probably a metaphor

Six Years Ago:

Me: It’s too quiet. :

The Husband: I agree, too quiet. 

Me: Not enough “meows”. 

We always said one day we would have another Siamese kitty, right? I love their “wow-wow” meows!

The Husband: Right. 

Me: OK then, I’ll go look up Siamese cat sites, OK? 

The Husband: OK. 

———about 2 hours later———— 

Me: Not much out there. (clicking away at the keyboard)

The Husband: That’s because Siameses are awesome. 

Me: Yes they are. I can only find hoity-toity breeders who want like a thousand dollars for a cat. I don’t need a Siamese that much. 

The Husband: Yeah, and cats can be overbred or too inbred. 

Me: Those kinds of people don’t deserve our money. We need to find a poor Siamese kitty.  Maybe a mixed one that some snotty kitty racist rejected. I’ll get back online and look at shelters…

“S.P.C.A. It’s fun to shop at the S.P.C.A….”

————about 5 minutes later——— 

Me:  Oh my God! Dude! You’ve got to come see this! 

She’s a cross between our first two cats! 

They say her name is Ava. Not my favorite name, but if she isn’t name-trained we can do our own thing. 
The Husband:  She looks precious.

Me:  She’s got the blue eyes! I’m calling! 

The Husband:  This cat will go fast. She’s too adorable. They say on the listing that she’s only 2 years old. 

Me:  That S.P.C.A. is a janky dump. It’s prison for lost pets. We gotta get her out of there!

—————about 2 hours later, back home————- 

The Husband:  She’s so quiet. 

Me:  Quietest car ride home with a cat ever.

The Husband:  Maybe she’s just shy. 

Me:  Definitely shy. Still, new kitties usually cry a lot. 

Me:  Like a baby. And she’s a Siamese mix. You would think she’d have a loud mouth.

The Husband:  They don’t understand where they are. 

Sapphire longingly gazes at us. Sapphire’s mouth opens. 

Sapphire’s mouth closes. She looks me in the eye, extends her left front paw toward my arm and “pats” me as if to say, “I’m glad to be home.”

Nothing but those irresistible blue eyes, brown ears and that Grumpy Cat-turned-down mouth. That sweet, silent Siamese mix won our hearts without saying a word.

Last September :

Vet:  Well, her numbers aren’t good. How old is she again? 

Us:  We don’t know. The S.P.C.A. said “two”, but…

Vet:  Ah, yes, well, the shelters are in the business to move their inventory. This cat is probably 10. I can tell by her teeth, and she’s declawed. Who declaws a cat these days?

Us:  We know, but she was the right kitty for us anyway. She’d been fine till this last month when we saw she was dropping weight and just not seeming right. So it’s not an infection? 

Vet:  This is most definitely kidney failure. Cats in this state don’t usually last long. You have a few options, but it’s up to you…

This is how we acquired Sapphire, a voiceless Siamese mix kitty from G-d knows where. We will never know how she escaped from her former home or how she survived outside for a few days before someone discovered her and promptly took her to the nearest shelter, which happened to be our local S.P.C.A. Sapphire is quiet, peaceful, loving, and has become legendary among our family kitties. (We’ve had 13 over the past 42 years so far.) For the past 12+ months, we have been treating Sapphire for kidney failure at home. Our vet kindly trained us on how to give her fluid infusions with a needle, (yikes!) two times a day. It’s a simple-not-simple procedure, which has been effective beyond belief, but it’s also nerve-wracking. I mean, it’s needles. Needles are scary. They’re like matches only they stab you. I fight that fear every day for the sake of our beloved cat and how she and my husband have a sacred bond. (Not that she and I don’t, but he’s “Da Man” in her eyes. Sapphire adores him.)

On one hand, there’s our vet saying this is like a miracle in that he has never seen clients with our kind of follow- through before and also has never seen a cat live for months in her state with her numbers now reversed from last September. He’s never seen a cat survive 12 months with acute kidney failure, but Sapphire has done it. She’s a resilient, fuzzy little being, and we are resilient, persistent humans. Living on love is a real thing. 

On the other hand, this subcutaneous treatment regimen is starting to get to me. It’s an AM and PM commitment, which keeps us tied to our home more than I would like.  No vacations, no road trips that last more than a few hours, it involves stopping whatever you’re doing at both 9 AM and again around 9 PM to slip a needle into the scruff of her neck and hold her in place for a few minutes each day. Then there’s the cost factor which is much cheaper than daily office visits for treatments, but still pricey. It takes two of us; he holds her and I infuse. He changes the fluid bags. I prep the needles. Sapphire is tolerating what we do, but I can tell she doesn’t like it. She’s still eating okay, using a litter box, and getting along with the other kitties in our house. She loves on us and occasionally plays with cat toys, so we figure we still have time left. 

Just when the insanity of caring for my mother ended, our cat developed kidney disease. Sapphire is much easier to care for, but I’m starting to want my freedom back. I was accepted to attend a reading session/poetry slam and present an excerpt from my new book, but I had to turn down the opportunity. The gig was in Boston. (Timing plus cost made it a no-go. 😢) In July I had to forego visiting my sisters in Portland, Oregon because of the cat’s needs. I haven’t seen my West Coast sisters since 2022. My cousin in Chicago wants me to come visit. When will I be able to travel freely again?  I love our kitty and how she adores my husband, but what about my life?  Is that selfish?  Our kids could probably help us out one or two days, but one lives 50 miles away and the other is 20 miles north, plus they have jobs and kids. 

The situation is draining me. I love Sapphire with all my heart. She’s very special and her “gotcha-story “ is one I’ll never forget. The shelter worker took HoneyB and me to a sparse veterinarian exam room. They placed the kitty on a metal exam table, and she came up to my granddaughter and extended her right paw as if to reach out. Then she did it to me.  That’s all the sign I needed.  I’ve been saying all along this past year that if she’s ready to pass on she’ll give us another sign. It hasn’t happened yet, so the husband and I will continue to give her Lactated Ringer’s Solution treatment twice a day, but in the meantime, I feel stuck on a short leash and somewhat burned out. Guess we just keep on keepin’ on for now…

(see icon for image of our sassy-Sapphire)