat in my arms and watched him die.
Not long after that, Gus, the aforementioned male Siamese, started losing weight. We took him to the vet for testing. He had kidney failure as well, but of the chronic sort, which is treatable by diet and subcutaneous fluids. I did both those things for him for three years, but Gus shuffled off this mortal coil earlier this year, leaving behind his humans and two feline companions, lady Balinese named Lilly and Maddie.
Wellnow. Last night I went upstairs to bed and saw that Lilly was sitting on the chair in our room, surrounded by puddles of puke. Normally a fastidious cat, this was a pretty big sign that something was Very Wrong. I took her to the vet this afternoon and they ran some tests. One kidney is enormous, rock hard, and has a stone in it. The other is small and hard and probably non-functioning. Her BUN, creatinine, and phosphorus are all ten times what they should be. If she pulls through this stint in the ICU, I will have to start the cycle of special food and subcutaneous fluids anew. Right now her prognosis is very guarded.
I’m also worried about Maddie, who is healthy as an ox but not the kind of girl who likes to be without companionship. She and Gus were inseparable, and after he died she spent a few days wandering through the house calling him. If something happens to Lilly, I’m not sure if Maddie’s going to handle it well.
So with pets as well as children, it’s always something. Like the ancient curse: May you live in interesting times.
Tivo has decided that we would like to see a movie called Empire of the Ants, a 1977 flick starring Joan Collins. TiVo describes it as “A Florida real-estate woman takes buyers to an island where ants have been swilling radioactive waste”. Sounds like a shoo-in for Rhonda Whatsherface’s UP All Night. Whatever happened to that, anyway?