When I was a child, I remember reading a story set in the late eighteen-hundreds or early nineteen-hundreds about a family, and in one of the chapters, it talked about their sick cat. I don't remember what had happened to the cat, but I think it was that he had gotten into a fight. As I remember, he was a mean old tom who had gotten into a fight with a dog or something, and had drug himself home as his last possible effort. The narrator, one of the children, was dismayed when the mother and/or father in the story decided that the cat would not make it, and that it needed to be put to sleep. The narrator and his siblings were told to go to bed, and the wounded tom was put into a box with a rag that had been soaked in chloroform (if I remember correctly), and then the box was covered with a blanket and left in the kitchen.
When the boy awoke the next morning, he went down to the kitchen, I believe to bury his cat. His mother lifted the blanket from the box and to her shock and the boy's delight, out jumped the angriest tom cat ever to have prowled a kitchen. In my memory of the story, the cat then lived many more years with his boy after his miraculous recovery.
I wish I had that magical box.
Today I had to decide to let Puff-Puff go to sleep forever. After looking like she was going to rally on Friday, this morning her doctor called me at work. Puff's body temperature had dropped to ninety-two degrees overnight, was not rising rapidly enough with an additional water-heated blanket on top of her. Tests this morning indicated that he kidneys had begun to fail, her breathing was becoming shallow and rapid, and she appeared to be in pain. He said that, if my objective was to avoid pointless suffering on Puff's part, then he would recommend that I euthanise her soon to prevent whatever had a hold of her to cause her more pain and eventual death that would probably end in seizures, or some other end-of-life paroxysm.
If that were the case, I didn't want Puff to die essentially alone. I asked him if it would be cruel to let her be until I could extricate myself from the tentacles of Eviljob so that I could be there, and he said that Puff was in a near-twilight unconsciousness for the most part, so she could wait until I got there, and he would of course watch to see if there were any signs of improvement in the interim.
Puff needed me and, god damn Eviljob to hell, I couldn't get out of there for an hour and a half.
When I left, I raced over there; I'd called my sister after the vet first called me and told her to go over so that if Puff took a sudden turn for the worse she could sign off on euthanising her, but otherwise to see if she could see any indication that Puff wasn't in this haze, might get better...anything. To her credit, she dropped everything she was doing and did just that. So Puff wasn't actually alone for the whole time.
As I drove there, I called my brother. He's an internist. And a know-it-all asshole with a god-complex that could fill the Astrodome, but let's not go there. He's actually very good at what he does, but I loathe acknowledging that to him, 'cos it just makes his head swell.
"I need help with my cat; she's sick..."
"Put her to sleep. What in the hell do I know about cats?"
"The vet wants to put her to sleep..."
"So listen to him. It's a goddamn cat, Ancodia."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND FUCKING LISTEN TO ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
(silence)
"Dorkface?" (not his real name)
"I'm listening."
"Imagine we're talking about a human for a second. You get some deaf-mute woman in with cystitis, ok? It's spread somewhat to her kidneys, but you put her on amoxicillin, and she responds acceptably. You think there's an underlying problem so you do whatever tests, and find that her uterus is infected..."
"You didn't spay your cat?"
"I didn't want her to die, you jackass! Remember Faron? Remember what happened to him?"
"Ok, so you killed your own cat because you let her get an infection. What else?"
"I HATE YOU!!"
"So hang up."
"No! Help me, Dorkface!"
"Go on. And you get bonus points for going on without crying, whining, or screaming."
"I'm not whining, and I'm only screaming when you MAKE me. Anyway, so you give her a pan hysterectomy. She's not eating all that great in the hospital, but she seems mostly ok. You send her home, but twenty-four hours later, she's brought back to the hospital. Now she's not eating, not drinking, running a low-grade temp, and exhibiting shallow but kind of laboured breathing. Plus, she's not voiding voluntarily; you try to cath her and find that her bladder's filled with mucus; after you drain that, the mucus doesn't reappear, but she still won't void on her own. X-rays show no structural blockage in the ureter, but they *do* show some spots on her lungs, and she becomes listless and lapses into unconsciousness. She gets put on (Puff's list of meds) and appears to respond."
"Probably to the cortisone she's responding, because of her lungs, but you have the kidneys to consider here. I guess I don't get a family history?"
"What kind of family history do you want?!?"
"Is this your purebred?"
"No. He's a boy."
"Then forget it. Go on."
