One of Those Days
I am very late getting my latest blog post out to you all. I apologizze. I have had a sick kitty and a few days off to spend with family. Reconnected over Roller Coasters at Hershey Park. I am roller coaster fanatic. AND Hershey Park has 14 of them! Of course I couldn’t get my family to ride all 14 of them. But we had fun on a swelteringly hot Pennsylvania day.
I spent last Monday trying to get a very scared very skittish kitty in to a cat carrier that is just a tad too small for him. Ricky loves his people which includes about 5 of us. Anyone else comes around and he hides. He has some very unique hiding places. He was terrified and scared and hid for about 8 hours. We had horrible storms come rolling in, so it was probably a good thing I couldn’t get him the cat carrier! Now, mind you, if you meet me on zoom Rick will be up front and center showing you all how adorable/handsome he is. He somehow knows you are on the other side of a screen. And who said cats aren’t smart
Tuesday I found a cardboard top load carrier and plunked his butt in it. He hated every second and was very vocal about telling me how much he hated every second of it. Over the years I quite taking him to the vet. Because:
I had to reschedule every appointment multiple times to get him there.
I was grieving the loss of my son and wrestling him in to a cat carrier that causes days of scared freaked out kitty was too much.
He’s an indoor cat so I rationalized it by saying he was too scared to ever leave the house and wouldn’t be seeing any other animals.
It took the vet assistant about 3.5 seconds to tell me he had horrible periodontal disease. The vet took out his 2 canines (fangs) that were hanging on by a thread, out gave him a long acting antibiotic. Thank goodness it was an injection and I don’t have to try to get him to take an antibiotic multiple times a day! They gave him a long acting pain medication and pain pills for when that wore off and a referral to a kitty dentist. She told me he would have to have all of his teeth extracted. And then handed me a huge bill and an estimate of $4,000-$5,000 for a tooth extraction. I had a totally ticked off cat. And was left wondering how I would ever get him to take pain medicine. I bought 5 different kinds of soft food to try to get him to eat and a brand new bigger top loading cat carrier for the next appointment.
I spent the night and next day feeling sorry for myself and my cat. What kind of a cat mom was I that I let his teeth rot out of his mouth? How did I not realize what was happening until he was drooling everywhere and had his tongue all jacked up trying to lick his teeth. This lead me down the rabbit hole. Should I even think about investing $5,000 in pulling all of his teeth. The cat is 12 years old. How do I take away his ability to eat crunchy food and cat treats. All while still trying to figure out how to give him pain medicine. See where this is going? I went from Bad cat mom to Bad mom in the space of about 30 minutes. What kind of mother was I that my son died at age 23?
I know I have the ability and the knowledge to change my thoughts. I have all the tools, but at that moment I wasn’t using any of them. UNTIL my BFF pointed out I was not a bad cat mom. Old cats get rotten teeth occasionally. I wasn’t a bad mom. Mike was an adult that got to make his own choices.
There are some days when when you know what is the right thing to do you choose not to do it. AND that is ok. I spent some time alone figuring out what I wanted to do. I spent a weekend trying to coax Rick to eat food and come out of hiding to sit on my lap. I promised him he’d feel better if he just took the dang pain pills. (he’s still not buying that line, but it is getting maybe a tiny bit easier to throw it down his throat and force him to swallow it.)
I was worried about leaving him home alone to go ride Roller Coasters, but I made sure he had food and water and sprayed the calming spray around hoping he’d be ok. AND he was ok!
I have an appointment with our old vet he hasn’t been to in awhile to get him checked out and figure out what options I have in treating him. Once I was able to look at the situation rationally and calmly I was able to figure out that I was in control. I get to choose how I think, how I feel, I get to choose my actions and I am in control of the results of all of it.
I have yet to figure out if I will have all of his teeth extracted or not. But I know that he didn’t die, and that I have options. I don’t have to do anything out of fear, loneliness, or guilt. I have the tools to figure it all out rationally and with much thought. It is not an emergency.
Do you have those thoughts too? Do you wonder what you did wrong? Are you struggling to decide if life has a purpose any longer? I can help you figure it all out.
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Together we will decide.