The Meezer

[mallorys_camera]

The Meezer is sick. Some kind of urinary tract infection.

In Freeville when the Meezer developed a chemical pneumonia after getting sprayed in the face by a skunk, I was able to nurse her back to health by syringe-feeding her and dosing her with tetracycline, which PetSmart sells for cleaning fish tanks.

Another time, she got quite the laceration on her skull. A fight with another cat? A fight with a bear? That time I sutured the wound with heavy-duty thread and smeared it with bacitracin. It healed just fine.

But I don’t know what to do for a UTI. And though I’m very fond of the Meezer, I’m not inclined to pony up $300 and probably more on vet bills. For one thing, I don’t have $300 to spare. For another, 9 million human children living in low-income families just got their health insurance yanked when Congress let the CHIP program expire without refunding it.

I get that the vast pet food industry would like us to think of our cats as “Fur Babies,” but I don’t think of mine that way. They’re not babies. They’re cats.

Except for wanting to pee obsessively and only peeing very small amounts, she seems perfectly fine. She’s not lethargic. Her appetite is healthy. She’s drinking the normal amount of water. She’s grooming herself. She’s spending a lot of time grooming those nether parts.

This makes me wonder whether she incurred some sort of mechanical irritation to those nether parts. The symptoms came on quite suddenly after she’d spent the morning outside. So, I dunno. Poison ivy?

Also, she’s as mean as ever – the Meezer is not one of your cuddly, adorable cats. In fact, a vet at the Ithaca ASPCA – a no-kill shelter – once told me that the Meezer was among the 10% of cats that they would probably put down. “She could never be adopted,” the vet said. “She’s too aggressive and violent with humans.”

The only reason I was able to nurse her back to health on those other two occasions was because she’d become so lethargic and ill that she couldn’t fight me.

Anyway, I have her in her carrier box in the middle of my study. That way I can watch her. I stocked the box with an old sweater, an old nightgown so she’d have a soft place to lie and even a garment to pee on if she felt so inclined.

It’s a very large carrier box and beyond a few plaintive yowls, she hasn’t really complained. She seems to like it, in fact. She seems to understand that it’s a safe space.

Lois Lane has put a Request for Home Cures out on the Hudson Valley Obsessive Cat Lady hotline.

And later on today, I will poke my head into the office of the vet who lives down the way. He was a pal of the Late Democratic Congressional Candidate, and when she and I met for lunch at the little Japanese restaurant next door to his office, he would often be lunching there, too, and would join us. Maybe he has some homecare suggestions. He’s a nice guy, an old hippie. I can’t imagine he would be too obnoxious on the Bring her in so we can make money off of it! front.

If she were a human, I would just be forcing huge quantities of slightly acidic fluids down her.

But you can’t do that with a cat.

The Meezer is 20 years old, so I’m well aware her days are numbered.

But while she’s enjoying her life – and for the most part, she does seem to be enjoying her life – I’m loath to give up on her.

Comments

[lethe1]

I think the Meezer would be deeply insulted if she heard that I call her "poor kitty". But as a human, I hate having UTIs, so I empathize.

Hope that someone comes up with a good home cure that can also be administered painlessly.

[mallorys_camera]

Ha, ha. Yes, the Meezer is the Queen Victoria of the feline world! She would be deeply displeased by the familiarity of "poor kitty."

She seems to be doing much better this evening -- no urinary frequency. So I am cautiously optimistic.