The Weird and The Wacky Meet

Where YouBetIAm comes to write….

Christoph and Truman

                 Dan Greenburg once said:  "There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person."  Interesting quote.  When I first heard it, I laughed because it reminded me so much of myself.  When I talk about my cats, I feel like I’m dimwitted Ralph Wiggum from the Simpson’s, wandering around telling people that my cat’s breath smells like cat food.  It’s only when I meet another person with pets that I find someone who understands my need to talk about my “babies”.

                 My history with cats isn’t as long as I’d like.  I didn’t grow up in a house with many pets.  I had one cat when I was four.  As with all outdoor cats, it suffered many perils.  But it ran away when I was six.  I often wonder what happened to that little cat, and I don’t think I’ll ever know.  Like most outdoor cats, I think his life was cut short in one of the horrible accidents that would never befall an indoor cat.  When I was 21, I moved into my first adult apartment, and before I even got a couch, I adopted two cats.

                 My live-in boyfriend, who later became my husband, came with me on the drive to North Shore Animal League, which was 45 minutes from our home in Brooklyn.  We had done our research and decided that we would only get one kitten.  We stuck to that plan for all of ten seconds after we held little Christoph and Truman in our arms.   They chose us.  From the moment I held him, I knew Christoph belonged to me.  He looked at me with his big green eyes, clawed his way up my chest, and promptly fell asleep next to my chin.  Truman took a little longer to become friends with me, but he took to Steve instantly.  He scrambled up Steve’s shoulder and proceeded to stare around the room, glad for a chance to be out of his tiny cage.  They bonded on the way home, when Truman couldn’t stand being in a cardboard that was even tinier than his previous cage and got frantic.  Steve took him out of the box, receiving a painful scratch in the process, and put the kitten in his lap, where he immediately settled down and started purring.  It was at that moment that Truman decided that Steve would be his own personal human.  It was also the moment when I realized that Steve would never be able to refuse that cat anything.

                 The unnamed kitten brothers came home with us, and we tried to eek out their personalities, searching for names.  When we saw the movie “The Truman Show”, we knew we had found them.  Truman was named after the main character of the movie, because he also loved to explore new places and refused to be cooped up anywhere.  He even had Jim Carey’s blonde dirty blond hair.  Christoph, with a black spot of fur on his chin, shaped like a stereotypical artist’s goatee, and a tendency to lay back and watch his brother doing the exploring for both of them, was named for the character who directed the show.  It only took a couple days for me to forget what the apartment was like without them.  I imagine it was a very lonely and un-furry place.  Also, much cleaner.

                 From the very beginning, I was completely infatuated with both of the cats.   I watched every step they took.  I followed them around the apartment stealthily so they wouldn’t know I was observing them.  I learned that it’s possible for a cat to wrestle another cat twice his size, as long as the big cat was his brother.  I learned that a cat speaks with its tail; if it’s nervous it will twitch, if happy, it will hold its tail straight up in the air.  I learned that cats like to have their ears rubbed and will throw up if they eat too much Chinese takeout.  I watched because I was fascinated, but also because I was scared for Christoph.

                 From the moment we took him home, we knew he had problems.  At the time, they didn’t seem that complicated.  The vet at North Shore told us that he had ear mites and that he needed to be medicated twice a day for two weeks.   After he had been with us for two days I noticed that he walked oddly.  I packed him up and whisked him to a different vet at North Shore.  This one told me that he was probably accidentally hurt in his cage, and that I shouldn’t worry about it.  The weirdness with his hips would probably correct itself.  But he also warned me that, at only 1 and ¼ pounds at 8 weeks, Christoph was dangerously underweight.  If he stopped eating, I’d have to rush him back for an IV.  His big brother was a hefty 2 and ½ pounds already, and continues to be larger by four pounds to this day.

                 Time passed.  The ear mites came and went, after I learned I had to treat both kittens.  They survived all their first year shots.  And at six months, I cried when I left them for eight hours to be neutered.  Christoph had to wear a lampshade around his neck for a week after that ordeal.  And both of them got infected with ear mites again.  So when it was time for their rabies shots on their first birthday, I just went to a local vet.  I found an award-winning veterinarian, named Dr. Linda Jacobson, to do the honors.  Nothing but the best for my cats.  She noticed that Christoph was still walking a bit oddly, but none of us were really concerned.