"Ok; so she's breathing better, actually gets lucid intermittently for a day, and then the next morning, she's unconscious or barely half-conscious, even lower-grade temp, and her breathing is extremely shallow and rapid..."
"He took her off the cortisone and the [sompetysomething]."
"WHATEVER!"
"He had to. He can't keep her on..."
"I DON'T CARE! LISTEN! HELP ME THINK!"
"Fine."
"Now she seems to be in pain..."
"God damn it Ancodia, let the damn cat go."
"Dorkface, please!"
"No, YOU listen to ME. I don't know a god damn thing about cat physiology, but what you're telling me is this: There's something else going on. Now, whether it's an underlying condition, a reaction to the anaesthesia...do you have any idea what they gave her?"
"No, but her vet said her blood work looked fine for surgery."
"So even if it were a reaction, it would have happened before, or now, or five years from now; people and cats have surgery. Now, Reader's Digest version, you're in a position that what you put her on for her cardiopulmonary function hurts her kidneys; what you take her off for her kidneys hurts her cardiopulmonary functioning. If you and your idiot vet that likes to drive up bills and torture cats would stop to reflect for a second, it would occur to you that you're not going to make any progress in this situation. And before you say anything, may I point out to you that you still don't know what the underlying cause is? It's embarrassing to think that you so are addled by what you want that you can't remember how probabilities work. You're not getting extra-credit on your next hurdle even if you pull off a miracle and leap over this one. Whatever is causing this may kill her anyway. It may be in a day, a week, a year, but she's going to die anyway from it, is my guess. So you have a ten percent chance of pulling off a miracle and not only halting the progression of a systemic inflammatory response without knowing the cause, but reversing it without irreparable damage. And now we'll be kind and say that, whatever the underlying cause is, assuming you can even find it, you have a fifty percent chance of clearing that hurdle. What happens when you have compounding probabilities of failure--one at ninety percent, and the other at fifty percent?"
When I got to the vet's, I went back to see Puff. My sister said Puff responded to her still, even though they had told me she was only half-conscious. She said Puff kept trying to meow and smack (which she does--she smacks to keep from drooling, and also still tries to nurse on your fingers and stuff sometimes, and that looks like she's smacking, too). She said that the Tech told her Puff can't hear her say "Puff", and isn't trying to say "Yip!", she's just responding to pain, but Sis thinks that's not true. She may not like Puff much, but here she is, standing up for her.
I love you, Sis.
She was turned away from me, with her head towards the back of the cage. I called "Puff!" at her, trying to not talk too loudly, so I don't hurt her ears. She tried to say "Yip!" I was kinda trying an A-B-A reversal; I observed her when I went into the room, and she wasn't trying to Yip or smack. I called "Puff!"; she tried to "Yip!" I touched her, talking to her; she kept trying to talk to me. I rubbed her head, and she tried to talk and smack or nurse. I called "Puff!"; she tried to "Yip!".
She was There. Whatever they want to think...I know differently.
I whistled Sleigh Ride, sharp-but-quietlyish. Puff managed, somehow, to pull her head up (yes! Up, on her own! No help!) and she looked at me. The look I saw in her eyes... She was There, but at the same time, not. The gut feeling I got when I looked into her eyes seemed to me, on an emotional level, like she was saying, "Mom, I'm having a very bad dream..."
And then she dropped her head and was sort of gone again, even though if I rubbed her head and said "Puff!", she would try to say "Yip!" and even managed to make a sound three times.
And I don't care how stupid I sound. This is what happened, and I will go to my grave knowing that my Puff-Puff did her best to tell me about her bad dream.
Then, one of the other Techs, some stupid vet wanna-be, butts in. Starts preaching to me about how at times like this, I should not be selfish, blah, blah, blah.
As god is my witness, I have never come so close to hitting another person and not done it.
I try ignoring her. She continues. I pull myself completely out of Puff-Puff's cage and stand, listening politely. I tell her "thank you for your advice." She continues.
I lose it.
