"Oh, look at that kitty!" my mom smiled and pointed, stopping the car. "Oh no, he's dragging his leg, go get him!"
As I grabbed him, he bit down on my finger, harder than it seemed possible, drawing blood in two places. It was quite painful. "Oh, fuck!" I yelled, but somehow managed to get him in the car. He would bite me two more times, but I guess that's the price one pays for a free kitten (my mother didn't get bit at all, though, which somehow doesn't seem fair).
The next day we took him to the vet. The x-ray said that his pelvis was "shattered," as the vet put it, broken in four or five different places. His stomach was filled with some kind of fluid (though we wonder now if it was air, as we later discovered he had a punctured lung).
The vet seemed grim and sympathetic. The cat might have internal bleeding, he said ("Vitamin K is a blood-clotting agent!" my mom later said). He might have Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), a disease that attacks cats' intestines and kills them, the vet said ("There are people on the internet whose cats have survived this!" Mom said).
The doctor seemed to be leaning towards euthanasia. The cat was in a lot of pain, he said. We decided instead to take him home and at the very least let him die in a comfortable environment.
"Not to say anything about your expertise," Mom explained, "but we have pulled many animals back from the brink before, and we'd like to try it now." (Even my skeptical dad has learned by now not to doubt our magic.)
People who heard of what had happened said how sorry they were, how hard it is to have to do this, then were shocked when told he was still alive. They said we should have put him down.
After one day I even stopped giving him his antibiotic, because he needed gut flora and antibiotics don't work on viruses anyway; another controversial move, I am sure.
An acquaintance of ours, a nice lady with some unconventional ideas, helped us find the herbs we needed. She said she had recently had to put down her own eighteen-year-old cat. "An enema could damage his bowels," she said, concerned (the kitten doesn't poop any other way, leaving us with no choice--and leaving us overjoyed when he shits on the carpet). I don't think it's a coincidence that her cat died of a bowel blockage.
Really? I thought in desperation. You had telepathic conversations with your cat, but all of a sudden you're too conventional to shove some glycerin up her ass?
"I know some about taking care of people, but I don't know much about cats," she also said. I guess the famous Library of Alexandria didn't have anything on the subject. I would think that someone who spent a past life as a scholar in ancient Egypt would know all about taking care of cats (or gods, as the case may be).
Mom says that when she called the vet about a week later to order a laxative for him, the doctor sounded sympathetic, then surprised.
I know that he is a very nice guy, and that he was only doing his job, and that he's only human, but a small part of me still wants to do a little dance and scream, "Kiss our asses, you big fat know-it-all!" Such a fantasy is particularly satisfying when, after worrying over the cat for the past week-and-a-half, after all the research, medicines, and enemas, after rearranging my life to fit his needs, people still think we're not doing the right thing, that we're being selfish and harming him.
It has surprised even me how little pain he seems to be in anymore. He cleans himself, plays a little, nurses on our mama cat (the rescue cat we thought was fixed). Before writing this post, I lay on the floor for a while, the kitten on my chest, petting him and listening to him purr, sigh, and fall asleep on my heart. He is a pampered little prince now, and he knows he is loved.
The worst thing that could happen is that he dies right now, which I don't think is very likely anymore. In that case, he still lived an extra week-and-a-half, he had raw hamburger and milk and massages, he spent time with new siblings who were nice to him and who made him purr just to look at them, and he knew he was loved and part of a family.
I made myself sound kind of dumb the other day when I remarked, "I'll bet he's much happier than he would be if he were dead."
"Uh...yeah," my mother replied, like I had said something obvious.
But I meant it too. I don't believe any animal would choose to die, no matter what cats say telepathically to their owners. That is why I don't believe in putting an animal "out of its pain."
I realize that not every animal can get the same level of care and attention that he has now, and that overcrowded shelters have to keep up certain standards of sanitation by law, and that some potential pet owners only want cute, clean, healthy, low-maintenance, non-disabled pets (and sometimes only babies).
But as dog as my witness, until I am compelled to stop, I will still try to save as many animals as I can. Because either God is working through me to do just that, or He doesn't give a shit and I'm their only hope.
(For more on Marshmallow, the kitten, and other animals, see my "Animals& Euthanasia" tab at the top of the page, or The Kitten, Part Two: He Wanted To Live)
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