Sick Kitty

Max, my fifteen-year-old orange Maine Coon cat, was sick today. He had an episode of diarrhea this morning and seemed lethargic. I decided he needed to go to the vet as soon as possible, but our regular vet didn't have office hours today. I called a clinic in Hopewell to which I'd taken Max once several years ago. The receptionist told me that they had walk-in hours from 1 to 2:30 this afternoon.

"So if I want my cat to be seen quickly, I should come at, say, 12:45?" I asked.

"Oh, at least" she answered.

I called my mother-in-law, who had been planning to come at 3 to stay with Matthew while I took the other boys to their swimming lesson. I explained the situation and asked her to come at noon so that I wouldn't have to take the twins with me to the vet. Stephanie, a cat lover herself, readily agreed.

In the back of my mind lurked the unwelcome thought: If there's something terribly wrong with him and he has to be put to sleep, I don't want Stephen and Matthew to have to see it.

For once, Stephanie was only ten minutes late. As soon as she arrived, I loaded Max into his cat carrier. It used to be quite a trial to catch Max once he saw the cage being brought down from the attic. These days, he's slow-moving and easy to nab.

I placed his carrier on the front passenger seat of the car, positioning it so that he was facing me. I drove nearly the entire fifteen miles to Hopewell with just my left hand on the steering wheel while I poked my right fingers through the hole on the front of the carrier to stroke Max's face. He meowed piteously whenever I removed my hand, but as long as I was petting him, he seemed content. He even purred for awhile.

When I arrived at the clinic, fifteen minutes before the open hours began, there were already two people ahead of me. By the time I finished checking in, three more pet owners were waiting behind me, and by one o'clock, there were twelve of us in the waiting room. A minute or two after the hour, a woman and her teenaged son walked in with an Australian shepherd. The woman took a look at the crowded waiting room and blanched.

"I thought the doors didn't open until 1," she muttered to her son.

Finally, we were called by one of the vets to an examining room. "Max, the Coon cat?" he called.

Max was running a fever, which probably indicated an infection, the vet said. The infection might be the cause of the diarrhea although the vet couldn't say for sure. The vet felt Max's throat and said his thyroid felt a little hard. "It could be overactive. That would explain why he's lost some weight. Does he seem hungry all the time?"

I nodded.

"Well, we'll take some blood from him to check on the thyroid, as well as liver and kidney function." I helped hold Max while the vet took the blood. He gave Max a shot to stop the diarrhea, another shot with penicillin for the infection, and a bottle of amoxicillin drops to give him at home. He told me to call on Friday morning, at which time the results of the blood test would be back "and we'll have a better idea of what is going on with Max."

I loaded Max back into the carrier and then returned to the reception area to pay the bill: $92 (gulp). The lion's share of the cost was $65 for the blood test, according to the itemized invoice the receptionist handed me.

The drive home was scary. Max started panting in the car. His mouth was hanging open and his tongue was flicking in and out rhythmically. I worried that he might be having a reaction to one of the shots so I pulled over at Pennytown and opened his cage. I held him on my lap for awhile, stroking him and telling him he was a good cat. For a few minutes, I wondered if this was the end for him. Then Max caught sight of a bird flying past the car. For a moment his panting ceased while he tracked the bird with his eyes. I realized he was probably just having a kind of panic attack after the stress of the office visit.

I petted him a little more and then put him back in his cage. "Just hang on, Maxie. We'll be home soon. " I crooned to him the whole trip home. As soon as we arrived home and Max was released from his carrier, the panting stopped.

Within a few hours, Max seemed as peppy as ever. The penicillin and the other medication seem to have worked fast. The vet said that he believes that cats make up their own minds whether or not to recover. "We can kind of nudge them along, but it's really their decision," he said.

Well, I'm glad Max has decided to get better. I had Max several years before I even met Tab; he's a walking reminder of my single days in Portland, Maine. Although Max is crotchety with the boys, he is utterly, touchingly devoted to me. He follows me about the house from room to room, even into the bathroom when I take my shower in the evening. I can make him purr just by looking at him. I would miss that purr and that gaze of total adoration.

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