I explain to her, in the coldest, non-vulgar terms I can muster, that I am more than familiar with the course of disease. That I have lived with graphic descriptions of the allopathic and osteopathic conceptions of the course of disease all my life, that I have lost pets and humans, and that I am more than familiar enough with death. That I am not against ending suffering, but I am apparently more open to the FACT that humans and animals deserve a CHANCE, if one exists, and to not provide that chance is MURDER, not euthanasia. That, as much as I admire her doctor and appreciate all that he has done he is not infallible. And that I can GUARANTEE her--again, from personal experience--that her own personal physician, gynecologist, pediatrician, you-name-it, operates on the same GUESSES as every other doctor. And that they are in some cases only half-right, if not wholly wrong, and this is why god invented malpractice suits, and in response doctors invented camaraderie. That anyone with half a brain that lives in a medical field knows that when we get to this point, it's all really just a guess. And that I know that Puff's odds don't look good, but I certainly hope for her sake that someday, when she is in Puff's shoes, that SOMEONE gives her a chance, or at least the benefit of a fresh look uncoloured by "what the experts all know". Because the only thing they KNOW is that at the end of the day, they get to go home. And that I hope to god that when she is in this situation, whatever familial representatives she has aren't swayed in their decisions by what the hospital orderlies' "expert opinion" of her situation is, because it is a personal decision that HAS NO ANSWER. And would she please leave me the hell alone and let me get back to inspecting my cat, or saying goodbye to it, whichever I may be doing, neither of which is her business.
To her credit, she didn't say anything. That was very, very smart. I know she was testing out her counselling wings on me, because she looked to be maybe twenty-two-ish, but god damn it, I was not in the mood. She turned around and left, and I went back to Puff.
Idiot bitch. If someone ever actually is doing a back-and-forth ethically and she pipes up with that shit at that type of moment, she's going to push them away from a potentially correct decision with her holier-than-thou smugness; it may make her feel better about her position, but it is alienating to others. If you feel so god damned strongly about it, why didn't you go ahead and kill Puff by now? Oh--because you need my permission? Could that be because there is not a clear-cut answer in this regard, and she's my property, so *I* make the decision, and you keep you nose out of it and simply execute my wishes? Yeah; I thought so. And her "I just had to make the same difficult decision with my dog, and I'm happy I made the right decision..." crap. Go reduce your cognitive dissonance over possibly murdering your pooch with someone who gives a fuck. Fool. When you lose your nulliparous uterus to some knife-happy surgeon over an abnormal pap that could have been treated other ways, but ::sniffle!:: you thought Dr Giggles was an expert, as you file your lawsuit, think of me; I'll be laughing. But fuckheads like you who can't tell the difference between Liberty and blind obedience, fact and opinion, euthanasia and murder...well, we don't need you breeding anyway. The children of Parents Like You skew the bell curve too far to the left and clog up remedial classes. Dipshit.
And if I didn't like the vet and his other Techs, I would have said pretty much that.
Yes, I know I am one. That's why I try to shut up most of the time. But iff'n you ever need someone told off, I'm probably your woman.
My brother is better at it, though; it's genetic.
Look--I'm pissed! I had a Moment with Puff, and she interrupted it with bullshit!
Puff was more out of it than not after I shooed away Pollyanna Peticide. Bluntly-put, her breathing sucked. As shallowly and rapidly as she was panting, she wasn't getting jack shit out of it, and she was mouth-breathing, which is not a promising sign in cats. I've been through all of this with my one cat who died of AIDS (not FeLV; AIDS. Yes, cats can get AIDS. After he went into ARC and got diagnosed, I saw specialists and administered AZT and Interferon--and other things--for almost a year before I lost him) Pride kept me from calling my brother back and reading tests to him. My sister offered to call one of her friends who is a year away from graduating from U of Overthere. The vet came in, probably summoned by Pollyanna Peticide, to discuss Puff. He'd called two feline internal medicine specialists. They had no real solutions, and he'd already put her on everything they suggested before they suggested it, but they both agreed with him that even if Puff could pull out of this, her odds weren't good.
I was killing myself to try to decide if nobody cared, or if it was simply that there was nothing left to invest care in.
The vet apologised for giving me what he felt was false hope on Thursday.
That's okay. I would have given her the chance anyway, probably. Puff deserved at least a chance.
It's obvious to me that Puff is dying. In the time I've been back there, her respiration has gotten worse. I don't want her to suffer. Not any more than I have already made her over the past few days. Moving her is practically out of the question; she appears to be in pain. If we want a referral to U of Overthere, the vet will give it. He'll give her painkillers or not, but the move will cause her pain, and the painkillers may depress her respiration too much.
God fucking damn it.
And I feel like a horde of people are on me, asking me what I want.
