Caretaker

The smell of feces and urine, bleach, the menthol cool dust of Gold Bond powder and the sickly sweet bubble gum aroma of pink amoxicillin assault my nose. Every time I turn around there seems to be another thing that needs tending. Feeding, medicating, mopping and washing dirty linens, these tasks appear to dominate my life.

It sounds like I work in a hospital ward but this is my home. Easily I could be a tail end Baby Boomer, juggling small children, aging parents and an outside job, but I’m not. My children are out of diapers and unless they are seriously ill, can clean up their own messes. My surviving parent, Mom, does not yet require more than help in heavy lifting, a translator for the barge of medical info she receives and a daily visit for safekeeping from my heroic sister who lives next door to her. Although my charges last week did include my seven year old son as he battled a reoccurring fever, my patients are not usually blood relatives but relatives of my heart, my pets.

I have a commitment to these animals and it began the day I brought them into my home. A committed relationship demands mutual investment. I have always thought that I got more from the relationship with my critters than they have from me. Perhaps the scale has finally tipped the other way.

My dog, Kayla, is my first dog and sometimes I think maybe I’ve done her some injustice in allowing her to be as big a couch potato as myself. We have watched the Dog Agility Championships together, from the couch of course. I some times I think we should have done more with her but she never did learn to play (no ball chasing or no tug a war) by the time we adopted her at age two. She just seemed grateful to have a home and couch to lie on. Instead of a playmate, we got a nanny dog. I have seen her corral and pin my daughter to the fence when she disapproved of rowdy activity. If things get out of hand, she still barks furiously invoking her role as the “ruff-a-ree” and can only be quieted by respectable behavior. When our son was born, all visitors were vacuum sniffed and eyed suspiciously while they spent time with “her pup”. Kayla enjoyed our son as a secondary food source, diligently parked beneath the high chair. To this day, I am confident that as long as Sean is with Kayla, he is safe from danger.

My second dog is significantly more high maintenance. There is a very good reason that the first four letters of terrorist and terrier are the same. The scales balance a bit more here with our Jack Russell Terrier, Piper. She is easily the most demanding animal I have ever had in my life. And honestly, she is the only one that I have ever considered passing on to some one more qualified to train and raise an exuberant puppy. Ironically, I worked long and hard to obtain and retain her from an even more unqualified individual, my whacko neighbor. The longer I struggled to keep her, the more intense my commitment to the adorable little hellion who refuses (after two years) to be completely house trained and chews everything she can get her little yappy mouth on. Did I mention the 3 AM barking fits?

Then there are the cats. I’ve had cats since I was in the 6th grade which was a really long time ago. Life doesn’t seem right with out a cat under my roof. Our oldest and crankiest is Misha who will be 13 on his next birthday. Prior to Piper, Misha was the hugest pain in the butt I’d ever provided a home. He was a spaz from day one. The once tiny destructive fuzz ball that could be held in one hand is now a neutered old “tom” who thinks he rules the neighborhood. We tried to keep him inside once we were enlightened to the benefits of house only felines but he went stir crazy. One day he said something really ugly to Kayla and somehow my children got in the middle of the fracas that ensued. That resulted in a course of antibiotics (just in case) for the kids because Misha decided UP was the best route to safety from the dog. Sean and Tyler provided a stair step up to, well, no where but obviously Misha had not worked that out well. The kids suffered minimal damage but several friends and family questioned why he still was drawing breath after the incident. His actions were not an attack on the children. Both of my children have injured each other or their parents without intent yet no one demands death as consequence for them. Let me be clear, if Misha was a threat to my children’s safety, I would draw the line and find him a nice home on a farm. Otherwise, I’m committed to my ornery old boy.

