Fiber Follies

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One year ago.

In a period of time comprising about 36 hours.

9 September – from early Sunday morning.

It was grey and rainy-the rain came down hard. By this time I was sat in the very cold waiting room of the local emergency care pet hospital with Risky, the love of my life, who had managed to break into a cabinet and swipe a blister pack of decongestant tablets. She’d broken the pack and had ingested some of those tablets.

I remember my terror and trying to deal with the ASPCA, who a pet owner is REQUIRED to call in order to even get treatment for a pet who’s consumed a potential toxin. I remember having to give my credit card number so that ASPCA could charge a hefty sum BEFORE I was able to report the trouble or even receive permission to seek treatment.

It took a chunk of time-thankfully I was already driving to the hospital when calling, although I had not yet been permitted to do so. The call responder was unable to understand the situation. First she claimed that it was impossible for a cat to eat tablets. Um. How does that help? She had indeed eaten tablets, I saw where she’d vomited bits of one onto the carpet, I had watched her vomit those bits. Then she asked Risky’s weight-later claiming that I’d told her that that figure was the number of tablets I thought she’d eaten. Um, no. I had clearly stated the number of tablets I thought she had consumed. That figure was not at all similar to the number of pounds she weighed. Yes, pounds. I had to do some mental calculation to derive her pound weight, which turned out spot on when she was weighed at the hospital.

All the while a surly rainy morning. We got soaked after parking the van and walking into the hospital. My feet were sopping, as the rain came so hard that it couldn’t drain quickly enough from the pavement.

Risky was taken into triage then we sat in the shivery cold waiting room. Mind, this is early September. The weather could be hot or chill. That morning was a chill grey wet morning. The a/c was on full blast. We shivered as we waited. I pulled her out of the carrier and wrapped her like an infant in the big bath towel that had cushioned her ride. She soon stopped shivering and just snuggled in as tightly as possible. Frightened, sick, and quiet.

A very young doctor came in to assess and decide a treatment plan. She’d only just got her license to practice the previous June. She seemed quite keen on doing the best for my Risky. I had to leave Risky there, wasn’t let into the treatment area to comfort her. They even stole the towel I’d wrapped her in.

After a while I was approached with a credit application that needed approval before any treatment would be undertaken. At least the young doctor had taken the few minutes to explain what she thought best in Risky’s treatment. It seemed a good plan. I was still not let to visit my girl. After credit was approved Young Doctor suggested I leave with promises to ring me come any news at all-good or bad. I asked if they’d at least keep her snugged as much as possible in her towel with its nice home smell. She hated to be away from home and hated it more if I went out of view.

Young Doctor shrugged off my references to Risky’s psychological comfort but thought there might be a chance Risky would be able to come home later in the day.

So I left, stopping on the way to town to pick up some scones then to The Husband’s shop to fill him in on the situation. I wandered through the day in a sort of haze. I rang the hospital a few times to check on my precious girl. In the evening the Young doctor spoke with me, telling me that Risky was doing rather well, and although they’d like to keep her overnight, that I could pick her up. I was jubilant to see her. She was quiet and scared silly. One leg had been shaved for IV and had been bandaged. She was more comfortable in my arms but traumatized from the experience. Once home, she was happy to sit quietly with me. I made her a special nest of sorts in bed and we slept side by side part of the night. Then she got up to poke about, to use the litter pan, drink a bit of water, and to settle in on the floor at the foot of the bed. Of course I arose to make a nest there too, just so she’d have a soft spot to rest. I slept little, getting up often to check on her.

10 September – until late Monday night.

I spent the day making sure my girl was comfortable. Her outpatient instructions warned that she’d be a bit sluggish but ought to perk up and start eating as the day passed. By luncheon she had shown no interest in food and was barely drinking. I rang her regular doctor who prescribed a tablet to boost her appetite. I gave her a dose and started providing tiny sips of water and the juice from extremely thinned turkey baby food. Drop by drop I put in her mouth, hoping it was enough to prevent dehydration. Hoping it was enough sustenance to help her start healing.

Risky flagged as the day passed. The Husband, of course, was fairly late coming home, and Risky was so quiet when he arrived that we could pick her up and she’d just sag in our arms, not one second struggling to get down. Completely outside the norm. I had called the emergency hospital whose receptionist refused to either get a doctor nor have one ring me back. I rang our own vet again. Soon the call was returned by one of our own wonderful doctors. By that time I was so panicked that I wasn’t thinking straight. She had to be seen, the doctor stressed, and he couldn’t see her if I took her to the emergency place again. Why, then, did I choose to take her back to emergency? Because a repeat visit would bear no charge (which later proved false). Sad that it had to come down to what we could afford.