I want one month back. I want it to be March 30th, so that I can take a break from Octopus, and take Puff-Puff to the vet. She looks fine, but I know better now. Something is wrong with her. I know now that in a few weeks, she's going to get very sick and hide from me for two days, and when I find her, I'm going to think she's already dead. But I know better now, and this doesn't have to happen. I know that even though she's yipping at me as I type and making Roadkill Kitty poses at my feet, I know that her clock is running down.
I know this now.
I would take her to the internal specialists, or U of Overthere. I would tell them to look at her lungs. And kidneys. Something is there. Maybe in both places. Something. Even if it's congenital, a maintenance dose of antibiotics would stave off the infection that's going to take her over in just a little bit. And that might buy more time to fix things. Even if they're congenital. Maybe.
I want just one month back.
Just one.
One of many things that Puff and I will never get. That moving finger thing being what it is, and all.
I'm sorry, Puff.
I've fucked up, and the only way I can make it at least partially Right is by killing you peacefully, before you are killed by something much bigger than me possibly un-peacefully.
No, I don't want to leave the room.
You're my baby, and I'm responsible for this. All of it. Letting others do my dirty work is not an option, and I'm for sure not going to fail you on this last thing, even if I have failed you in every other way.
I am so very sorry, beautiful Puff-Puff.
I hope some memories of good times were with you at the end, and I hope in some way my talking to you and rubbing your head let you know that your Mom, in her own misguided, fucked-up, scattered, stupid, careless, selfish way loved you very very much, and always will.
I hope that I successfully hid the fact that I felt like my heart was being crushed by a semi-truck and that you thought that maybe you were at home, asleep in my lap.
I hope that I stayed with you long enough, and that you were gone by the time I moved to let him check your heart, because I tried to time it and give you extra time, just in case.
And more than anything else, beautiful Puff, I hope that you knew that the bad dream would end.
When the boy awoke the next morning, he went down to the kitchen, I believe to bury his cat. His mother lifted the blanket from the box and to her shock and the boy's delight, out jumped the angriest tom cat ever to have prowled a kitchen. In my memory of the story, the cat then lived many more years with his boy after his miraculous recovery.
I wish I had that magical box.
Today I had to decide to let Puff-Puff go to sleep forever. After looking like she was going to rally on Friday, this morning her doctor called me at work. Puff's body temperature had dropped to ninety-two degrees overnight, was not rising rapidly enough with an additional water-heated blanket on top of her. Tests this morning indicated that he kidneys had begun to fail, her breathing was becoming shallow and rapid, and she appeared to be in pain. He said that, if my objective was to avoid pointless suffering on Puff's part, then he would recommend that I euthanise her soon to prevent whatever had a hold of her to cause her more pain and eventual death that would probably end in seizures, or some other end-of-life paroxysm.
If that were the case, I didn't want Puff to die essentially alone. I asked him if it would be cruel to let her be until I could extricate myself from the tentacles of Eviljob so that I could be there, and he said that Puff was in a near-twilight unconsciousness for the most part, so she could wait until I got there, and he would of course watch to see if there were any signs of improvement in the interim.
Puff needed me and, god damn Eviljob to hell, I couldn't get out of there for an hour and a half.
When I left, I raced over there; I'd called my sister after the vet first called me and told her to go over so that if Puff took a sudden turn for the worse she could sign off on euthanising her, but otherwise to see if she could see any indication that Puff wasn't in this haze, might get better...anything. To her credit, she dropped everything she was doing and did just that. So Puff wasn't actually alone for the whole time.
As I drove there, I called my brother. He's an internist. And a know-it-all asshole with a god-complex that could fill the Astrodome, but let's not go there. He's actually very good at what he does, but I loathe acknowledging that to him, 'cos it just makes his head swell.
"I need help with my cat; she's sick..."
"Put her to sleep. What in the hell do I know about cats?"
"The vet wants to put her to sleep..."
"So listen to him. It's a goddamn cat, Ancodia."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND FUCKING LISTEN TO ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
(silence)
"Dorkface?" (not his real name)
"I'm listening."
"Imagine we're talking about a human for a second. You get some deaf-mute woman in with cystitis, ok? It's spread somewhat to her kidneys, but you put her on amoxicillin, and she responds acceptably. You think there's an underlying problem so you do whatever tests, and find that her uterus is infected..."
"You didn't spay your cat?"
"I didn't want her to die, you jackass! Remember Faron? Remember what happened to him?"
"Ok, so you killed your own cat because you let her get an infection. What else?"
"I HATE YOU!!"
"So hang up."
"No! Help me, Dorkface!"
"Go on. And you get bonus points for going on without crying, whining, or screaming."
