Atticus
My cat, Atticus, is sick. I feel guilty, although the vet reassured me that it's probably not my fault at all. Last Friday, I gave him a little bit of roast beef from my sandwich. An hour later, he started throwing up. (But I also gave my other two cats a bite, and they are fine.) I took him to the vet on Saturday morning, which put him in misery. He is an incredibly docile Persian cat, so I never even put him in a cat carrier. While at the vet, I just carry him in my arms and he buries his head in my chest. This time, though, he was really miserable and howled. The vet gave him a shot to help his tummy, then medicine to take every day. He reassured me that some animals just have very sensitive stomachs.
But he's still pathetic, and I just discovered pee and a little bit of kitty throw-up on the floor. It's obvious that it probably was not the roast beef. But that's not really why I was feeling guilty anyway. See, Atticus is my "special needs" animal. I'm sure I've written about him before, so sorry if this is redundant. When he was born, even though he was technically a "show cat," he was the runt, so he was out of the running from the start. Then his mother bit his tail instead of his umbilical cord, so he has a bent tail. When he was two weeks old, he was bitten on the shoulder by a brown recluse spider. His breeder managed to save his life, but he has a permanent bent arm, and therefore a pronounced limp. The breeder knew that there were no show days ahead of him, so she found some sappy woman to take pity on him and adopt him. Me.
Since then, he has developed a heart murmur, constant runny eyes, a fear of pooping in the litter box and the inability to properly groom himself. He is the sweetest, weirdest cat in the world, but sometimes when I am cleaning up his poo (always an inch from the litter box), I wish I didn't have to deal with him anymore. And the days when I have to give him a bath because of his recurrent poo problem on his back end, I wonder how much longer a cat with a heart murmur will live.
So now, when he's sick, and still pukey, and vaguely lethargic, I feel really guilty for thinking those things. I know that everyone thinks stuff like that when they get frustrated, and my thinking it does not mean that I am writing some cosmic death certificate. I don't really want him to die. But, ugh. Guilt.
But he's still pathetic, and I just discovered pee and a little bit of kitty throw-up on the floor. It's obvious that it probably was not the roast beef. But that's not really why I was feeling guilty anyway. See, Atticus is my "special needs" animal. I'm sure I've written about him before, so sorry if this is redundant. When he was born, even though he was technically a "show cat," he was the runt, so he was out of the running from the start. Then his mother bit his tail instead of his umbilical cord, so he has a bent tail. When he was two weeks old, he was bitten on the shoulder by a brown recluse spider. His breeder managed to save his life, but he has a permanent bent arm, and therefore a pronounced limp. The breeder knew that there were no show days ahead of him, so she found some sappy woman to take pity on him and adopt him. Me.
Since then, he has developed a heart murmur, constant runny eyes, a fear of pooping in the litter box and the inability to properly groom himself. He is the sweetest, weirdest cat in the world, but sometimes when I am cleaning up his poo (always an inch from the litter box), I wish I didn't have to deal with him anymore. And the days when I have to give him a bath because of his recurrent poo problem on his back end, I wonder how much longer a cat with a heart murmur will live.
So now, when he's sick, and still pukey, and vaguely lethargic, I feel really guilty for thinking those things. I know that everyone thinks stuff like that when they get frustrated, and my thinking it does not mean that I am writing some cosmic death certificate. I don't really want him to die. But, ugh. Guilt.
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