Taking Care of Cats

It is more important to be able to arrange for tasks to be done well, than to do them yourself, though sometimes you still feel frustrated or even like a failure. OK, so I'm trying to sum up in a nice neat sentence what it's been like these past few days, and perhaps to make myself sound wise as well.

The story begins about 2 weeks ago, when one of our cats, Shakespeare, was limping. We took a look at his declawed front paws and realized that a couple of nails were regrowing. And we looked at his brother, Marlowe's, feet as well, and the next weekend took both off to the vet. She recommended surgery, to remove the new growth, and to do a teeth cleaning as well since they were anesthetized anyway. We have had Shakes and Marlowe about 2 years, and according to the Humane Society, they are now about 11 years old. No idea who did the declawing or when, but whoever did it was incompetent and did not really remove all the nail. Apparently there are several possible procedures, some better than others.

A week ago they both had the surgery, and in the end the vet had to go in and essentially totally redo the declawing on every single nail. 2 of Shakes' nails were infected. One nail had regrown, broken off, regrown again, broken again and was trying to regrow for the 3rd time. The vet said sometimes it was hard to get a hold of the little shards left to be able to cut around them and get them out. It was a rough surgery, and they stayed 2 nights at the vet's so they would move around as little as possible and she could observe them more. I went in to visit after the first night (admittedly more to make myself feel better than to reassure the cats) and talked to the vet. I wouldn't say she was close to tears, but clearly it was an emotional experience for her to do this extensive a declaw surgery on older cats. She was especially mad at this unknown vet. I suspect that if declawing were made illegal that both this vet and I would support the legislation.

I won't declaw a cat myself, but I know our house is a safe place for declawed cats. We'll never let them outside intentionally. So, if a cat or pair of bonded cats at the Humane Society seems a good fit for us, and happens to be declawed, we'll take them. And we have 4 cats now. No more!!

Anyway, back to my story. Shakes and Marlowe came home 2 days later, with bruised and stitched up toes, cones on their heads to keep them from biting at their toes, pain patches that made them loopy, antibiotics, and instructions to use special litter made of newspaper. We were told to keep them from jumping down off anything, even from a chair. The weight on their front paws as they jump is enough to split their paws open. So we cleared one room of furniture, put pillows and blankets on the floor, and barricaded the windowsill so they can't jump up on it. Everything is in there - catbox, food, water, beds - enough to keep them alive, and bored.

The pain patches came off last Friday. Their hair had been shaved and a small 2 inch square of plastic was firmly stuck to the skin. Even with a lubricant, those did NOT come off easily, and the resulting spots looked raw and must have hurt. Yesterday we took off the cones, and today is the last day of the antibiotics. Perhaps Thursday or Friday we'll see how they do jumping, and Saturday we go back to the vet. If the stitches haven't dissolved and fallen out, hopefully she'll remove them. The paws all look ok, but Shakespeare is limping as bad as ever. We hope this is because of the stitches and bruising, but it's hard to tell still. Then after that we can reintroduce them to the rest of the house.

All of this is the cat side of the story. 2 kitties who should never have had to have surgery, went through a very painful experience, followed by about 2 weeks of isolation while healing. Hopefully at the end of this coming weekend it'll all be over.

It has not been easy for me either. Sure, I haven't been in pain. But it's been my job, and my husband Jim's job, to take care of them. They are our babies right now, and when your kids are hurting you want to care for them, to comfort them as best you can. And I have had a hard time of it.

Anyone who has owned cats knows that most cats don't much like to be picked up, or to be locked up. Every cat I've ever owned will trot away from someone who seems bent on catching them, if not break into a run. So, catching a cat usually involves a little trickery and sometimes a bit of speed. If there are cat carriers in sight, the project is even harder. No cats like cat carriers, because that means CARS.

We've had 2 cats confined to a room with no furniture and special litter, and then 2 cats free to roam the rest of the house. Going into and out of the room means keeping someone from getting through the door with you, both directions. My wheelchair makes it really hard for me to get into a room without opening the door wide enough for a cat to escape. So for me to visit them, someone else has to be there as well, to help lock up the 2 trying to get in the sickroom into another room, and to hold back the potential escapees. And while I am pretty good at popping a pill in a cat's mouth, I'm not at all good at catching and picking up any cat. They move too quick for me. By the time I have my wheelchair up next to one of them, lock the brakes and get ready, they are 2 feet away, if not under a table or sofa! And even if I DO get a grip, only one of our cats is light enough, for me to lift one handed.

I'm a high level para, T1/2 for those who know what that means. So, I have good hand muscles, and most of my arm muscles, some shoulder muscles, but no trunk or back muscles. So if I bend over I need one arm to pull me back up. Anything I lift has to be with one hand. When my kids were little I would dress them in Oshkosh overalls so that I could grab the back of the overalls with one hand and lift them up. (advertising pitch here - Oshkosh were the only really reliably strong overalls for that job. Others with buttons on the front weren't safe, the buttons would pop off as I was lifting) Needless to say, I taught my boys to climb on my lap as soon as they could! But lifting a 10 pound cat who is not wearing overalls is tricky. They can't be too wiggly, and when you put your hand under their rib cage, their weight has to be pretty evenly distributed between head end and tail end. Only one of my cats fits this bill, Marlowe, and even he doesn't always cooperate, he is a cat after all. 2 are too heavy on the tail end, one is just too wiggly.