"I'm not whining, and I'm only screaming when you MAKE me. Anyway, so you give her a pan hysterectomy. She's not eating all that great in the hospital, but she seems mostly ok. You send her home, but twenty-four hours later, she's brought back to the hospital. Now she's not eating, not drinking, running a low-grade temp, and exhibiting shallow but kind of laboured breathing. Plus, she's not voiding voluntarily; you try to cath her and find that her bladder's filled with mucus; after you drain that, the mucus doesn't reappear, but she still won't void on her own. X-rays show no structural blockage in the ureter, but they *do* show some spots on her lungs, and she becomes listless and lapses into unconsciousness. She gets put on (Puff's list of meds) and appears to respond."
"Probably to the cortisone she's responding, because of her lungs, but you have the kidneys to consider here. I guess I don't get a family history?"
"What kind of family history do you want?!?"
"Is this your purebred?"
"No. He's a boy."
"Then forget it. Go on."
"Ok; so she's breathing better, actually gets lucid intermittently for a day, and then the next morning, she's unconscious or barely half-conscious, even lower-grade temp, and her breathing is extremely shallow and rapid..."
"He took her off the cortisone and the [sompetysomething]."
"WHATEVER!"
"He had to. He can't keep her on..."
"I DON'T CARE! LISTEN! HELP ME THINK!"
"Fine."
"Now she seems to be in pain..."
"God damn it Ancodia, let the damn cat go."
"Dorkface, please!"
"No, YOU listen to ME. I don't know a god damn thing about cat physiology, but what you're telling me is this: There's something else going on. Now, whether it's an underlying condition, a reaction to the anaesthesia...do you have any idea what they gave her?"
"No, but her vet said her blood work looked fine for surgery."
"So even if it were a reaction, it would have happened before, or now, or five years from now; people and cats have surgery. Now, Reader's Digest version, you're in a position that what you put her on for her cardiopulmonary function hurts her kidneys; what you take her off for her kidneys hurts her cardiopulmonary functioning. If you and your idiot vet that likes to drive up bills and torture cats would stop to reflect for a second, it would occur to you that you're not going to make any progress in this situation. And before you say anything, may I point out to you that you still don't know what the underlying cause is? It's embarrassing to think that you so are addled by what you want that you can't remember how probabilities work. You're not getting extra-credit on your next hurdle even if you pull off a miracle and leap over this one. Whatever is causing this may kill her anyway. It may be in a day, a week, a year, but she's going to die anyway from it, is my guess. So you have a ten percent chance of pulling off a miracle and not only halting the progression of a systemic inflammatory response without knowing the cause, but reversing it without irreparable damage. And now we'll be kind and say that, whatever the underlying cause is, assuming you can even find it, you have a fifty percent chance of clearing that hurdle. What happens when you have compounding probabilities of failure--one at ninety percent, and the other at fifty percent?"
"People are statistics. A person is an individual--not a statistic. Don't they teach you anything in med school?"
"This is the most imbecilic conversation I've had all week, and that includes the one I had this morning with your two year-old nephew. Want me to put him on the phone? He might agree with you."
"You didn't let me tell you about her tests."
"What tests?"
"Kidney function, this morning."
"Must you?"
"Please? Doesn't it mean anything?"
"If all it says is that her kidneys are shutting down too, just like her lungs and her heart, no."
"Does very high Cl and low K mean..."
"Yep."
"Well, if he gave her more potassium..."
"That affects the heart too, you know."
"But..."
"No 'buts'. Shut up and listen. She's going into multiple organ failure. It's not just her kidneys that are failing, not just her bladder, not just her heart, her lungs. It's all of them, all at once. And probably her liver, pancreas, brain...I could go on."
"I hate you."
"I'm just the messenger. You're the one who is torturing a cat."
"Motherfucker! I'm trying to give her a chance!"
"There isn't one. If it were a human, you could possibly find out something to tell you what the underlying cause was, and then you do have a chance. As it stands, it could be anything; inflammation, sepsis, shock, allergic reaction... It could be anything, Ancodia. And MODS isn't going to give you the time to figure it out. Quit torturing the cat."
"This is just so god damn easy for you..."
"Could you quit crying?"
"But she can hear me when I call her name! I see her ears move when I whistle Sleigh Ride! She HEARS me!"
"Then she also probably feels pain. Why don't you think about that for a minute?"
"What if I took her to University of Overthere? It's two hours away, and they have a teaching veterinary school. They might know more."
