time to get things back to normal

Sorry for the late update.

We spent last night watching Lillith become more and more like her old self.  She came when you called her.  Her ears were perked up. Her tail was wagging.  She ate food that you put in front of her.  The problem?  Her eyes were still leaking and one was swollen shut.  Her breath was wheezy.

I was worried and was trying to clean her face.  I figured it was time to bring her in to the vet on an emergency call.

That is, until Eric got home.

Then, for some reason, she was fine.  Her eye opened, her breathing calmed down and she looked like a perky kitty.  Eric gave me a smirk for overreacting about the cat’s condition and I gave Lillith the stinkeye for playing up to him.

We decided to go out.  We hadn’t in a while.  We felt like we’d only been talking about the cats and hadn’t had any time to each other.  We went to Chuy’s house and hung out with our friends.  It was nice to be around other people again.  We handed out the souvenirs, and all were a big hit.  Eric played poker while Chuy and I snuck out and got some food.  We talked about the shows we were working on.  We talked about New Orleans and Kevin and Charlotte and we felt like ourselves again.

We got home and Lillith slept in our bed for a little while.  We were all very encouraged.  It was starting to get back to normal.

“We have got to stop feeding him Lillith’s leftovers,” Eric mumbled.

Taylor was running in circles at the bottom of the bed.  He kept attacking my feet and then rubbing against my leg.  He’d make his sing-song meow that he does when there’s a bug in the room.  He was going crazy.  He was all whacked out on rich food and high vitamin baby mush.

This morning Lillith was sitting by the window.  She gave me a little head nod when I saw her.  Her eye was still runny, so I called the vet.  They said that the best thing would be to just bring in Taylor for the test and they’d give me antibiotics and decongestants to give Lillith myself when I got home.

We wrangled up Taylor and took him in.

Sitting there for ten minutes I went over the plan with Taylor.  “Okay.  You’re healthy– all the food you want.  You’re sick– I’m just going to keep hugging you.  And you know how much you hate hugs so you’d better think hard about this test.  Now normally people don’t ask you to go in and fail a test, but I want you to fail this one as much as you can.  Just fail the shit out of this test, Taylor.”

They took him in and Eric and I sat on the bench holding hands and reading about the top ten cat toys tested by cats.

They brought back a rather angry Taylor.  “He’s not too happy with us now, so we’re gonna set him here.  The test takes ten minutes, so we’ll let you know.”

It was the longest ten minutes we’ve ever spent.  Long because of the waiting, and long because it took about twenty minutes.  They’d pop their heads in with a smile, we’d smile and they’d say, “Still don’t know.  It takes ten minutes.”

Taylor had turned his back on me in his carrier.  A small puppy came into the room and peed on the floor.

“Okay, let’s settle this up and we’ll give you Lillith’s medicine.  We still don’t know the test results, but we should know soon.”

They gave me a decongestant, and some antibiotics.  The only thing I hate worse than cleaning up kitty poop off the floor is jamming a pill down a cat’s mouth.  Eric had no idea what we were in for.  As I was asking about how to give her the pill the other vet popped her head in.

“The test came back negative.  That’s real good.  Taylor is fine.”

I almost started crying again just because I was so happy.

“What about living with Lillith?”

“He should be fine.  Just keep giving him his boosters and you should probably test him every year just in case.  I’d keep him away from her right now, as the upper respiratory infection is pretty contagious, so if he starts sneezing just bring him back in and we’ll give him some medicine to cure the cold.”

We looked down at Taylor.  He beamed a little, and rubbed his tummy.  “Prepare for the fatness!” he shouted.

We celebrated with lunch, and Eric had declared a little “No talking about cats” zone because any lull in the conversation would be interrupted by me saying, “I’m a little worried, because…” and I’d see Eric’s eyes roll a little.

I need to just chill.  She’s doing well.  She’s just congested.  She’s got a cold.

The antibiotics are easy to give because it’s a liquid.  The half a pill, however, was a big pain in the ass.  I tried putting it down her throat in the back of her mouth and she’d just cough it up.  She’d spit it out, she’d put her tongue backwards into her throat, wrap around the half a pill and bring it back out.  I crushed it up and put it in warm baby food.  We ended up just smearing it on her teeth, which forced her to lick it off.

We were messy and tired of dealing with sick cats.

After a nap I went to check on her.  Lillith wouldn’t take any food or water so I went to put the food on the table and I got a good look at our home.  The place was a mess.  There’s spots on the couch of baby food and pedialyte and cat drool and tears.  The house smells like warm Fancy Feast.  You don’t know disgusting until you smell a steaming plate of Turkey Delight.  Syringes are lying around.  Half filled plates of cat food, tuna, mushed up meat all over the kitchen.  Cat fur on one chair from Taylor.  Blankets.  Heating pads.  Paper towels used to wipe eye goo.  The rest of the paper towels ripped to shreds from Taylor’s hyperactivity.  Diet Coke cans.  Newspapers.  Four different scripts for four different plays lay strewn around the room.  A hairbrush.  A cat hairbrush.  Little scissors from trimming crusty fur from sick kitty’s face.  Medicine.  Print-outs from a website with an experimental medicine we may try for the cat.  A daytimer opened to the vet’s phone number.  Three magazines I’ve read three times.  Laundry that was never put away.  Empty bags that once held our souvenirs.  An ironing board with iron with clothes for Eric’s next audition.  A cell phone and it’s charger.  Billy Blanks tapes that haven’t been touched in over a week.  Socks.  Shoes.  Bookbags.  Books.  Five remote controls.  Three phones.

It was time to clean.  I picked up as much as I could.  I’ll vacuum once Lillith gets tired of sitting by the window and comes over to the couch.  I sat down after I had finished and Lillith walked over to me.  She looked at me for a few minutes and then jumped on the couch and sat down next to me.  She drank two syringes of water and one that had a little baby food in it.

She’s coming around.  The place is cleaning up.  Eric is at an audition.  Taylor is healthy and fattening up according to his plan.  I am not crying and my face isn’t puffy.

Things are getting back to normal.

I hope this medicine works.

Have a good weekend, everyone.  Go outside and play for me, would you?