The Six-Million Dollar Cat

Well, Maggie is home. She's been examined, poked, shaved, x-rayed, ultrasounded, blood-tested, fed intravenously, and boarded for 5 days.

She had an inflammation of the upper intestine.

In a way, it was an answer to prayer, because the initial exams indicated a "mass," meaning cancer. But the ultrasound cleared that up, it was a simple inflammation. Whew!

We don't know for sure why her intestine became inflamed. All we know is that right now, she appears to be doing better.

So she's been given back to us, with special food and instructions to keep her inside at least a few days to limit her feeding and pooping options. (We need to get a sample.)

Bijou is seriously pissed that Maggie has returned. And Maggie, though glad to be here and not in a cage, is seriously pissed that she's not allowed out.

They go for each other's food, of course. Maggie, released from hospital, was looking forward to my homemade food, and stared at me, incredulous, when I only gave her the same c**p she'd been eating all week. And Bijou went after Maggie's food, because it was Maggie's.

Well, it's not cancer. There is a chance we'll have her for some years now. And that she heals up properly and goes on to live a full, fun-filled life.

Remember how I didn't go to Louisiana to visit my dad for 10 years because I couldn't afford to? Well, what I paid today for Maggie's treatment this week added up to more than the trip Daughter and I took three weeks ago. So, am I an idiot, or what? Stupid cat! Or stupid me?

Putting my money where my mouth is

Cats. Dogs. Expenses.

Examinations. Innoculations. Blood tests. X-rays. Surgeries. Flea protection.

And that doesn't include food, litter, toys.

Having a pet, properly, is an expensive business.

Now let's talk about this "properly" bit.

I recently acquired an add-on cat, Maggie, through a set of unfortunate circumstances happening to Maggie's previous owner. Oh, and my particularly soft heart. (I'm a sucker for a furry face.) Because when I see a loose dog loping happily down the street, I figure it's somehow my responsibility to find its owner or give it a new home. Because when I see an un-spayed female dog, I spay her. Because when I see a doggie with a "cherry-eye" I get the vet to operate on it.

They can see me coming a mile away. The animals. And the vets.

"There's one born every minute."

I have been part of the SPCA. I have walked with them in the St. Patrick's Day parade. I have volunteered there, looked into their building schematics, figuring out their heating and ventilation problems. Walking their dogs. Cleaning cat cages. Fostering a cat - who, unbeknownst to anyone, had hepatitis, and losing my own cat because she contracted the disease from the cat I fostered, breaking my heart twice for the price of one.

Some people are "called" to the ministry, or the priesthood.

Some people are called to work with children. To teach. To be doctors and nurses. To help the homeless. The elderly.

Animals are my thing. I've picked Ghandi's saying for my email "signature." 

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”

I knew the name of the cat down the street (Murphy) a full EIGHT YEARS before I learned any of the names of Murphy's family.

When my mom made me watch "Turner and Hooch," I was furious with her, because I asked her before I agreed to watch the movie, whether the dog died or not. She said no. The dog dies. I saw her looking at me sideways a few minutes before the dog dies in the film. She tried to defend herself by saying "I forgot!" To which I replied, how the F***K can you forget the MAIN CHARACTER dies?!!!!!! Because, to me, Hooch was the main character. Tom Hanks was an EXTRA. Are we clear?

This is not something I decide. This is beyond my control. Oh, I can control my actions. I can make decisions whether or not I can afford to spay this cat or that dog. But I cannot control the pull on my heartstrings, any more than I can ignore the sound of a baby crying.

The sound of a baby crying is in our instincts. If we're human at all, we want to stop that sound. We cannot sleep through it. Like an air-raid siren, we are not meant to sleep through it.

And protecting animals is in mine. From disease, from pregnancy, from trauma, from fleas.

If I could, I'd give every single Caribou up north a dose of  "Revolution," the flea protection. And a mosquito net.

If I could, I'd feed every single polar bear. Every deer.

Alas, I cannot spay and neuter and protect from heartworm and fleas every dog and cat in the North America.

But I recently, in my trip to Louisiana, helped one dog and one cat, spaying the dog and having her cherry eye operated on, giving her innoculations and hearworm and flea protection. And giving the cat flea protection.

And I recently said I'd pay for Stepson's dog to have her blood tests and innoculations and spaying.

And tonight I took Maggie in for an examination, overnight stay, stool check, blood test, and x-rays to determine the cause of the liquid we're finding on her nether regions.

And when that's done, I have to pay for her innoculations, and Bijou's, and her flea protection, and Bijou's.

My first Husband, D, said one time that he kept working hard to keep me in furs. And he meant the live ones.

So I realize now why I go to work.

It's to keep myself in furs.

Maggie and Bijou, Day 13

There is an uneasy peace. There is now a bowl of water, which must be shared. Food no longer sits out in its saucer, warming up to room temperature, since Maggie will eat everything in sight. Bijou must learn to eat her meals at mealtimes.

Bijou's habit of lurking in the basement leaves Maggie free to lounge on all the furniture upstairs. Bijou better twig on to this quickly, or she'll become the downstairs cat.

Y'all come back...

Eight days without Star Trek, Words With Friends, Facebook, or email. I don't want to look at my credit card bill, not for at least a couple of months, anyway! I'll just start paying it down and look when I can screw up my courage.

For the first time in somewhere between 10 and 15 years, I went down to Louisiana to see my Father and Stepmother. They both have Alzheimer's, and my Stepsister asked me come down and see them while they both still remembered who I was.