"You didn't let me tell you about her tests."
"What tests?"
"Kidney function, this morning."
"Must you?"
"Please? Doesn't it mean anything?"
"If all it says is that her kidneys are shutting down too, just like her lungs and her heart, no."
"Does very high Cl and low K mean..."
"Yep."
"Well, if he gave her more potassium..."
"That affects the heart too, you know."
"But..."
"No 'buts'. Shut up and listen. She's going into multiple organ failure. It's not just her kidneys that are failing, not just her bladder, not just her heart, her lungs. It's all of them, all at once. And probably her liver, pancreas, brain...I could go on."
"I hate you."
"I'm just the messenger. You're the one who is torturing a cat."
"Motherfucker! I'm trying to give her a chance!"
"There isn't one. If it were a human, you could possibly find out something to tell you what the underlying cause was, and then you do have a chance. As it stands, it could be anything; inflammation, sepsis, shock, allergic reaction... It could be anything, Ancodia. And MODS isn't going to give you the time to figure it out. Quit torturing the cat."
"This is just so god damn easy for you..."
"Could you quit crying?"
"But she can hear me when I call her name! I see her ears move when I whistle Sleigh Ride! She HEARS me!"
"Then she also probably feels pain. Why don't you think about that for a minute?"
"What if I took her to University of Overthere? It's two hours away, and they have a teaching veterinary school. They might know more."
"She probably wouldn't make it, from what you're describing."
"She might. She probably would. She's a fighter! She's fighting to live!"
"Listen, because you're starting to really piss me off. Even if this cat you claim you love made it there, do you know what they will do?"
"Look at her and tell me what they can fix and can't, and if they can't, then they can put her to sleep."
"You're an idiot. Let me explain what's in store for your beloved animal up there. Assuming she makes it there alive, they're going to take her away from you. You won't be allowed to go with her into the treatment areas; I'll wager they probably won't even let you stay. This isn't a hospital, where you can sit by her bedside Ancodia, and god knows if we'd had an option at Teaching Hospital X, we'd have sent the families packing, too. So you'll turn the cat over to them, and go home. And then they'll take this animal that you claim to love, and run tests on it to find out what's wrong with it. Even redundant tests, because they don't want your vet's tests, except for academic interest; their purpose is to teach, remember? This is how you begin diagnosis... Are you starting to get the picture? And while they are poking and prodding your cat, they're not going to give her anything for pain, because it may confound the tests and further depress organ function. So they'll keep her alive as long as possible to run tests and engage in treatments that may have no practical therapeutic or palliative purpose, until either they give up, or her body does. And having been in a similar environment, I think I have a good idea of which would occur first, especially if they're just guessing, WHICH THEY ARE. And I'm just guessing, but I'd bet that when they're done, you won't even have a body to bury, just a dead cat that lived maybe one pain-filled week longer before serving as autopsy class fodder, or being chucked into an incinerator with all the other dead strays they plow through."
"You are trying your best to make it sound like there is No Hope."
"There isn't. Even your idiot vet is forced to admit there isn't."
"This is why people hate you, Dorkface."
"Have a nice ride up to U of Overthere, then."
"You think this is definite, and it's not. You abuse probabilities to make them sound the way you want them to sound."
"Are you going to put the cat on your dashboard so the sun can keep her warm, or turn the car's heat on and drive with one hand while you hold her up to the vent?"
"You're a jackass!"
"If you put the cat on the dashboard, you can hang the IVs from the visor hooks, if you can get your vet to consolidate..."
"I HATE YOU!"
"I'm just trying to help you out, Sister Dear."
"You fucking suck!"
"Call me when you're normal. And if you're nice, I'll let you talk to your nephew; it's going to be hard to explain to him that Aunt Ancodia was more interested in a dead cat than him, but I'll try."
"You still fucking suck."
"Later."
I drove the rest of the way there in tears. It seemed as if fucking NO ONE cared. Not that I expected Dorkface to actually care, but I thought that he might be at least willing to brainstorm. He's like my father in that respect; give them something like this that's puzzling, and they're like english bulldogs--they won't let go until it's solved. Right now, in trying to reconstruct the conversation, it seems more to me like Dorkface thought it was solved, though. At least to his satisfaction, which probably has a lower burden of believability because it's a cat we're talking about. But at the time, and really until when I started reconstructing it, it seemed more to me like he was being dismissive and rude and mean and discouraging. He just comes off that way. But I'm not going to go back and change what I said about him before, 'cos it's not untrue. I just...I guess misjudged and was emotionally involved and didn't feel like I was being heard. And he sure as hell didn't try to correct that, because he doesn't care.
