{"id":100,"date":"2006-05-06T09:43:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-06T09:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sbw.webfactional.com\/blog\/?p=100"},"modified":"2006-05-06T09:43:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-06T09:43:00","slug":"100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/100\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

After over $400 in tests and a fair amount of heartache and scratches on my arms, the vet has determined that Fezzik, my sweet little 14-year-old cat, is in the beginning stages of kidney failure. He’s now on antibiotics and a potassium supplement, but the worst part is the subcutaneous fluids I have to give him once a day.<\/p>\n

I used to have this terrible fear not of needles, but of people sticking needles in me. There are a number of terrific stories around my passing out whenever a needle pierced my skin (including the time I passed out with my pants down after getting an antibiotic shot in the rear to cure strep throat) but when I applied to Peace Corps, I decided I’d get over the fear. And I did, with lots of yoga and therapy and deep breathing. The last time they took blood for the last bout of tests, I even chatted with the guy while he was doing it. But this doesn’t mean I’m fond of needles. So yesterday, when for the first time I had to push that little piece of metal into my dear cat’s skin, I almost threw up. And he was so patient and sweet- I was the one squirming and battling the urge to run and hide under the bed.<\/p>\n

Kidney failure does not “get better”. It only gets worse. And it seems like not nearly enough time has passed since I went through the same kind of thing with Zooey (http:\/\/www.mlwms.com\/blog\/arch\/2003_09_21_index.html). Zooey had been with me since high school; Fezzik been my travel companion since early college. He’s lived in Cedar Rapids, IA, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City, New York City, Brooklyn, Napa Valley, and a number of smaller places in between. I only have one close friend who I’ve known longer than I’ve known Fezzik. And I don’t know what is worse- thinking about his death, or watchiing him live uncomfortably.<\/p>\n

I know I’m going to be faced with some difficult decisions: how can I possibly afford the $300 ultrasound they say he needs? How am I going to pay both his vet bills, and the many hundreds of dollars I owe for my recent string of UTIs? How will I know if what I am doing for him is working? And when will I know that it is “time”?<\/p>\n

Ian and Tessa had a terrific vet that said that pets should be “happy happy happy dead”. I agree with this, but it’s possible that with Zooey, I waited a little too long. I think there was at least a few days that I was thinking about my own “happy” rather than his. I don’t want to do that with Fezzik. <\/p>\n

But for now, at least once a day, he is still purring. Indeed, he woke me up this morning to be petted, and that means that there is still a lot of life left in him. I think that will be the litmus that I use: as long as Fezzik still needs and responds to love, it means he wants to stick around. I’ll just take it a day at a time. <\/p>\n

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After over $400 in tests and a fair amount of heartache and scratches on my arms, the vet has determined that Fezzik, my sweet little 14-year-old cat, is in the beginning stages of kidney failure. He’s now on antibiotics and a potassium supplement, but the worst part is the subcutaneous fluids I have to give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlwms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}