Ongoing Moggy
Octavia diced with death yesterday when she had to have surgery, which is not very good for you, especially when you are a 19-and-a-half year old cat. I had nightmare visions of mother ringing me up to tell me the vet had had to do the decent thing and see her off with half a brick (or more medically advanced equivalent). Fortunately she recovered immediately and skipped to her foodbowl very much in the manner of an animal that had not just had half its teeth removed under general anaesthetic.
One does start to wonder if she persists in living, against all probability, only to spite my stepfather, who is not only painfully allergic to her (and to our other two cats) but is also now footing the bill for her treatment. It does seem a bit hard to swallow that one not only has to live with three animals whose every presence makes one physically ill, but also to fork out egregious sums of one's hard-earned to eke out their lives for one's own indefinitely protracted torment. My stepfather says that her operation cost the same as my ticket home and did consider whether I should be offered the choice of Christmas en famille or the cat's life, perhaps not unreasonably. However, I am most grateful for his dedication to making me and my mother happy, though after 45 years of cat-owning my mother also devloped a major allergy to them recently, so I do wonder whether Octavia might now find her herself in the same position as her namesake's brother, under constant threat of being done in from within her own household, able to trust noone nor eat anything but figs straight from the tree. I don't know if cats with no teeth can eat figs from the tree.
One does start to wonder if she persists in living, against all probability, only to spite my stepfather, who is not only painfully allergic to her (and to our other two cats) but is also now footing the bill for her treatment. It does seem a bit hard to swallow that one not only has to live with three animals whose every presence makes one physically ill, but also to fork out egregious sums of one's hard-earned to eke out their lives for one's own indefinitely protracted torment. My stepfather says that her operation cost the same as my ticket home and did consider whether I should be offered the choice of Christmas en famille or the cat's life, perhaps not unreasonably. However, I am most grateful for his dedication to making me and my mother happy, though after 45 years of cat-owning my mother also devloped a major allergy to them recently, so I do wonder whether Octavia might now find her herself in the same position as her namesake's brother, under constant threat of being done in from within her own household, able to trust noone nor eat anything but figs straight from the tree. I don't know if cats with no teeth can eat figs from the tree.
posted by Scarlet at 3:35 pm
1 Comments:
It is true that Octavia's medical expenses of this week approach the cost of a return flight between Toronto and London, but there was no question of choosing between Scarlet's flights and the cat's life, oh no. Because had Octavia died under the anaesthetic, we would still have had to pay for the operation. (An itemised bill for which I had to settle before the drip was removed from her elderly paw and she was released back into my care: it included a carefully listed sum of three pence for a miniscule quantity of some anaesthesia-related chemical agent). In fact, her survival means that we don't have to incur the expense of disposal of feline remains, thus Octavia's continued existence does more to ensure the availability of flight costs than would her demise.
Incidentally, I was in a stationery shop this afternoon, looking for a Get Well card for a friend whose shoulder is about to be dismantled by surgeons, and discovered that you can now purchase - in Aberdeen, Scotland! - condolence cards "on the death of your cat", adorned with poignant (and perhaps unnecessarily emotive) embossing in the pattern of tiny cat paws.
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