The cats came home from the vet, and Jim and I would go in together to tend to them. One day he took care of them alone in the morning before he went to work because I wasn't up early enough. And after work we both went in, sat with them a while, chatting with each other, petting the kitties. Marlowe spent every minute on my lap, his head tucked under my armpit. (Who knows why he does this, but he loves to squish his head into things. His brother does it too, but not as much.) It felt good to comfort them.

But Jim had to go on a business trip starting Sunday night, and is still away, a total of 4 days. And I've had to hire a cat sitter, and limit my visits to just twice a day when help is here. And this is where it's been hard for me.

I know the cats are ok, eating, pooping, sleeping, healing. Sometimes I hear them crying, and banging on the door. They always make noise right after I get up in the morning, when I feed the 2 'free' cats. I time it so I get up only about half an hour before the cat sitter comes, so they aren't upset too long. I imagine they are thinking that they are missing breakfast, and I feel guilty. And if I'm home all day, at some point later I'll hear them again, and there's nothing I can do to comfort them. If I go to the door and talk through the door it seems to make them cry more. Try to put yourself in my place, and imagine how it might feel to hear your pet crying and calling for you, and know that if only you didn't have a wheelchair you could comfort them. You're torn between wanting to leave the house, and wanting to listen in case it gets worse.

Actually I've hired a cat sitter couple. Sometimes the man comes, sometimes the woman, both are good. I'm sure it feels odd to them to cat-sit when the owner is home. Usually they take care of animals when their owners are on vacation. In a way, I've been really glad to have them, especially the woman - she works in our vet's office and is very knowledgeable. Shakes was limping badly Sunday and we were close to taking him to the vet's again, but she came and looked at his feet and reassured us. She's helped decide when to take off the collars, and offered more pain meds if we thought it would help Shakes. So, I'm not really sorry to have to hire her.

But at the same time, I wish I didn't have to hire someone to do this task. An able bodied person wouldn't. I'm grateful that the $30 a day isn't painful. And when we got the cats I was fully aware that there were some things that I couldn't do, that Jim would have to do more. So, I'm not really surprised that I need help. The timing was just unfortunate, that he had a business trip during the recovery week. And I know the cats really are fine. I just would like to spend more time with them, hold them in my lap and just sit with them.

And it's an echo of a larger story of what having a disability means. What is more important - doing a job, or being able to organize a job to be done the way you want it to be done? If you can't do a project, is it really yours? How will others see you, especially those on the other end of your care?

I know that the first few years after my injury, I went through a strong "I can do it myself" phase. (Jim will tell a story about the first time he interacted with me at college. He was trying to hold a door for me and I blasted him for it. I don't even remember the incident, but he sure does. We didn't know each other then, but like my last post pointed out, he remembered me a year later when we did meet.) But somewhere along the line, I realized, and I think most people with disabilities realize, that there are limits to what we can do, and that getting to the eventual goal is more important than some of the means to get there. I would even contend that those people who stay stuck in an "I can do it myself" mode are more likely to burn out, and be rather angry people.

All the same, there are times when it hurts. I remember one time when David was little (David being my oldest son, now 25) and he wanted to kick a soccer ball around outside. It's not much fun when there is only yourself to play with. I would have given anything to be able to kick a ball with him. Or later, when Stephen's (Stephen being my younger son, now 23) soccer team had kids vs parents games - I would have loved to play then too. But I'm never going to play soccer, and instead I found them teams, and some years was the team manager, going to most of their games. I doubt that either of my sons would say I wasn't involved in their soccer life, or other activities for that matter, with the exception perhaps of Scouts. And they might say too, that they wished I could kick a ball also. But it was ok. Overall it was ok.

Not long ago, I tried to comfort a friend who had recently adopted a baby from China. She was in the hospital, laid up for several months, and it was tearing her apart that others were caring for her new daughter to the point where she thought her daughter wouldn't see her as mom. I am really condensing the problem here, I know. But my point is, that because she was the one telling everyone else what to do, the one remembering which foods give her daughter the runs, which detergent to wash the clothes with.... her daughter will know, in the end, who her mom is. That day, my friend was slightly comforted, as much because my kids are older and doing well, as because she believed my words. I bet that today, months later, as she's regained her place as mom, that she understands better already. I've known quadriplegics who were good parents, and they needed a lot more assistance than I did. It's in the management, and the caring.

I'm not sure my cats really appreciate that I know which foods they like and that keep them healthy. Food is kind of magical for them. It just appears. But I'm sure they know the smell of my armpit, and when stressed they know it's a comfortable place to be. So, while I am frustrated for a few days, we'll get through it ok. Just a couple more days.