About a cat

Yesterday afternoon I talked to the vet about Pan and the latest medication, and, well, it turned out to be an excellent night to already have ice cream in the house. And to sit and watch TV* with a cat on my lap, trying not to sniffle.

*The Bruins won, which was nice, like something was going right. It's kind of like they're trying to make me feel better lately.

As I mentioned last week, I had mixed feelings about the medication, because if it didn't work, I'd have to take him to the Place of Major Stress (aka the vet), but if it did work, that meant he has entered the phase of heart disease that is cruelly called Congenital Heart Failure*. And, after a week, it had indeed worked.

*I'm going to abbreviate it from now on. CHF might stand for Continued Heart Function, right? After all, his heart does continue to function, for now. Might be months, might be years ...

His breathing was definitely closer to normal after seven days on the medication, without that hiccup that disturbed me so. Which is good, of course. Except for the whole idea of if the medicine works, it's CHF.

What it boils down to is, he adds the new med to his regimen (can you believe my cat has a regimen?), and we're going to try him on a lower-salt food, and "keep his life as stress-free as possible".

Which on the one hand makes me nod, and on the other hand makes me laugh. Stress-free? How much stress does he have? He doesn't have a job or bills to pay or snow to shovel or to cook or clean up after himself (though there is the whole issue of bathing by tongue, but he seems fine with that) ... honestly, he's had quite a good life since June 27, 1998 when I picked him up from the Humane Society with his brother*.

*They're not actually blood brothers, but they don't know that.

I grant you, he'll be taking no long car trips, or even short ones unless emergency arises, but otherwise what? I should try not to yell at him when he bites my fingers. I think that's the most stress in his daily life these days, and to be honest he seems more startled than stressed if I yell. If he could speak (English), I expect he would say, "What, now you don't like that?" Because he always acts as if this is a new policy, a sudden change to what was previously not merely allowed, but encouraged by me. Even though I have never, not once, liked being bitten by him, or encouraged it in any way.

And the thing is, I know that after he's gone, that will be one of the things I remember about him. He used to bite my fingers, and he expected me to love it.

So, I'm feeling tense and fragile and other un-fun things. I'm braced for the next blow, and can't seem to relax my shoulders. I think perhaps I will go start a swatch with the sock yarn, the nice bright cheerful sock yarn. With a cat on my lap, perhaps. Gosh, sock needles are going to feel like toothpicks coming from the blanket and its US 11s.