Buster Kitten is perhaps the sweetest cat that ever walked God’s earth. He was adopted only because we could not resist him. We went to a shelter to adopt Kayla and came home with the two of them. Truly a people cat, he loves to soak up a lap. If not in a lap, he reaches out a paw to make contact with you, be you dog or cat. A quiet fellow, he is known to snore and has the most heart wrenching meow to request attention or food. He has been raised indoors but has escaped on occasion. He is easily located, often in the no man’s land behind the garage, by his pitiful meow signaling that he is lost and would like some assistance. Otherwise his language consists of meek and sometimes croaky meows and the touch of a paw. During my pregnancy with Sean, Buster (a.k.a. Butter) assisted in incubation, draping himself across my huge belly. Buster’s devotion to Sean continued as I breast fed him. I nursed the baby not the cat but it did feel as if I had twins! We’ve dubbed him the medicine cat who instinctively knows when you are ill and sits loyally with you. I’ve often woke to find that as I slept on my side, that ridiculously long whiskers are tickling my ear and Buster is gently purring in my ear from his perch on my shoulder. While not a motor boat purring champion like Misha, Buster puts forth a silken rendition. He is a sedative for the pains of daily life with his Buddha-like aura and Christ-like unconditional love. If one sits too long with Buster in one’s lap, be prepared to nap.

For many, many years, this house has always maintained three cats. It seemed out of balance for a while with just two cats and a dog. While attending a Shamrock Foundation Christmas Boutique I fell prey to their ulterior motive; finding homes for their foster animals. A whole litter of black kittens were brought to the boutique but there were only two left when I arrived with my kids. We played with them and shopped with them. I bonded with one, then known as Black Forest ( I thought he was Black Jack) as I perused through home made hats, Christmas ornaments and a thousand animal related items to benefit the animal welfare group. Our income was shaky at the time, really the wrong time to expand the household but love doesn’t wait. Three out of four of us were really in love and hoped to rope the fourth by bring home a sweet teenaged kitty. We brought home Black Forest (Sean insists that is his name but Jack looked too much like Forest to argue with a 4 year old) and convinced the lone consenter that we need another cat. It worked. With an amended name, Jet Black Forest joined our family. As with children, this boy had distinctive personality too. Not the lap lover like Buster, Jet is more pliable and tolerant of people than Misha. He as grown to be a huge cat (he weighs more than the Jack Russell) with a majestic ruff and golden saucer eyes. He is Sean’s cat (Buster “belongs” to Tyler, Misha to Bruns and the dogs to me) but he tucks each of us in at night and is the constant playmate of Piper. Watching a cat sending a terrier tumbling is truly an amazing sight. He is youth and joy, a cat with springs in his butt capable of jumping to heights seemingly impossible for a cat of his girth. Convinced that he is “light as a feather” he threatens to damage internal organs when he jumps with tiny feet on my gut while I read to Sean stretched out on the bed. Since cats ignore any human direction especially to whom they’ve been assigned, Jet spends a great deal of time with Tyler, reading in bed. We suspect he reads as well but so far we can only prove that he enjoys holding her books open.

On a good day, the burden of taking care of our beloved pets only consists of feeding, watering, scooping litter, yard poop patrol, walking, brushing and the occasional bath for the dogs. That’s a tall order for short people but we share the chores between us all as the animals share the love between us. Recently the equation has changed.

In our busy lives, we hadn’t noticed Buster’s weight loss. He looked thin but compared to Jet, lovingly referred to as “El Lardo”, Buster always looked smaller and felt lighter. Often during Christmas, the animals took to the basement to escape the hoopla of the season. By January, we realized that Buster was staying down there more and more. Finally when he was permanently parked by the food and water bowls and made wheezing noises. We took him to the vet. Poor baby did indeed have a cold but our vet, Dr. Mike Grimes diagnosed him by merely a whiff of his breath, Feline Diabetes. After almost a week at the vet’s, Buster returned home with a bottle of insulin and a bag of sharps. Our lives had changed and we had to rise to our commitment.

