My Geriatric Cats Are Now Worth Approximately What A Racehorse Is.

This has been a bad year for animals around Casa Coco. First the fish. Now the cats. I am the Angel of Animal Death.

My remaining two cats are the Methuselahs of the feline world, at 16 and 17, respectively. I’m sure there are older cats somewhere, probably in museums…wrapped in wee mummy bandages…residing in tiny sarcophagi next to the flaking remains of their ancient worshippers staff members owners. But mine are still alive and they’re pretty damn old. Like a hundred and ten, in modified animal years. Old.  

You know what that means?

No, it doesn’t mean Al Roker wants to interview them and give them birthday hats and kiss their furry cheeks live on whatever Morning Show he’s haunting these days. It means they get old lady ailments. Like thyroid disease and heart disease and chronic kidney disease. All at once. Just like one of the old girls presented me with today.  She’s historically been my Diva girl, the pretty one with the silky coat and the flowing, fluffy tail that she preens and keeps meticulously groomed. She’s also not the sharpest tool in the shed, following us around sometimes for hours, wanting for nothing (I always check) yet meowing loudly in an apparent conversation about whatever is going on in that furry little skull. Patting and scratching and toys don’t stop her. She’ll have her say, damn you. Even at 3 AM.

Lately, she hasn’t said much. I didn’t think much of it because I’m busy trying to keep Badger from peeing in the planters and his toys and his cereal bowls rather than the toilet (Yes, he’s discovered he can aim that penis at anything he likes. Boys.) Yesterday, I came home to a greasy-coated cat with runny eyes like she’d been drinking cheap gin for years with no end in sight. Craptastic. I called the vet and described what I thought was an eye infection. Bring her in, they said. You know how that goes. After two hundred dollars worth of tests, our options are 1. hospitalization, to the tune of some $600 MORE, plus meds and what have you 2. Euthanization, to the tune of a couple hundred dollars more. or 3. Do nothing and watch my poor cat slowly die, to the tune of irreparably shredding my soul into tiny bits and so let’s just forget option 3 would even be a possibility in anyone’s world.

Of course, someone is probably going to jump in here and tell me that it’s a cat, and the logical choice is euthanizing her because it’s a fucking cat. A cat. Not a kid. Not a person. Which is logical, you know, so I’m not going to jump on anyone who says that (unless it’s a troll who just wants to nastily tell me I’m a dumbass for caring about my cat, in which case, my response will be something that starts with “F” and ends with “you”). Eight hundred dollars buys a lot of macaroni and lip gloss. She’s an old cat, she’s had a long life.

The problem is, she isn’t terminal. Yet. She isn’t in agonizing pain. Oh, she feels like crap so she let herself go a bit – but hell, I do that every Saturday. I’d feel a little put out if hubs decided to off me for not washing my hair and dolling up once a week. Or twice a week. Whatever. Anyway. The kidneys are chronic, and there’s no cure, but there’s a good chance the treatment will help and give her anywhere from several months to several years. I may have to give her fluids via injection for a while, or maybe not. She’ll probably need thyroid meds, for as long as she lives. And special food that - surprise! – you can only get at the vet. Still, these things are all within the realm of my skill set. It hits our budget, but we can manage. I see a lot of PB & J in my lunch and a lot more scrimping other places. Not exactly a crisis.

Then there’s the fact that, while I abhor the idea of treating pets as really hairy people, and dressing them in idiotic clothes, and taking them to the fucking grocery store in small handbags, once upon a time, when my life sucked so bad that I literally had to look for a reason not to step into traffic every day, these cats were that reason, more often than not. It sounds odd now, but yeah, some days the idea that no one would take care of my cats was all that kept me breathing. When I didn’t have a friend in the world, there they were. Always. Then there’s Badger, who’s finally figured out how to keep the cats from running for the nearest crawl space when he approaches, and Diva is his favorite. He’s extremely concerned that she’s sick, and even though that concern manifests itself in him trying to carry her around while he accidentally compresses her internal organs, he knows something’s wrong.  Even my hubs, who routinely threatens to make Cat Stew when he steps on a juicy hairball, looked worried.

She’s just a cat, sure. A nutty mixed breed with no pedigree and an ongoing external monologue with no one in particular, who vomits up atrocious hairballs and sheds on my clean laundry and craps on the bathroom floor if I try to switch cat litter.

But she’s our old, senile, stupid vomiting cat, and she’s part of the family, and that means that tonight? We’re going back to the animal hospital and checking her in. Six hundred dollars later, we’ll see if it paid off or it was just a really expensive final spa stay. I’m trying to be realistic here.

Now if only I could stop crying.

Goddamn cats.