Thursday

Phlyd and his Squishable friend, Sadat.

I have had quite a time with Phlyd these past couple of days. For those of you who haven't been following along, he has congestive heart disease and failing kidneys, and is on many medications that cancel each other out. He is on a diuretic to combat the liquid around his heart, but his kidneys need all the fluids they can get to continue to be of any help at all. I am supposed to be sprinkling this anti-nausea powder on his food so he will stop losing weight at an alarming speed, but he's nauseated so he's not eating.

I'm a dismal failure at administering his sub-cu fluids, and during the week most of my interactions with him are to shove pills down his throat or poke him with an enormous needle. Wednesday night he began leaking a foul diarrhea all over everything, so all the surfaces in our house have been covered with newspaper and old towels. The other night it got so bad we had to lock all the cats out of our room just so we could get some sleep.

So Wednesday night I had a break down. I was angry at myself for fucking up the fluid administration and being frustrated with him because I'd run out of both clean bedlinens and patience. All he wanted to do was sleep in between us (although he hadn't been sleeping either-- more like sitting listlessly and looking scarily like he was waiting for death), but we had to get up every hour and try to find more things for him to leak on that we wouldn't accidently roll in while we slept.

Thursday it looked really bad. He barely moved, he wasn't interested in food or scritches and I couldn't even think about my options without sobbing. He wasn't himself, and that was one thing I told myself might be a sign that he was on his way out. So now, not only was I a terrible nurse and a bad mother, I had to take into consideration things like "can we afford another vet bill" and "can I get the time off work" when trying to decide if now was the time to put him down.

The husband took the bus to work so I could have the car and I cried the whole drive across town to the vet. I didn't have an appointment, but I knew he was too popular at the vet for them to turn us away. If I had to put him to sleep, I figured they would all want to say goodbye.

I carried him up to the front desk and before the receptionist could say anything, I burst out in tears and told her my cat was dying. [My god, I can't even type this without tearing up again.] The manager of the office, Merry, saw me and ushered us both into an exam room. I spent 10 minutes sobbing into her shoulder.

I hate crying. I don't even cry in front of the husband. I suppress my crying emotions so much I don't think I've ever really had a cathartic crying experience. I will always hold back. I don't know why. Thusday morning was absolutely the worst emotional experience I've had in twenty-five years.

I left the vet's office with encouraging words from the vet, who said at the very least they could get him hydrated to see if that might get him to eat. I still cried all the way back home. I went to work assuming I would get a call that afternoon telling me to come in and say goodbye. When the vet called with an upbeat update, I was relieved but pessimistic. I would need to be administering more fluids more frequently and add another syringe full of nasty medicine to his already full pre-meal schedule.

He was OK that night and seemed to be OK on Friday, but after another sleepless night of leakage and no sleep, I fell back into the same horrible I'm-killing-my-cat feeling. I started crying again as soon as the vet returned my call, so they kept the office open late just so I could bring him back.

They gave him an injection of something for his nausea and administered more fluids.

And I'm pretty sure they did some sort of voodoo, because he's not just eating, he's demanding to eat. He's not just sleeping between us, he's snuggling up and purring nonstop and batting us on our noses with his paw if he thinks he's not getting enough attention. He's back!