Sick Cat, Sad Me

[Writers Plot]

posted by Leann Sweeney

Caution: This post contains graphic medical terms like "icky" and "disgusting."

I am pathetic when it comes to my pets. Probably because we live so far from our grown children and have no other family close, these furry friends have become very important to our mental health. We spoil them, we love them and they make life easier just by their presence. And since I work at home and spend many hours with them and only them, it makes matters worse when something goes wrong. Like when the hyperactive dog scraped her pads a couple weeks ago when my husband let her run like the wild child she is on hot concrete. This is Texas and he should have known better. Anyway, she limped around for days and of course was not a happy camper because, well, she couldn't run. Yes, she would have run on that concrete all over again. She lives to chase and retrieve, chase and retrieve. Oh. And eat people food.

But it's my cat Archie Goodwin who concerns me now. He and Agatha Christie had their teeth cleaned a while back and each of them had to have extractions. Agatha was put on antibiotics afterward but Archie only got pain medicine. (WHY??? I ask now.) Agatha had an abscessed tooth and he just had decay. It was so much fun giving liquid medicines to cats whose mouths HURT LIKE HELL. I know some of you have surely had this wonderful experience. Archie's sneezing started a few weeks after the dental treatment. At first, I thought he was allergic to something. But then the sneezing wouldn't stop. Off to the vet to drop more money into their coffer. I think I should own part of the building by now, what with the blind dog and the cat who had feline AIDS and the puppy who required open heart surgery and ... oh nevermind. I should not put all this in writing. It's painful to see in black and white.

I got the "it's a virus" routine from the vet about Archie and the "these things are tough for cats to kick" speech. They gave me antibiotics for Archie now (a little late wouldn't you say?) Okay. This stuff? Archie got the worst diarrhea I've ever seen--and being an elementary school nurse for twenty years I've unfortunately seen more nasty stuff than you can imagine. It was such a glamorous job, that school nurse thing. But the key here is that I am nurse and I was getting tired of vet talk. Something more was wrong with this cat than a cold.

So back we went. Cha-ching. Different antibiotics. More shoving meds down my cat's throat. Then came the sneezing out of the pus and blood. And the runny eye. Back to the vet. B 12 shot this time. Cha-ching. "Oh. This must be a sinus infection," they finally said. "We're going to have to watch him closely." Ya think? This has been going on for weeks, people!!!!! So now I have a cat who hides in the closet and gives me a one-eyed dirty look. (The other eye is icky and incapable of complying with the other eye's dirty look.) But today my friend Archie did come out and sit by me for about an hour. I take this as a sign of healing. I am an optimistic.

But tomorrow, I will have to go back to the vet and get more medicine. Cha-ching. Please send good thoughts Archie's way. I rescued him from a grocery store parking lot when he was four months old. Smart cat to go where the food was, huh? He has to have a few lives left.