When I got to the vet's, I went back to see Puff. My sister said Puff responded to her still, even though they had told me she was only half-conscious. She said Puff kept trying to meow and smack (which she does--she smacks to keep from drooling, and also still tries to nurse on your fingers and stuff sometimes, and that looks like she's smacking, too). She said that the Tech told her Puff can't hear her say "Puff", and isn't trying to say "Yip!", she's just responding to pain, but Sis thinks that's not true. She may not like Puff much, but here she is, standing up for her.
I love you, Sis.
She was turned away from me, with her head towards the back of the cage. I called "Puff!" at her, trying to not talk too loudly, so I don't hurt her ears. She tried to say "Yip!" I was kinda trying an A-B-A reversal; I observed her when I went into the room, and she wasn't trying to Yip or smack. I called "Puff!"; she tried to "Yip!" I touched her, talking to her; she kept trying to talk to me. I rubbed her head, and she tried to talk and smack or nurse. I called "Puff!"; she tried to "Yip!".
She was There. Whatever they want to think...I know differently.
I whistled Sleigh Ride, sharp-but-quietlyish. Puff managed, somehow, to pull her head up (yes! Up, on her own! No help!) and she looked at me. The look I saw in her eyes... She was There, but at the same time, not. The gut feeling I got when I looked into her eyes seemed to me, on an emotional level, like she was saying, "Mom, I'm having a very bad dream..."
And then she dropped her head and was sort of gone again, even though if I rubbed her head and said "Puff!", she would try to say "Yip!" and even managed to make a sound three times.
And I don't care how stupid I sound. This is what happened, and I will go to my grave knowing that my Puff-Puff did her best to tell me about her bad dream.
Then, one of the other Techs, some stupid vet wanna-be, butts in. Starts preaching to me about how at times like this, I should not be selfish, blah, blah, blah.
As god is my witness, I have never come so close to hitting another person and not done it.
I try ignoring her. She continues. I pull myself completely out of Puff-Puff's cage and stand, listening politely. I tell her "thank you for your advice." She continues.
I lose it.
I explain to her, in the coldest, non-vulgar terms I can muster, that I am more than familiar with the course of disease. That I have lived with graphic descriptions of the allopathic and osteopathic conceptions of the course of disease all my life, that I have lost pets and humans, and that I am more than familiar enough with death. That I am not against ending suffering, but I am apparently more open to the FACT that humans and animals deserve a CHANCE, if one exists, and to not provide that chance is MURDER, not euthanasia. That, as much as I admire her doctor and appreciate all that he has done he is not infallible. And that I can GUARANTEE her--again, from personal experience--that her own personal physician, gynecologist, pediatrician, you-name-it, operates on the same GUESSES as every other doctor. And that they are in some cases only half-right, if not wholly wrong, and this is why god invented malpractice suits, and in response doctors invented camaraderie. That anyone with half a brain that lives in a medical field knows that when we get to this point, it's all really just a guess. And that I know that Puff's odds don't look good, but I certainly hope for her sake that someday, when she is in Puff's shoes, that SOMEONE gives her a chance, or at least the benefit of a fresh look uncoloured by "what the experts all know". Because the only thing they KNOW is that at the end of the day, they get to go home. And that I hope to god that when she is in this situation, whatever familial representatives she has aren't swayed in their decisions by what the hospital orderlies' "expert opinion" of her situation is, because it is a personal decision that HAS NO ANSWER. And would she please leave me the hell alone and let me get back to inspecting my cat, or saying goodbye to it, whichever I may be doing, neither of which is her business.
To her credit, she didn't say anything. That was very, very smart. I know she was testing out her counselling wings on me, because she looked to be maybe twenty-two-ish, but god damn it, I was not in the mood. She turned around and left, and I went back to Puff.
