Little Man
Barney and Moe were our first babies. We picked them out at the shelter on the same day, three days after moving into the house we had bought.
Barney was the last one left from his litter, and we always wondered exactly how cute the other ones were, because he won us over effortlessly. He was a scruffy, ratty little thing, so little he hadn’t figured out about grooming yet, but already insanely curiously and gloriously weird. Moe has always outweighed him significantly, but this, and the fact that he was missing his testicles, has never stopped him from trying to hump/boss her. He has always been delusional, convinced he was a dog or a person, and above all, MUCH bigger than his little 8-and-a-half pound self.
He has also always been in touch with his inner drag queen, irresistibly attracted to marabou feathers. My friend N. once came over with a box of birthday stuff for a mutual friend whom we were planning to fete at my house. Barney leapt into the box, drug out a tiara with marabou edging, and carried it around the entire house, growling whenever anyone got too close. My mom got him a toy that had marabou feathers on top to bat at and that was intended as a stationary plaything. Barney knew it had to be his and his alone, and he dragged that thing upstairs by the feathers, clunk-growl, clunk-growl so he could be alone with it in some secret space.
He has also always been the clumsiest cat I’ve ever known. I used to think maybe he had his own poltergeists, because he can manage to fall over spectacularly, as though pushed by an unseen hand, on the levelest and widest of surfaces. Jumping up onto the counters is always a hair-raising proposition, and the door on the cupboard under the sink bears the marks of his crazed scrabbling as he hoists himself up the rest of the way after another unsuccessful leap.
Barney isn’t jumping tonight. He hasn’t all weekend.
He’s sick. Possibly very sick. He threw up 5 times this weekend, mostly bile, and he barely ate. The veterinarian tells us that everything looks normal except his liver function, but she can’t tell what came first, the not-eating or the wonky liver. The good news is at least there’s no intestinal blockage or kidney failure, because that would’ve sealed his fate right there. But the fact that they can’t find anything brings its own worry — apparently cats can develop a kind of hepatitis spontaneously. If that’s what he has (and they’re running more tests to see) we’ll have to see whether it can be treated.
In addition, the clumsiness that’s always present is really exaggerated today and the vet pointed out that he seemed to have arthritis or even an injury in his low back.
The good news is they gave him IV fluids so he’s not so dangerously dehydrated anymore, and I’ve set out an array of children baby food mashed-up meat, which he seems to be sampling, if sparingly.
He’s *just* a cat, but I have been teary over him all day. I can’t help but feel that I’ve failed him.
The back thing — I grab him by whatever body part I can when he dashes to get under the bed in Eliza’s room as I’m putting her in her crib — I can’t have him in there at night and so he gets tossed into our bedroom. Eliza’s rough toddler treatment can’t help either, particularly since he’s a doormat and scarcely flinches when she whacks him with her feet as the three of us cuddle for storytime.
And, heck, being so quick to take the vet nurse’s advice. I called them Saturday and they said bring him in Monday if he’s still off. There was a time I’d have hauled him into the emergency vet’s without a second thought on Sunday morning just to quiet the gut feeling that this was the better course of action, $300 fee be damned. I let it slide because I had other things on my mind and didn’t want to spend that kind of money.
And that’s the part that kills me most of all. He just wants to love and be loved by his humans, and he is so far out of first place right now in our world that some nights I barely even pet him. And yeah, my kid comes first, always and every day, and it should be like that, but every day I say to myself, tonight is the night I blow everything off after Eliza goes down and just sit with the cats, and every week I let something get in the way.
All I could think about all day was this poor cat sitting, terrified, at the vet by himself, and going under sedation, which is always risky for a cat, and dying without my ever having rubbed his little head all day.
And still, in spite of the horrible, frightening day he had, and how freaked out his is from the meds, he hauled himself up on the bed while Eliza and I were reading and curled up and started purring.
I’m sorry, little guy.