                 It was a couple of months later that Christoph had his first seizure.  We rushed him to Dr. Jacobson but she couldn’t find anything to fix.  She asked us to keep an eye on him and bring him back if this happened again.  And it did, a week later, as I lay napping with my cat at my feet.  From that day forward my sleeping habits were much lighter.

                 Dr. Jacobson and her colleagues put Christoph through a heartbreaking amount of tests and prodding.  He was tested for hip dysplasia, liver shunts, heart disease, and everything else the vet could think of.  The vet took blood several times to send off to the lab for clues.  He had x-rays and ultrasounds done several times, all while under sedation.  And sedation for a cat with seizures is not a fun matter.  There were complications with being put under, and as he came to he would shiver and shake in my arms and look frightened.  Finally the vet made the diagnosis that he had epilepsy, brought on by a lack of oxygen during birth.  This explained why he couldn’t walk on his back paws properly, was underweight, and had the seizures.

                 For the last four years, Christoph has had to take 7.5 milligrams of Phenobarbital twice a day.  The pills only come in 15 milligrams, so we have to slice them in half.  Every sixth months, he has to have blood work done to make sure his Phenobarbital level is neither high, nor low.  His liver function has to be checked.   And the vet has to do a more thorough exam than normal.  As he gets older, his eyesight is getting worse, and the vet suspects he will be fully blind in at least one eye in just a few years.  It’s just one more neurological problem.

                 Because of his need to be drugged, Christoph got both cats out of ever being let at an ordinary kennel.  They are very well-traveled cats, because they just come with us on all of our vacations and trips.  Of course, we have to find special hotels that accept cats, and buy our airline tickets months in advance so they can ride in the airplane cabin with us, but it’s worth it.  We could leave them kenneled at the vet, but it gets expensive, they hate it, and I would never stop worrying.

                 If you’ve ever had to give a pill to a cat, you know what a pain it can be.  It’s worse when it’s Phenobarbital, which is a bitter substance.  You have to actually hold him still, gently pry open his jaws and push the pill with your finger towards the back of his throat.  Then you hold his jaw shut and either kiss his nose or massage his throat, so he’ll swallow.  Sometimes you have to open his jaws again to make sure it really went down.           Most days, Christoph takes his pill with little or no fighting, but he’s never bitten my finger or scratched me during his drugging.  We’ve learned to drug him when he’s settled in a lap or about to snarf down some wet food.

                 We’ve also learned that there is a number for animal poison control.   A few years ago, Steve was getting the cat’s pill when I asked him to also bring me my birth control pill.  He drugged the cat, then handed me my pill.  But what he gave me was half a pill, half the cat’s pill.  We both looked at Christoph, laying there innocently with my birth control pill in his stomach and we panicked.

                 We got on the phone to poison control.  I think the woman who answered our call had to put me on mute so that I couldn’t hear her laughter.  What would you do when you heard, “My neutered male cat took my birth control pill.  What do I do?”  Fortunately, even though poison control is for human patients only, oh the bigotry, she directed us to a 900 number for pet emergencies.  The vet told us our main concern was iron in the pills, and we shouldn’t worry too much, but follow up with our vet in the morning if he got sick.  He didn’t, but for three days afterward, every time Chris got his belly rubbed, he’d shiver, like this:  (make shivering gesture.)

                 Dealing with emergencies can be stressful.  I’m very careful about dosage and timing, but mistakes happen.  The pharmacy can give you 16.2 milligram pills instead of 15 milligram ones.  Pills can be forgotten or given late.  If you’re not very careful, the cat can fake swallowing the pill and spit it out as soon as you’ve turned your head.  But despite this, our family life goes on, quite happily even.  He has his good days and bad days.  There are some when he has a slight palsy, and there are others when he’s more active than his brother.

                 I still watch him like a hawk.  You’d think, after five years of this close examination, I’d be sick of cats, but I’m not.  Every time I hold him, my fascination begins anew.  I think I’ve studied and scratched almost every bit of his body.  He loves having his back paws and behind his ears scratched.  I’ve used him as a bit of a model for my own readings into evolution, when I studied dew claws and opposable thumbs.  I’ve found the spot on his back paw where his ancestors had a fifth claw.  Cats enthrall me with their gracefulness and their clumsiness.

