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Sorry, Roxy

The past couple of weeks have difficult ones for Roxy, our fourth cat of five and the youngest of the two tortoiseshells. Normally a sprightly little thing with a decent appetite and a love affair with the little box, she had gone noticeably off her feed a few weeks ago and had become somewhat lethargic. She had started having a tough time urinating in the box. She would go - or try to go - three or four times in half an hour or less and manage no more than to dot the litter with a couple of moist spots. Additionally and perhaps most disturbingly, she was drinking much less water than before.

M suspected cystitis, and rightly so. Our trusted vet at Kingsbury Animal Hospital prescribed an antibiotic that we were mostly diligent in administering. We were less effective in getting required urine samples for the vet to analyze; Roxy wasn’t exactly Niagara Falls. Despite our failings, the cat seemed to get better for a while, but then relapsed. We became so concerned that I took her in to Kingsbury without an appointment on the Monday before last (relative to this writing, of course).

Tough day for little Roxy, but she was very brave and a good patient. The moment of truth came when the doc manually expressed urine from the poor dear (with me holding onto Roxy by scruff and tail), but the kitty did me proud.

Our homework assignments involved more antibiotics, syringes of painkiller medication, and a bag of saline solution with accompanying large and sharp needles. She would need infusions of the solution over the next four days. The very considerate nurse was willing to give Roxy a couple of hundred milliliters of solution to get her started, but I said that I wanted to do it. M had had lots of practice at this during her time with her beloved Boonie, who had suffered from kidney disease; I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t have to be the designated cat lancer. Roxy did not utter so much as a whimper of complaint when I inserted the (apologies) big fucking needle into a fold of the skin between her shoulder blades.

As it turned out, Roxy didn’t complain then because she was petrified at being at the vet. Back at home, she was much more aware when M and I got her into position for the prescribed needling, and it hurt her each time I inserted the needle, and she let me know that it hurt.

But she was still very brave, all the same.

It was just three days of administering solution, three sessions with the big needle, and it was all for Roxy’s benefit, of course. But I felt terrible about it just the same, and have apologized for it - to the cat - every day since. Every so often she comes over, walking across the counter of the table where she has no business being, and bonks me in the forehead with her hard little skull, and lets me know that it’s all okay.

Yeah. I really am (apologies) fucking sappy that way.

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