Idiot bitch. If someone ever actually is doing a back-and-forth ethically and she pipes up with that shit at that type of moment, she's going to push them away from a potentially correct decision with her holier-than-thou smugness; it may make her feel better about her position, but it is alienating to others. If you feel so god damned strongly about it, why didn't you go ahead and kill Puff by now? Oh--because you need my permission? Could that be because there is not a clear-cut answer in this regard, and she's my property, so *I* make the decision, and you keep you nose out of it and simply execute my wishes? Yeah; I thought so. And her "I just had to make the same difficult decision with my dog, and I'm happy I made the right decision..." crap. Go reduce your cognitive dissonance over possibly murdering your pooch with someone who gives a fuck. Fool. When you lose your nulliparous uterus to some knife-happy surgeon over an abnormal pap that could have been treated other ways, but ::sniffle!:: you thought Dr Giggles was an expert, as you file your lawsuit, think of me; I'll be laughing. But fuckheads like you who can't tell the difference between Liberty and blind obedience, fact and opinion, euthanasia and murder...well, we don't need you breeding anyway. The children of Parents Like You skew the bell curve too far to the left and clog up remedial classes. Dipshit.
And if I didn't like the vet and his other Techs, I would have said pretty much that.
Yes, I know I am one. That's why I try to shut up most of the time. But iff'n you ever need someone told off, I'm probably your woman.
My brother is better at it, though; it's genetic.
Look--I'm pissed! I had a Moment with Puff, and she interrupted it with bullshit!
Puff was more out of it than not after I shooed away Pollyanna Peticide. Bluntly-put, her breathing sucked. As shallowly and rapidly as she was panting, she wasn't getting jack shit out of it, and she was mouth-breathing, which is not a promising sign in cats. I've been through all of this with my one cat who died of AIDS (not FeLV; AIDS. Yes, cats can get AIDS. After he went into ARC and got diagnosed, I saw specialists and administered AZT and Interferon--and other things--for almost a year before I lost him) Pride kept me from calling my brother back and reading tests to him. My sister offered to call one of her friends who is a year away from graduating from U of Overthere. The vet came in, probably summoned by Pollyanna Peticide, to discuss Puff. He'd called two feline internal medicine specialists. They had no real solutions, and he'd already put her on everything they suggested before they suggested it, but they both agreed with him that even if Puff could pull out of this, her odds weren't good.
I was killing myself to try to decide if nobody cared, or if it was simply that there was nothing left to invest care in.
The vet apologised for giving me what he felt was false hope on Thursday.
That's okay. I would have given her the chance anyway, probably. Puff deserved at least a chance.
It's obvious to me that Puff is dying. In the time I've been back there, her respiration has gotten worse. I don't want her to suffer. Not any more than I have already made her over the past few days. Moving her is practically out of the question; she appears to be in pain. If we want a referral to U of Overthere, the vet will give it. He'll give her painkillers or not, but the move will cause her pain, and the painkillers may depress her respiration too much.
God fucking damn it.
And I feel like a horde of people are on me, asking me what I want.
I want one month back. I want it to be March 30th, so that I can take a break from Octopus, and take Puff-Puff to the vet. She looks fine, but I know better now. Something is wrong with her. I know now that in a few weeks, she's going to get very sick and hide from me for two days, and when I find her, I'm going to think she's already dead. But I know better now, and this doesn't have to happen. I know that even though she's yipping at me as I type and making Roadkill Kitty poses at my feet, I know that her clock is running down.
I know this now.
I would take her to the internal specialists, or U of Overthere. I would tell them to look at her lungs. And kidneys. Something is there. Maybe in both places. Something. Even if it's congenital, a maintenance dose of antibiotics would stave off the infection that's going to take her over in just a little bit. And that might buy more time to fix things. Even if they're congenital. Maybe.
I want just one month back.
Just one.
One of many things that Puff and I will never get. That moving finger thing being what it is, and all.
I'm sorry, Puff.
I've fucked up, and the only way I can make it at least partially Right is by killing you peacefully, before you are killed by something much bigger than me possibly un-peacefully.
No, I don't want to leave the room.
You're my baby, and I'm responsible for this. All of it. Letting others do my dirty work is not an option, and I'm for sure not going to fail you on this last thing, even if I have failed you in every other way.
I am so very sorry, beautiful Puff-Puff.
I hope some memories of good times were with you at the end, and I hope in some way my talking to you and rubbing your head let you know that your Mom, in her own misguided, fucked-up, scattered, stupid, careless, selfish way loved you very very much, and always will.
I hope that I successfully hid the fact that I felt like my heart was being crushed by a semi-truck and that you thought that maybe you were at home, asleep in my lap.
I hope that I stayed with you long enough, and that you were gone by the time I moved to let him check your heart, because I tried to time it and give you extra time, just in case.
And more than anything else, beautiful Puff, I hope that you knew that the bad dream would end.
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