Last Trips to the Vet 2

Last living series, 7-20-2009 Cachectic.

I took Del along on the second follow-up visit on July 21^st. This was the intense one, really. The good Doc put the cat under, took blood samples and then preceded to yank out some of her teeth by way of cleaning out some of the tartar build up. In the midst of this, which despite the anesthetic, made Amethyst flinch, I left the room. In fact, I needed to use the rest room. For the few minutes I was away, I was happy to be relieved of my duty as a witness. Thereafter, the vet was compelled to remind me that I had left the room during this surgery. The ordeal eventually came to an end. As Amethyst lay insensible on the pallet we had prepared for her transport we sat in stunned silence. In this lull, the vet now took up the thread of my original purpose for seeking out his services.

“You wanted to alleviate her joint pain?”

“Uh, excuse me?”

“Yes. You brought me this very elderly cat, as old as Methuselah really, and, at first, well, I thought she was going to expire. But she has a good heart and she’s tenacious.”

“I didn’t think there was anything wrong with her,” I mumbled.

“Anyway. You wanted to alleviate her pain.”

“Yes.”

“Well. There’s a miracle drug. It really works wonders. It’s called Metacam.”

The vet now expounded briefly on the theoretical workings of steroids. He brought forth a small bottle and showed me the oral syringe I would use to administer the drug. He made some quick calculations about the cat’s weight and the recommended dosage, and showed me by drawing a mark with his thumb on the syringe. Point six cubic centimeters was just above the first mark on the plastic.

Again, I returned with a cat that took a few hours to recover and then was more or less as she had been before. Now commenced the Metacam experiment. The stuff must’ve tasted good to Amethyst, because after a very brief period of adjustment, she licked the white liquid off the syringe eagerly. Del and I often sat around and made comments like, “I think her fur is looking very good.” Or, “I don’t know what we’re gonna do without this cat.” Now we began to notice a change.

            “She’s really taking to that Metacam.”

            “I think she’s getting around better.”

            “Up and down the stairs!”

Indeed, her pain seemed diminished, her freedom and range of motion increased. Although the vet had alluded, more than once, to the inevitability of death, by asking, “We know where this is going to end up, don’t we?”, and often emphasized his fallibility by saying, “I don’t have a magic wand,” the Metacam experiment started out promising a brilliant outcome.

I decided to visit my family back east in early September of 2008, just ahead of the start of the school year. Del had a temporary job.  Amethyst was certainly done with her long distance traveling days. I was planning a solo trip of about a week. I showed Del how to administer the Metacam. As inevitably happened, as I was packing my bags, Amethyst commenced one of her puking spells. This one was a bit different, however. In previous episodes, she would lay off eating. In this case, she seemed to be puking soon after eating. It did not seem to be happening after every meal. She was continuing to drink. I did not think it was that serious. It was just one of those things: Amethyst had a propensity for hacking up the contents of her stomach. I left for Washington.

I was restless at my parent’s place. I did some of my old favorite walks; I went down to the museums. I ransacked my Father’s shop for stuff he was willing to part with that I could enjoy. When the Honda was full, I hit the road back. When I arrived back in Rantoul, I found Amethyst sprawled out on the rug in the hall. She was barely able to lift her head to greet me.

            “How long has she been like this?”

            “A few days. I didn’t want to alarm you.”

Now I looked up Metacam on the web. “Not approved for cats,” the manufacturer’s web site stated. Other sites mentioned “off label” uses of the drug. Many web sites expressed warnings from cat owners about the gastric complications. Others cautioned about the need to not over dose. All in all, having been browbeaten out of second-guessing the vet by web research, I was now of the opinion that I had been a fool to not do so in this case.

I took Amethyst in to the vet to be re-hydrated on September 8^th. He told me to reduce her dosage of Metacam. I told him that I was going to discontinue it, and let it go at that. When I got her home, I threw away the bottle. Between this visit and the next, ten months and fourteen days elapsed. In November, I stopped by the vet’s office to ask what I might do about the fleas I’d observed on her. He recommended a bath. I more or less jokingly recommended that he do it, since she already hated him. I bought 10 pounds of Hill’s K/D prescription diet. After this, I figured out that a prescription wasn’t really required to buy it on line at petmeds.com.  In retrospect, I can calculate that Amethyst’s consumption of this food was on a continual, gradual decline. For the duration of her final winter, she had a generous dose of NutriCal every night as a treat. I kept the tube on the bedside table, and she’d lie across the space between the table in the bed before and after her dose. As always, she’d curl up with me for a while. Sometimes, seeking heat, she’d be wedged between Del and I as we slept. Most of her time was spent on her heated bed. I took to brushing the fleas out with a slicker, picking off the ones I could catch. After a month of this, I wasn’t finding any fleas any more. I will always wonder: did they abandon her because her blood chemistry was getting too unpalatable for them? In retrospect, she was not eating enough to keep up her weight. She weighed 7 pounds, six ounces when the vet had re-hydrated her in September. The body I delivered to the crematorium the next July weighed only 5 pounds and some odd ounces. In retrospect, I am sure that she knew that she was cherished and that, in her feline way, she cherished us, had bonded with us. But nothing can stop aging, even the aging of a Methuselah. There was only one way for it to turn out.