My first baby

Before I had the boy, there was the cat. We’ll call him N.

N. came into my life as a loudly mewling presence outside my window at around 2 a.m. I wasn’t going to go wandering behind my apartment complex at that hour, so I forced myself to go back to sleep. The next morning, I discovered my neighbor, a cat owner, had been adventurous enough to retrieve the pathetic little creature. The little orange tabby cat was pitiful, and covered with fleas, and could meow at the top of his lungs. I’d been thinking about getting a cat anyway, so when I discovered he was headed to the pound, for certain euthenasia (he was too young to adopt), I decided to take him in. Just a few weeks old, he’d apparently been abandoned by his mother (surely an inner city crackhead cat) and he would have died from his flea bites, I found out from the vet later.

Over those first few weeks, I had to come home from work every few hours and feed him cat formula with a bottle. I had a camping trip planned, so I took him along with me — I couldn’t leave him — and he slept with me in my tent. He was my baby…

Then he became my adolescent, and my adult (but always my baby), and he traveled with me from Houston, to New York, to California. He sat on my lap, slept with me at night, and comforted me when I needed it. Somewhere along there, my husband (allergic to cats) came into my life, and the boy (attention hog) came along. N. has been neglected far too much recently.

And now, he’s at the veterinarian’s office awaiting surgery, and I’ve been crying on and off. In part, it’s because I feel the burden of loving this cat is all on me, and I’ve been falling down on the job. My husband can’t pet him because he’s allergic, and my son is mostly jealous (and also scared) of him. But he’s a very loveable and sweet cat, and he’s going through such a hard time right now. I guess by writing about this, I’m hoping my vast Internet audience will send a little bit of love N.’s way. He needs it just now.

UPDATE: Just left N. at the emergency vet center. The first vet said he came through the operation fine, but they thought he should have overnight monitoring, so asked me to take him to the emergency pet place (where they have someone on duty 24 hours). When we arrived and they took his vitals, they said he was in shock; they couldn’t get a blood pressure reading; and his temperature was 10 degrees below what they would expect, even given his being post-operative. The prognosis was pretty shaky. This after the other place had led me to believe he was doing OK. I guess things changed…

Before, I left, though, I got to go in to say good night, and stroke his little head (between fits of bawling). The technician there said they were able to get a blood pressure reading and it was better, so things were looking a little up. Here’s hoping. It’s going to be a long night. Thanks for your kind thoughts, Mia and Shauna.