An Update on Emily

Emily the cat got her feeding tube removed Wednesday morning, leaving behind a round wound that the vet recommended we allow to heal in the open air. She has been reveling in the outdoors, rumors of the lurking neighborhood fox be damned, and seems pretty much back to her old demanding self with many requests for treats, entrance or exit through front or back doors, petting, and laptime - all this punctuated by luxurious naps on various beds and couches throughout the house. She is none the worse for wear after her ordeal except for furless patches on the side of her neck, belly, and one front ankle which all suffered various indignities during her medical treatment. I am very grateful for her recovery, and attempting to finish out administration of the "healthy liver" pills the vet recommended, with little cooperation from Emily herself. "A cat will do what it wants when it wants, and there's not a thing you can do about it." - Frank Perkins.

House Cat

Emily the Cat has recently starred in a feline version of “House,” which makes her a “House Cat.” For the uninitiated, “House” is a television medical drama that my daughter and are in the habit of watching on DVD each Sunday night. Dr. Gregory House, the star of the show, is an irascible, irreverent yet brilliant diagnostician, obnoxious to patients, manipulative with friends, addicted to pain pills, lacking in people skills and obsessed with solving complex diagnostic puzzles at nearly any price. He is surrounded by beautiful, intelligent women who are inexplicably attracted to him, of course.

Each House episode involves desperate diagnostic measures, treatments that are stabs in the dark, fairly gruesome and graphic scenes of medical mayhem, patients being resurrected from near death with those round things they put on your heart that make you jerk up into the air, and at least one MRI, spinal tap and/or brain biopsy through a tiny hole drilled in the head.

I plunged into the somewhat less complex world of veterinary medicine the other day after Emily stopped eating, becoming even tinier than she already is in only a few days, and seeming close to death. Blood tests revealed high bilirubin, a sign that the liver isn’t functioning right. The doctor (an affable fellow with no resemblance to House) recommended a liver biopsy, which he unceremoniously extracted through a small puncture in Emily’s abdomen and sent off for tests. Meanwhile Emily had to stay in the hospital with a feeding tube to keep from starving to death while we waited for the lab results.

The results were better than feared—no cancer or hepatitis. Pancreatitis, already subsiding and treatable. But the feeding tube has to stay in for the time being, and with Emily coming home, it would be my job to fill the syringe with soupy brown (but nutritious) cat food and meds four times a day and squirt it into the little feeding tube protruding from the side of Emily’s neck like a perverted periscope.

Emily is understandably irritated by this invasion and periodically hides under a bed at feeding time. But so far we are getting along okay and I am hoping she will start eating on her own soon because I would be sadder than I can describe here to see her go. Stay tuned.

Emily the Cat, or YACPB (Yet Another Cute Pet Blog)

Emily the cat is the 11-year-old surviving sister of Charlotte the cat--Charlotte of the mangled foot due to curiosity about an exercise bicycle in full spin. Emily was left behind when Charlotte died a couple of years ago, and her eccentricity has increased exponentially now that she is the last cat left.

Cats are not supposed to be needy or lonely. But Emily is. She sits expectantly by my side as I read the paper or work on the computer, awaiting the chance to climb up and drape herself over my right shoulder, purring all the while. She can get a little testy when I set her back down, and she’s not above a quick angry growl and baring of the teeth to make her feelings clear.

Emily the cat misses my children, who have thoughtlessly gone off to college and left her behind. They would let her sleep on or near their heads each night, purring loudly into their ears. I am not as liberal.

Every morning at precisely 9 a.m., my husband (who claims to want nothing to do with Emily the cat and assures me that there will never be another cat, ever) prepares a special treat for her in the kitchen. Although the treat no longer comes in cans but in plastic pouches, the sound of the can opener brings Emily running, certain it is treat time.

Emily cries. A lot. She cries to be let in, and cries to be let out. She cries to be allowed into the pantry where there are surely mice, although she has never produced one. She stands in the echoing spiral staircase well and lets out long, drawn out yowls. She cries at 4 a.m., certain that if she can only be freed into the darkness that hunting opportunities will abound.* She cries to be let back in at 4:03 a.m. having realized that it is 7 degrees Fahrenheit outside and snowing steadily.

If it takes awhile to rouse a human to open the door and let her back in on a cold, cold night, she will make staccato comments as she trots inside: “Rowr. Rowr-rowr-rowr-rowr-rowr.” Her message is clear. And my role is clear: to obey.

*I fear that she is more likely to end up the hunted rather than the huntress, since mountain lions, coyotes and foxes have all been spotted in our South Boulder neighborhood.