ears eyes nose [tail]

Disclaimer:  I am not heartless despite the tone of this post.  I’ve had cats nearly my whole life.  When I was in high school I used to share my breakfast with my cat each morning.  But even I have my limits…

One of the tails in our home belongs to Alan.  He is a cat.  We rescued him from a Humane Society nearly ten years ago.  He is a piece of work.  His decade of life has been highlighted with gastro-intestinal issues, jumping-on-face-in-the-middle-of-the-night habits, a sedative-laden sojourn across the country, and multiple encounters with his arch-nemesis…our dog.  He truly has few redeeming values.  There have been times when I have questioned my husband’s choice in feline ten years ago.  This cat.  He makes me kind of tired.  But, for better or worse, he is part of our family.  So we attempt to keep him healthy and relatively happy.

When we got home from our week-long holiday adventure, Alan had blessed our home with multiple “spit-ups.”  Great.  Then he hid from us for about twenty-four hours.  He was angry.  Understandable.  But then he wouldn’t eat.  Or drink.  For three days.  So, on the third night Dustin and I decided he should probably go to the vet.  It seemed more than just retaliation at being left alone for Christmas that was speaking through the gray rodent.  And, despite my inclination to detach, I started to worry about the fur ball. 

We dropped him off.  Eight hours and a lot of money later we picked him up.  He had “gotten fluids” (I pictured him with an IV in his paw which seemed more than comical…they actually just shot fluid into his back)  to help perk him up.  Additionally a battery of blood tests had been run.  The initial diagnosis:  feline hyperthyroidism.  WTF.  Seriously.  Is that for real?  Can cats really get that?  He had lost 2 pounds (20% of his body weight!)  It didn’t sound good.

The vet called a few days later.  The test for hyperthyroidism was negative.  Alan is back in good spirits (read: he is jumping on my chest while I’m trying to read a book, and currently sleeping on a sunbeam in the middle of the kitchen table.  Blech.)  He is eating and drinking and seems to be fine. 

And so we have now spent enough money to feed our family for a month to find out that our rescue cat has nothing diagnostically wrong with him.  As long as he keeps eating he will presumably gain back some weight.  But things have changed in our household.  Henceforth whenever we go out and spend money we will not do so in terms of dollars and cents.  We will now measure our expenses in terms of “half an Alan” or “two Alans” or a “quarter of an Alan.”   For example, on Saturday we went to Costco and spent “one entire Alan.”  Holy shit.

If you were wondering, Alan will (most likely) be our last family cat.  So, I guess he is worth it.

Meow.