It will take me a while to process through all my experiences, but the short version is, I am glad I went. It tore my heart to pieces to leave them again, and the sense of loss is profound, discouraging. In the face of so much needing to be done, I feel terribly helpless.

I can hardly believe what my Stepsister faces every day, caring for them. They don't realize, or they don't admit to it, that they are unable to care for themselves. They resent every meal - it's never what they want to eat. They don't want you to help them get around, do their laundry, bring them something to drink. They sit on the couch and stare out the window. If you try to talk to them, they bite your head off.

Daddy gets impatient with Mother. In his mind, she should ditch the walker and start cooking and walking again, get moving. He has convinced himself that everybody is making her into a cripple.

My Dad never had a good grip on reality to begin with. He's always been bull-headed and obstinate, and the Alzheimer's is exacerbating that. He insisted to Daughter and me that all he had to do, should he want to get on a plane, is put on his old Air Force uniform and sign in, that he wouldn't have to go through security. No amount of information or facts is going to ruin his illusion. We ended up just shaking our heads.

And that's what everybody spends a lot of time doing - shaking their heads. Daddy insisted that sometimes the garbage was picked up on Sunday, and sometimes it was picked up on Monday, and sometimes it wasn't picked up at all. I bit my tongue back from inquiring whether the days when it didn't get picked up happened to fall on Sundays...

My Stepsister asked me to try to speak to him about going to the dentist. His teeth are in terrible shape, and of course he doesn't have medical or dental coverage. Because he "doesn't believe" in doctors. He has no backup plan. If he gets sick, his children have to pay the medical bills, or let him die. That is the choice he has left us with. I did my best trying to convince him to go, but I may as well have saved my breath to cool my porridge.The people we all knew and loved are, for the most part, gone already. All that remains are the two shells of people we once knew, who must be cared for and tended as best we can.

Their previous caregiver, a granddaughter of Stepsister, had brought a cat into the house. My Stepmother hates cats. Daddy likes them, but Mother gets so riled up he has taken her side in complaining about it. "Simon Peter" is the cat's name, and he is absolutely precious. He's one of those cats people would love to have, that sits in your lap sleeping and purring as long as you want to sit there. He is delightful. We put an ad up on Craig's list.

Stepsister brought a dog she had rescued, and Mother isn't any better about that. Daddy enjoys the dog, but again, Momma complains and gets mad, so he feels duty bound to ignore it. "Missy" spends her days chained up in the yard. She never comes inside, she never gets walked. She doesn't know to play with toys or chew bones. A local male jumped the fence and she had a litter of puppies.

Well, I just couldn't let that stay that way. I took her to the vet. She's been spayed, her eye has been fixed, she's now been given all her shots, de-wormed, and has a 6 month supply of heartworm meds. Simon Peter has also been given a six month supply of flea protection. And we put an ad on Craig's list for Missy, who has the sweetest temperament in a dog I've ever seen. Hopefully, with all this done for her, she'll stand a chance of having a good home. Even if Stepsister keeps her, at least she won't have any more puppies and she'll be healthy.

It's not just lack of funds that has kept me away from Louisiana all these years, though that has been the primary problem. I don't like the way people treat animals there. I don't like the way they treat black people. I don't like the way they treat their children. I don't like the politics, I don't like the religion. And I don't like the climate.

About the only thing I do like is the people I've met, my Stepbrothers and Stepsisters and their families. But we have to agree to disagree on pretty much everything else. There is no conversation we can have that is not fraught with the danger of turning into an argument, unless I can keep my mouth shut and refrain from expressing any opinions. Some of the things people say make my blood boil, but I know I have to "keep shut" or I'd shock them so much they'd run me out of town, tarred and feathered.  Of course, there are exceptions, but most of these people are so convinced they are right about everything, that they are morally superior to the rest of the world, that their religion is flawless... I just can't deal with the intolerance, and with what I perceive to be ignorance. Here are people who are too poor to buy health insurance, but they're determined to kill any health care reforms, in my opinion out of blind ignorance. They're so "free," they're free to die without health care. They're free to get shot in the head by yahoos out joyriding - as happened to my Stepbrother - but they'd die before they'd give up their guns. They have experienced all the problems stemming from their systems first-hand, but they blame anyone who is trying to improve their lives. I love my Stepsisters, but one of them tried to describe her beliefs to me and I just had to ask her to stop. They can sit there and tell you to your face that god created this earth four times, and the last time was Adam and Eve, six thousand years ago. And that there are exactly one hundred universes, and this is the only universe that has fallen into sin. And this is from the mouth of an intelligent, loving woman who gave up her job to come and care for her Mother and Stepfather. I love her. I cannot understand how she can swallow what I perceive to be B******t. But it brings her comfort, and she needs all the comfort she can get. My Stepbrother and his wife have visited South Africa a number of times. To go hunting. And to build a church. Yeah, because that's what Africans need, more churches. Anybody thought about schools, hospitals, doctors and nurses, teachers, wells?

I brought down a season of the Red Green show. My dad really enjoyed the couple of episodes he watched. Mother got insulted by the "man's prayer" - "I'm a man...but I can change...if I have to...I guess..." It's hilarious! Daddy smiled. Mom was mad.

And that's the feeling I come away with - disapproval. They disapprove of me, of my lifestyle, of my sense of humor, of my beliefs and my morals. And I disapprove of them. And that's pretty much all we have in common - our mutual disapproval. Oh, and that we love each other.