Tuesday

“Revenge Is Mine,” Sayeth The Cat…

4:45 a.m.

I wake from a deep sleep, my Mommy ears prickling at the sound of a young one calling, and as I wake further I realize there’s a cat meowing in the bathroom. I can’t tell if he’s just talking to himself or crying, but he doesn’t stop so I have to get up and check. It could be either cat, trying to get someone to come un-stick their head from a laundry basket, or either cat talking to the ghost in the corner.

I flick on the light and squint against the sudden brightness; Max is lying in the towel basket, which I keep in the tub for the sake of additional floor space. He’s meowing at me, calling to me, it’s obvious. So I ask if he’s all right, worried that the mouth pain that drove me to take him to the vet has become worse.

Max looks at me, and yawns with his mouth as wide open as he can possibly get it. Then he stands up, turns around and plops down, looking over his shoulder at me with this look that says, “By the way, that yawn was my way of FLIPPING YOU OFF.”

As if pooping on me wasn’t revenge enough…

The vet called this afternoon; Max’s amylase levels are back up, hence the pushing around his mouth with his tongue—he’s been nauseous. Chances are his mouth was in no pain, he simply felt like throwing up every time he opened it. So he stays on the antibiotic, and because this has proven to be a chronic problem, we’ll pulse the antibiotics: 2-3 weeks on, 2-3 weeks off, and keep a careful eye on those blood tests.

I’ll worry in the long term what chronic pancreatitis will do to his life span, but in the short term…one day and he already acts like he feels 100% better, and we can look back and see that over the last few weeks he’s been quieter than usual. So now we know. He has a problem, it’ll be ongoing, but we can take care of it.

And hopefully he won’t poop on me again…

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