Posted April 9th, 2003 by Michelle

The last few days have been one of my work blurs, when nothing else seems to happen other than that in the tiny cosmos of my restaurant. This morning, after the first terrible insomnia I’ve had in weeks, I had to get up at 7 to get to the Park Slope Food Coop at 8. I spent a full five hours there, since I missed my slot last month and had to make it up, and saw about a hundred cute babies. One was in line with his mom, and she was handing him everything out of her cart so he could toss them onto the register belt. He did so, with glee, and with some distance and arc, until he handed her a big bag of corn chips. “CHIPS!” he screamed. “CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS” on and on and on until they paid and were out the door. She even let him hold on to them and he stared at the bag as big as he and hollered “CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS”.

And then I carried what felt like three hundred pounds of groceries home. And from home, to the vet. My cat Zooey has been ill lately, but not violently so until a couple of days ago. He seemed like he lost some weight over the last year, and that he was getting a little lethargic, but then a couple of days ago I picked him up and was shocked at how light he was. Zooey has always been an incredibly fat cat- one of those little-headed giant-bellied monsters- but part of what made him look even fatter than he was (if this is even possible) is his fur. Long, curly on his belly, with a proper lion’s mane. It was his fur that hid his shrinking body. And then, two days ago, he had some intestinal problems, and I mean to say, he had them all over my apartment. Chairs, rugs, bed, floors, etc. Problems everywhere. So even though I hate going to vet, only because it always costs $300 and they say, “Well, I’m not sure what’s wrong. We’ll give him some fluids and call if it gets bad again”. Literally every time I’ve had a sick cat, this is what they say.

So I took Zooey to this little place on 6th Ave here in Brooklyn that I heard was great. The vet, who seemed very competent, and who was very nice, was shocked by his weight loss- over half of his body weight- and confirmed that something is very wrong So… $300 of tests later, we are waiting to find out what his blood tells us. And he was so good during the whole exam. Zooey is the kind of cat that purrs if someone is in the room with him. He is the most adaptable, the most affable, the funniest cat in the world. He’s like a dog that doesn’t need to be walked. If I have a party, he wants to hang out with everyone. He responds to his name, and nothing scares him. Last time he was sick, five years ago, he purred through the entire vet visit, including when she was trying to get a heart rate. She kept nicking him on the nose, trying to get him to stop purring, and he only purred harder.

This time was no different. He purred even as he mewed softly through her physical examination, which was so thorough it would’ve made me cry out. She said his bladder was tiny, his intestines too hard, his breathing a little labored. She also felt something funny in his stomach. At the end, she said it could be one of three things: diabetes, a thyroid problem, or cancer. If it’s diabetes, he’ll need insulin every day to get better. If it’s thyroid, he’ll need to take a bunch of medicine. If it’s cancer… well. None of the three are good. The blood tests will tell us all we need to know, but not untill Friday. She said if the blood tests show nothing wrong, it’s cancer, because she felt little grainy things that could be little specks of cancer in his stomach.

They had to take two big vials of blood from him, and he was so good. He was purring even then, and when the vials were almost full he would cry out, wail at the top of his lungs, but still purr. He breaks my heart.