Never let it be said that a cat can be caught unawares. Deep in sleep, his body a rag-doll pile of fur and his breathing deep with dreams, I knelt down and tried to capture a photo of Vazra as he slept.
At no time did I have the element of surprise on my side. The moment I set the camera on the floor, one of his eyes opened and watched me carefully through half-shut lids.
I chanced upon Grendel and Kako huddled together in their typical lover’s embrace. With them resting in the middle of the bed on a sunny afternoon, I knelt down and leaned near them to snap a few photos.
As you can see, Kako immediately took umbrage. I had invaded their space and had pushed myself into what apparently had been a moment meant only for the two of them and no other.
“I know you ain’t looking at my man!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide and fixed upon me with a predator’s steely gaze. “I got two words for you, Daddy: PUH! LEASE! I know you a sissy boy and all, but you got to find you a man elsewhere, ’cause he’s all mine!”
I assure you she wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to gouge my eyes out and pick her teeth with my bones, at least when it comes to Grendel, her man.
So I backed away slowly. . .
[note this is the first photo in which you can see her one white whisker]
Grendel made his annual pilgrimage to the vet this morning and returned home with a good report, not to mention a medical hangover from two vaccinations (his three-year upper respiratory booster was due).
After working well into this morning, getting up and getting him there on time presented a major challenge. That’s because I’m still not functional at five in the evening, so imagine the mental fog after jumping out of bed following only a few hours of sleep, and that after being up for almost 24 hours. But we accomplished the task nonetheless.
Like the good boy he is, Grendel walked casually into the carrier the moment I put him down in front of it. He’s such a gentle soul, easy going and without concern as long as I’m with him.
Due to his age and overall health issues, the doctor wants to begin a stricter checkup regimen starting with his annual visit next year. The systemic steroids he takes will likely cause problems with longterm use, so it’s necessary for us to pay special attention to the possibility of diabetes, kidney failure, liver damage, and the like. Such is the curse of ensuring quality of life; quantity becomes a secondary concern.
His precarious fitness notwithstanding, the vet gave him gold stars. She even remarked on how strong and clear his lungs sounded despite the acute asthma and a stressful visit to the evil place. His heart sounds good and his temperature is perfect, and as he always is, he was a good boy who only got a little grumpy when it come time to violate him with the thermometer. He also became a wee bit disagreeable during the abdominal exam, but that’s to be expected given his intestinal ailment.
Once we got home, treats and play poured forth like water from a fountain. After an hour or so of activity, however, he promptly crashed on the love seat. I guess the vaccinations finally made their presence known.
Kazon received a beaming report from the doctor this morning as he suffered through his annual exam.
“He wears his weight well,” the vet said, then she continued by explaining he hasn’t a single bit of extra weight on him. He’s a large cat as I’ve pointed out before, and she was especially pleased with how solid he is.
Aside from his weight, which fluctuated a bit last year and warranted extra attention between then and now, she lavished upon him all sorts of praise for his healthy condition. Teeth look good. Heart and lungs sound perfect. Muscle tone couldn’t be better. Temperature is right where it should be. She pranced through a litany of comments, each of them an indication of a feline with no significant concerns.
Once she had completed her exam, she took a moment to talk to me further about why he can never again have vaccinations. Of course, I asked since not getting them makes him susceptible to dangerous ailments.
“If you remember the last time we gave them to him a few years ago,” she explained, “his reaction was critical. Within hours, his temperature had risen to a dangerous level and he showed signs of anaphylaxis. He’d also shown a steady ramping up of the same during previous years. That means his body was trying harder and harder to fight what it sees as an infection. Since immune systems remember what they’ve done in the past, each time we introduced those disease proteins into his body made it think it had to respond more strongly than it had before. You can see where that was leading. Considering how high his fever went last time, another round would probably push him well beyond his own body’s ability to withstand the assault.”
She went on to tell me that age also played a part in the drama. All bodies weaken with age after they pass a certain point of development. In this case, a cat advancing in years would be unable to withstand the increasing severity of such an immune response. It might also create systemic autoimmune disease, a situation in which the immune system whips itself into a frenzy and begins attacking healthy tissue.
I shook my head in acknowledgment of the problem, and immediately I remembered what the emergency vet had told me after Kazon’s last vaccinations, when he ended up on IV fluids and under constant monitoring for hours. His acute febrile state would only worsen with additional exposure to the vaccines. Since his last episode had been so dangerous, it’s likely any additional contact of that nature would induce a critical ague that would permanently injure his internal organs, if not cause death. Although he hadn’t explained why that was true, he had at least told me what I already suspected: Kazon simply could not be vaccinated any more.
With that discussion over, this morning’s appointment ended with a final word of warning about keeping Kazon inside and not exposing him to other animals. I assured her that would not be a problem.
Although he spent the entire time being a pathetic baby, a docile bit of putty who wouldn’t get more than a breath away from me, he returned to his normal self the moment we arrived home. He enjoyed a treat for being such a good boy, and now he’s sleeping off the stressful event with a welcome morning nap.