In addition to requiring two shots of insulin each day, Buster decided (as many cats do) that his world was askew and normal litter box procedure no longer necessary. He pees near the laundry pile and defecates near the litter box but exactly in the path next to the door. Two children cured me of fecalphobia but still I cannot bear the bacterial implcations of feline waste laying about for long. And so I mop. There is a constant bucket of bleach water standing by. Often times as I get one mess cleaned up, Buster creates another. While I'm away with the kids or at my job, the urine because of it's high sugar content turns to a sticky mess finally crystalizing into a hard stain that must be scrubbed away.It behoves me to clean up as soon as possible.

Not nearly as urgent and certainly not life threatening, Kayla has developed a hot spot that will not go away. Not only does the constant knawing grate on my nerves but she leaves wet spots on the furniture, usually the love seat, with her silivia. The silivia combined with her skin creates a hideous smell. Large chunks of fur are emitted from her on a regular basis but the hot spot issue produces larger, nastier chunks of fur left about. More importantly, my usually happy dog is miserable. The only relief is an bath with oatmeal shampoo, a Benydryl, a cool compress or a dusting of Menthol Gold Bond powder. The ultimate relief comes from a quick shot of hydrocortizone from Dr. Mike.

Then Misha, our wandering feline managed to meander into somebody else's territory. As usual, our boy got his butt kicked. I don't believe it was by his nemisis, Tripod, the three legged cat around the corner. That usually just ends in a screaming and hissing fit which if it comes to my attention, I will go rescue him. Who ever got him this time, showed no quarter. for two days he wouldn't let us touch the horn-like swirl of hair over his left eye. One day I arrived home to see exposed skin there the size of a nickel. For once I deligated the vet visit to somebody else. I forgot how weak my husband's stomach actually is but both he and Misha survived the visit and returned home with amoxcillian. Fortunately, Misha believes the pink stuff is candy. The kids actually fight over who gets to give it to him. And my sqeamish husband has gallantly taken to the task of keeping the wound clear of krusties and helping it heal.

In the midsts of all this attention, last weekend Buster visited death's door. I tried to keep my cool as I loaded him into the cat carrier. The kids bare stopped their television viewing long enough to say good bye to him. I wanted to shout, "Pay attention! Don't you realize this could be the last time you see him alive?" I balled my eyes out at the vet's office as Dr. Mike explained that Buster was just a tough customer and that he didn't have high expectation that the cat would survive the weekend. I agreed to the "do not resesitate" label on his chart. I cried all the way home and stopped of to get a grip on my emotions before rejoining my family.

No news is good news and all weekend we only received one phone call from the vet, reporting that Buster was holding on. On Monday, Dr. Mike called him "Lazerus" and sent him home. We rejoiced at his return. We bought wet cat food (a delacacy at our house) and began the process of trying to fatten him up and spoil him with attention.

At this time he's doing great. He's such a chow hound you can't walk through the kitchen without tripping on him. The kids are helping to care for him more than ever. The adults are still doing the shots but the children argue over who gets to give him the wet cat food. He's not putting on weight but he has stablized in his urine output. He has decided to remain upstairs with us, making it infinately easier to monitor his progress but it is not with out drawbacks. He continues to poop and pee where ever he likes. Mostly he hits the newspapers and sometimes he goes to the box with newspapers that I placed in the bathroom for him. Now I'm mopping twice a day, sometimes three.

These changes, chores, whatever are worth having Buster continue to be part of our lives. But is it worth it to him? Am I keeping him alive for my sake? What is his take on this? Does he think it's a good quality of life? His grooming has slipped. I find myself having to force myself to overlook a sticky tail and pull Buster on to my lap. He looks fine, his fluffy fur seems to look normal but if I brush him, which he dearly loves, the fur lays flat against his body and I can see how emaciated he is. Despite the fact that we feed him twice the amount recommended of the pouch food daily, he's not gaining any weight. He feels so light and fragile in my lap. He's almost back to his graceful quick movements. He peed yesterday on the wrist pad for our computer keyboard, an indication that he's not in control of his bladder. Up until now, even if he didn't pee in the sandbox, he was good about doing it in an out of the way place. Will he let us know when he's had enough? Will we hear him?