Calling Foul!

A reckless abuse of power

Spiggitz the Cat: "Feline Charles Bukowski“

Growing up with a lot of health problems, poetry always brought me a great deal of comfort. I mean, it allowed me to explore and expel my own inner pain and soar in ways that I couldn't physically.

Not that I could soar even if I was healthy, I mean, that's ridiculous, I couldn't do that. 

Cats don't—cats don't soar.

From The Poetry Foundation. I couldn't identify the poet.

After multiple trips in the hated carrier, I barricade myself in my fortress.

The Back Story

Last summer, Dr S decides my thyroxine levels are a smidge too high for her taste. She prescribes methimazole, which I like well enough. The round, pink, candy-like pills are easy to swallow. The extra attention from the attendant doesn’t go amiss.

A few weeks into treatment, I develop an ear infection. The ear drops I receive to treat it are super annoying but, again, I receive lashings of TLC.

Just as I start to feel better, my body takes another beating. By the time the attendant returns from work one day, I feel so miserable that I park myself in the kitty carrier. You know how much I hate it.

This is a hard memory to relive - those days in the hospital were harrowing.

Off to the hospital we go. There follow several days of torture, away from the place I rule, trapped in a cage, poked, prodded, scanned, given inappropriate foods that make me sick, nobody to clean my tail when I poop all over it. Then, FINALLY one night, the attendant researches adverse reactions to methimazole.

Less frequently reported, but serious side effects of methimazole include:

…severely low level of neutrophils in the blood—neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, are part of the body’s immune system. They fight bacteria and other harmful substances. When there aren’t enough neutrophils in the blood, the cat is at greater risk for developing a dangerous infection.

- from Hyperthyroidism in Cats—Two FDA-Approved Drugs Available to Treat It

To say the attendant is irate is an understatement. She orders the hospital to take me off the medication, then brings me home as soon as my white blood count stabilizes. She spends hours grooming me and making things right again.

Heroic, you say? For someone who spent the better part of her career working in the biopharmaceutical industry, she reads the package insert after I suffer for 4 days?! It is a travesty but, because I have such a forgiving nature, I let this pass. For weeks afterwards, the attendant assuages her guilt by treating me like the prince I am.

Home from the hospital, there are no protests when I park myself in my favorite workday haunt.

Earlier This Month

It’s that time of year again. My annual physical. Dr S doesn’t like the fact that I’ve lost weight. My thyroxine levels have crept higher. “We can try administering methimazole through the transdermal route,” she says. Mercy of mercies, the attendant crosses her arms and says a firm NO. “Radioiodine therapy is the gold standard for cats,” says Dr S. “Hmmm,” the attendant responds.

One of Dr S’s recommendations is excellent. “Monitor his food intake.” And so, the attendant sets a bowl by her desk when she works from home, brings my meals to the couch or the bedroom, wherever we are at the moment. I. LOVE. THIS.

What I don’t appreciate are repeated attempts to collect bodily fluids. I do not provide a urine sample during the vet visit. My prerogative, I think.

The Last Straw

Two weeks later, the attendant brings a litter box, food and water bowls into her bedroom one night and shuts the door. I lie on the bed and watch the proceedings. Tabby is super jealous. She sits outside, yelling loudly, scratching at the door. After about 30 minutes of this, the attendant lets her in.

When I visit the litter box later, I find it has little plastic pellets instead of my preferred clay granules. I show my displeasure by scrabbling in it as loudly as possible, scattering polymer beads all over the bathroom floor. Tabby sits in the bedroom, looking on in horror-stricken silence. She gives the litter pan a wide berth. I repeat the intense litter box rummaging several more times through the night. Each time, the attendant rushes up to see the action. Voyeurism, ugh!

The next morning, I am placed in the carrier. What is happening?!? We travel to the vet, AGAIN. They forcibly extract a urine sample. Fortunately, the technician is gentle and we are home in a few minutes.

Back home, the attendant clears up the litter in the bathroom and finds the sample I deposited in the tray. There’s a weak apology for the oversight. One totally unnecessary trip to the vet. Hmmph!

Then, horror of horrors. There I am, minding my own business when two unwanted arms bundle me back into the pet carrier. Two vet visits in one day?! At least this time we go somewhere close to home. The place smells pleasant and is very quiet. Dr P and technicians are super nice. Still, I did not sign up for two traumatic experiences in an 8-hour cycle so I express my disapproval very loudly all the way home.

Retribution

Next morning, I strengthen my remonstrance by throwing up a really smelly mess. I really, really want fiber and TLC but I hide. The attendant looks everywhere for me. Finally, I walk around swishing a pootie-bedecked tail and protest loudly when it is removed.

Tabby mauls a chili plant and regurgitates the leaves in the bedroom.

When Tabby does something naughty, she often sits under a table and tries hard to look cute.

Tabby gets in on the game a few days later. She deposits a bright green pellet by the attendant’s bed one morning. When the attendant goes into the kitchen, she finds the leaves of a chili plant tastefully shredded.

David Attenborough talking about the wonder of birdsong. What could be sweeter?

A Half-Hearted Atonement

Instead of switching on her cop shows, murder mysteries, period dramas or British comedy shows, the attendant turns on David Attenborough’s Wonder of Song. She tries hard to appease me and regain my favor.

Showbiz

When I feel poorly, I am allowed unrestricted desk-time during the workday. I offer walk-on cameos at the attendant’s work meetings. Her colleagues LOVE me. When I tire of the applause and recognition, I walk away.

The addition of Vitamin B12 to my daily fiber treat gives me a fresh bargaining chip.

Brokering a New Deal

The other positive move from Dr S - a new vitamin added to my morning regimen. An opportunity to renegotiate the fiber contract. I refuse to drink the fiber treat from the bowl. Go back to the dropper, I insist.

Quality Declines Again

The guilt trip does not last long. We slide slowly back to the old, lackadaisical ways. When I start the run-away-from-fiber ritual, then squat, waiting to be picked up, the attendant watches, then walks away guffawing.

Tabby is no help. Since her annual vet visit, she gets a hydration supplement. She thinks it’s a treat and laps it up. I sniff at it. Yuck!

I turn away when the attendant finally remembers a broken promise.

This morning, I am promised all-day sit-on-a$$ time. No chores, I’m told. Despite multiple complaints, the attendant spends the morning cooking VEGETABLES and other dishes that I don’t like. I rediscover a perch I had forgotten for a couple of years. When she comes with her words of contrition, I turn my face away.

She finally settles down on the couch for a bit. I take my rightful place on her lap and we nap. It isn’t long before she pops up again and heads outdoors to tend to her garden.

As if it isn’t bad enough that she abandons couch time for the garden, here the attendant takes a picture of my disdain.