I was so very distressed on the return trip! Risky had vomited in the carrier and I was so freaked out that I just kept apologizing to her the whole ride in, dreading that she’d die if I stopped long enough to get her out of the wet. I prayed aloud, over and over and over, whenever I wasn’t apologising.

She was dead within an hour of her return to the emergency hospital. The doctor-a different doctor this visit – decided that she had ingested Tylenol, which she’d not find in this house. I have an acetaminophen allergy that could be dangerous, so all OTC meds purchases had to pass my watchful eye on the way into the house. If they contained acetaminophen, they were sent back. Simple, and a good way to avoid accidental ingestion. I corrected him, but he didn’t listen. He knew what he was doing, I was merely a member of the non-elite and obviously too stupid to know what my cat had eaten. So he treated her for a different, yet known poisoning, and she died.

And my life went flat. I never did realize that everything I did for my cats was done with Risky in mind. Not until after she’d been cruelly ripped from my life. We had a precious sort of bond that only we could share. This bond I’ll never know again, for she came to me far too young to be away from her mum, so I became her mum. All my cats are special, magnificent creatures, each with a personality that holds me fast. But they were all adults when they took residence here. Risky was my last true baby.

So the grief, which still hurts, is still there. It’s not crazed grief. It’s just the never ending ache. I see things that make me think of her every day. Most times I’ll smile, though deep inside I resent her having been taken so young. And I start apologizing again. I resent myself for everything I did wrong in her too-short life, especially regretting my decisions in what became her final hours.

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Today, I engaged in a new sort of catharsis. I want to make this sorrow a completely liveable thing. I want to ease off on punishing myself for things I can’t go back to do over properly. I want the good memories to far outweigh the bad. I still want to grieve, for my sorrow honors the wonderful cat who was Risky. But it’s time to let go of the deep ripping pain. It’s time to let go of blaming myself. It’s time to memorialise the Risky cat as she deserves-with smiles.

So I buried MamaCat. If you remember back in April 2007 I wrote of a feral cat who was killed then tossed to the roadside next an empty beer can on my property. I had gone round the neighbourhood in search of someone who might recognize her. No one, nor did anyone claim her when I took her to the Humane Society. She was cremated about a week later. Her remains were put into a pretty tin. I had dug a grave for her whole uncremated body under the blue spruce tree where the feeding station has sat for two years. But never interred her remains. Until today. Neatly packed up the tin, put it and a note explaining the cat in a watertight jar then buried it in that spot where she’d so very cautiously bring her babies to feed in the cold winter nights. Mamacat is finally in her resting place and yes, it does help my sorrow fall into its own place in my soul. Poor little Mamacat was pretty much unwanted, unloved, and doing the best she could for her babies. Her babies stayed and continued eating here. One died on the highway in November. The other had befriended a black cat and they each bore one kitten. One of those kittens, still tiny, gave birth a month ago, I haven’t seen her babies and don’t know if any survived. Mamacat’s daughter is now known as Daphne and has three new kittens accompanying her to the supper dish at dusk. Sometimes they eat breakfast here too. Daphne’s older daughter is Phoebe, and a prettier grey tabby would be hard to find.

I don’t know, but isn’t it possible that these ferals shared a little of the blood that Risky carried? It would surely be some generations removed, but what a lovely thought, helping to care for them.

Daphne’s friend is Marta, whose son is Sammy. Sammy is a really friendly little fellow who we hope to get neutered very soon. Our local TNR programs suffer a terrible backlog and are now closed to further inquiries. It’s hard to scrape together the money to care for the domestic cats and now we must find a veterinarian outside of the programs, which requires full cost surgery plus the costs of vaccinations and tests. And not all veterinarians perform the surgeries on ferals. So I have one more contact to try then will actively seek donations to help offset my costs. I have already started listing some objects on craigslist. If they sell I can put some of the cash to household bills and any left over will be put toward sterilizing my little colony. Right now we’ll focus on the (currently) only intact male so all the girls don’t keep littering. Then we’ll need to capture the queens and the kittens. It will be done, somehow.

St. Francis, pray for us. Pray for all the helpless, unwanted, unloved, and broken animals. They all have their place in this life. Pray for their caretakers, whose hearts soar with the good and fracture with the bad, who dare to love the creatures fully knowing that they’ll be taken, leaving those caretakers with the gentle ache of old grief.

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