Archive for December, 2007

Flynn

Scrappy

“How do you measure a year in the life?”
-”Seasons of Love”, from the musical Rent

Life. A four-letter word that we take for granted until something happens — a beginning, a middle, an end. This year, life — in all three configurations — has been particularly challenging for those of us at the M&M Menagerie.

Getting One

One day in May, the following email exchange took place between me and Mel. It was our first day back to work following a week of vacation and the animals had turned on their best puppy pouts and kitten eyes to keep us from going.

Me: Re: everyone was sad They didn’t want me to leave. Everyone was walking around with a hang-dog attitude. :-(

Mel: you know what might cheer them up? A kitten ;-)

Me: Is there one you have your eye on? What about the “four is enough” limit?

Mel: well i wasn’t looking for a fifth but you know how those things go ;-)

The daughter of one of Mel’s coworkers found a kitten near her work. Apparently, it was the sole survivor of a litter that had been attacked by a pack of dogs. It was approximately 4 weeks old and they had been bottle feeding it for a week or so.

They couldn’t afford to keep it, so the only solution was to find it a home or take it to the pound. Evidently, Mel’s coworker had picked Mel for the likely sucker candidate and did her darnedest to make sure Mel at least got to see the kitten.

Mel: Do you think we could integrate a kitten into the pack?

(By this point, the coworker had brought the kitten in so that Mel could take a look. Bad coworker. Bad.)

Me: So there could potentially be a kitten in the house when I get home tonight? ;-)

Mel: i think at this point, it’s a given. she’s darling. although i’m kinda thinking it’s a boy. grey and white tabby. probably going to be a long hair. if i knew how to take a picture with my phone i’d send one to you ;-)

And so entered (short-haired and male) Flynn into our lives.

Here’s the thing. Our vet told us that orphaned kittens frequently turn out mean, especially male orphans, because they have no one to teach them how to play. We need not have worried. Dusty, who loves to play rough, took on the task of teaching Flynn how to play and he quickly learned when teeth and claws are good to use and when they are not.

Was it fate or luck that brought Dusty into our lives six months before? Mel doesn’t believe in fate. I’m not so sure.

Saving One

Answer: “Put your affairs in order.”
Question: What is the phrase a 40-something-year-old woman never wants to hear?

Sometime in September, Mel came down with what she thought was food poisoning. After two days of no relief, she saw her doctor, who sent her for a battery of blood and imaging tests.

Mel asked me to go with her when she went back for the test results. As we waited for the doctor to appear with the test results, Mel turned to me and said, “Well, it beats being at work.”

It turned out she had something very large in her abdomen. Typically, the doctor said, these things don’t turn out well. She advised us that, in all likelihood, it was probably cancerous and something this far along would not be easy to cure. And then she said that awful phrase to Mel: “You should think about putting your affairs in order.”

I can’t imagine how Mel felt at that moment. All the times I’ve had major medical problems, I really had no fears that it would be fatal. I made preparations, just in case, but everything I’ve had has had a chance of some kind of recovery. I’m a product of modern medical miracles.

Irrationally and selfishly, all I could think about after the doctor’s pronouncement was now that we had three cats on our hands, Mel was NOT going to leave me with all those litter boxes to clean out by myself.

After the doctor left the room to let us be with each other while she wrote some prescriptions and wrote referrals to some other doctors, Mel turned to me and said, with half a grin, “All-in-all, I’d rather be at work.”

A tense couple of weeks crawled by and finally, in late October, Mel had her surgery. She came through the operation with flying colors. The final diagnosis: endometriosis and several large cysts that needed to come out. All-in-all, not a bad end to the situation.

I have to say that it was one of the scariest times of my life and it’s made me appreciate Mel even more in all the ways that made me fall in love with her nearly 17 years ago. It’s not just her litter box duties that I would miss, but her wicked wit and common sense, her companionship, and her love and support.

Losing One

At Scrappy’s end of the tunnel, however, things didn’t look as bright. One morning two weeks before Mel’s surgery, Scrappy limped to breakfast. We though he had pulled a muscle jumping or had hurt his back, as he had done several times before.

A quick trip to the vet reveals a mass growing on his leg. It was probably a tumor, but it was likely to be benign, the vet said. These kinds of masses are locally aggressive and would probably return, so the leg would need to be amputated. However, he should be fine after that. We set a biopsy for the next Monday, just to make sure we were deleting the leg for cause.

Scrappy’s biopsy results came back the Friday before Mel’s Monday date with the scalpel. Definitely a cancerous tumor. Our vet referred us to a specialty vet to do the operation. The initial appointment was for the following Wednesday and, despite her best mental efforts to be out of the hospital by then, Mel’s body decided she need to stay another day, so I took him in myself.

Once again, my thoughts selfishly focused on me instead of Mel or Scrappy. I was facing having on my hands a post-surgical menopausal woman and a post-surgical three-legged cat, all in the same week. I wasn’t sure I could handle one, much less the other as well.

Knowing what I know now, I would gladly have taken on the care of two or three or four or more post-surgical women or cats, rather than what faced us with Scrappy.

Based on the biopsy report, which indicated the cancer was extremely malignant, the surgeon took X-rays of his lungs to see if it had spread. It had. There now was no reason to put him through the agony of amputation. All we could do is try to ease his pain for the few weeks he had to live.

After a couple of weeks, it was clear he was starting to go downhill. We called a mobile vet recommended by both our regular vet and our specialist to come to our home to help Scrappy pass on. She was patient, kind, and extremely compassionate and Scrappy’s last minutes in our arms were stress-free and painless.

Our big, beautiful boy passed away on Nov. 7. He was 13 years old. We miss him. A lot.