I was in the kitchen when it all began. Kitty, my 21 year old cat, jumped off the bed and skittered into the living room. I heard her yowl, then thrash along the hardwood floor. She was having a seizure of major proportions. I guess she sensed where I was and came crashing into the kitchen, where she fell on the floor by her food dishes. Writhing with spasms, crying, pissing, drooling and flailing her paws until one claw from her right front foot hooked on a back paw. I kept talking in a calm voice, “You’ll be okay, Kitty.” When the spasms lessened, I unhooked her paws and stroked her quivering body, “You’ll be okay, Kitty. You’ll bounce back.”
I sat with her for about an hour, ocassionaly getting up to grap a paper towel to mop up the mess. I did leave her to call my friends Jacob and Ever to tell them I couldn’t come over to install a phone jack “Kitty Crisis”, and a bit later to get the beer I had in my car. Oh ya, I wasn’t going to face this alone, Mr. Guinness was going to join me.
Eventually she tried and then successfully stood up. Then just stared, looking in one direction for a while, then another. I kept talking, petting a little (she is not big on being petted) and just being there. When she tried to walk I was reminded of a documentary I’ve seen several times about the Kalahari desert. Have you seen it? The one with the wildebeasts that get some insect in their ears and walk around in circles until they starve? Well, that was Kitty’s next act. She pirouetted in a most bedraggled way around the kitchen. I thought maybe one leg was broken. Then she sat. And stared. And I moved to the living room. I kept checking on her, sitting and staring. Then she walked into the living room and gave her unusual meow meaning I’m hungry.
She’s weak, but okay.
I don’t know if there is any truth to nine lives for cats, but with two of these type episodes, one encounter with the truck fan belt, and a nasty tumor, by my counting she still has five more to go.
YAY