                 My brother-in-law once told me that he didn’t understand how I could pay so much money to my vet just to fix a cat.  I shot back, well, why do you pay so much to fix your daughter when she’s sick?  I don’t think a non-pet person can understand the bond between an animal and their human.  My cats are my children.  Perhaps I’ll feel differently if I have kids, but I don’t think so.  I think the cats will be their siblings as sure as my mother’s other children are my siblings.  I have enough love to share with both, and one shouldn’t take away from the other.  Christoph’s illness has only made us closer, but we would have been close anyway.

                 No love in the world is like a cat’s love.  Cats will give you all of themselves one moment, and the next they will be much too occupied with their own dramas to have any more time to show you how lucky you are to be theirs.  Yet, when they flop down on your head at two in the morning because that’s the only comfortable spot on the bed, or nibble at your ankle to be let out of the covers cause they can’t find their own way out, they will always be instantly forgiven because they are cats, and cats know that cat love is special and sacred and weird.

                 I like to think of myself as a cat and a dog person.  I fully intend to get a dog someday.  I just want to have a fence around my yard first.  I don’t see cats and dogs as mutually exclusive, or cats being a poor imitation of dogs that people who are old or live in apartments have to settle for.  Nor do I see dogs as servile, sniveling morons who could only be loved by someone who shares their characteristics.

Back home in Utah, our family dog, Oreo is the person I most look forward to seeing every Christmas.  (Sorry, Mom.)  I think Truman also enjoys seeing the dog most.  I am not sure that Oreo’s love extends back to Truman though.  Truman, like all cats, is very bossy.  He knows he’s in charge of Oreo.  Surprisingly, she doesn’t question his authority.  Picture a 13-pound cat, sitting on a chair, lifting up his majestic paw, and what do you think the forty pound border collie does?  She sits, of course.  She knows Truman is the boss, and damn if she’s not going to be obedient.  This is why I don’t worry about mixing cats and dogs.  My cats will deal with it in a fair and fascist manner.  Dogs like to be bossed around anyway, so they deserve what they get.

                 It’s a proven scientific fact that people who own pets live longer than those who don’t.  Pet owners have lower blood pressure and are less likely to suffer from disease.  Scientists have theorized that the very act of snuggling with a pet lowers your stress level and makes your body more resilient.  To people who live with animals, this information is nothing new.  We know the benefits of pet ownership, but more importantly we know the love that we get from our animals is special and worth protecting.

There are some people who might be offended by the fact that I speak of pets and owners.  This sounds too much like slavery for their tastes, so they’d prefer that we all speak of companion animals and their human guardians.  Maybe this is a valid objection for dogs, but anyone who’s had a cat in their home knows that they’re not the owner.  If anything, humans are the cat’s property.

Aside from one scratch on the day we brought them home, neither I nor my husband has ever lost a drop of blood from either of our cats.  They are amazingly gentle creatures in fierce little bodies.  Someone once said that “cats aren’t clean; they are just covered in cat spit.”  While their spit is much cleaner than mine, occasionally they do need a bath.   So, when the smell overwhelms me, I take them into the shower with me, and I’ve never been bloodied.  That’s the essence of a cat: gentleness inside a little predator.

Cats are fiercely independent, or so they'd like us to believe.  They don't come when called.  They're less interested in being trained to perform tricks than they are in training us to cater to their whims.  They walk around, swinging their tails impudently, like they own the world and you're nothing to them.  But it's all an act.  Move from one room to another and, when you're not looking, they'll sneak in and set up shop nearby.  Open a magazine on a flat surface and the cat will coincidentally walk up and sit on it, reminding you to pay attention to what's really important.  And when you're feeling down, the cat will choose that moment to decide that it desperately needs to sit in your lap and get petted.  Cats are stand-offish, but they can't hide the love they feel for us.  Nobody loves me like my cats do.

                 Mark Twain wrote, “A home without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat, may be a perfect home, perhaps; but how can it prove its title?”  I know my home is where my cats are, and I know that any house I have cannot be complete without them.  So like dimwitted Ralph, I’ll keep talking about my cats to those who will listen, and people who love cats will know that yes, my cat’s breath does smell like cat food.  Except when it smells like human food.

 

Copyright 2003

by Amanda Evans

Date: 08/06/03