The clock inches closer to 3 PM. I sigh and go into the kitchen to prepare Baxter’s medication. I place the pills in tiny slices of deli meat covered with the thinnest layer of whipped cream cheese and then roll them up like fancy hors d’oeuvres. Other times, I bury them in a mound of freshly cooked chicken breast. On rare occasions, he takes them in pill pockets dipped into a cat treat that oozes out of a tube and smells disgusting, but as one vet told us, “It’s like crack for cats.”
I lay the camouflaged pills before him on a paper towel or in his food bowl and hold my breath to see if he will eat them. It usually requires several attempts. Occasionally I walk away, so he doesn’t sense my stress, hoping the pills will be gone when I come back. I am aware of the You Tube videos showing people cheerfully wrapping their cats in a towel and sending pills down their throats with a plastic pill shooter. All those cats had to have been sedated.
My husband and I have been medicating Baxter like this for months and will need to continue as long as he lives, which could be anywhere from several weeks to perhaps a year. Lasix every eight hours, Tapazole every twelve hours, Plavix and Spironolactone once a day. Our lives are regulated by the exhausting and frustrating process of pilling this cat. If he doesn’t get the medication, his body will fill up with fluid or form a blood clot, and he’ll die a painful death.
His medications come in human dosages, so we spend an hour on Sunday night, slicing them into halves and quarters and then placing some into empty capsules to further mask the taste. We limit our travel because I feel guilty about putting the pet sitter through the medication ritual, not to mention the cost of her four daily visits. We know there are those who would have written this cat off long ago. Yet I cannot bring myself to euthanize him out of convenience, although I will admit there are times when I long for the easing of this burden.
Since my first call to the vet about a tiny red spot on Baxter’s gumline, we have endured a cascade of increasingly serious feline pathologies. The red spot turned out to be a symptom of resorptive tooth disease, a degenerative condition requiring the surgical removal of most of his teeth. Baxter developed congestive heart failure from the anesthesia, resulting in countless vet visits including several with a cardiologist. The trauma of a three-night stay in an oxygen chamber at a pet emergency center almost killed him, and he didn’t eat for days afterwards. All this for a shelter cat who was low-maintenance for the first ten years of his life with us. Who sat at the top of the steps casting a jaded eye as our terriers were trotted out for treatment of their various chronic conditions. It was as though he were saying, “See what a genetic shit-show you get when you buy purebred dogs? Where here I am, a street kid, and healthy as a horse.” Until he wasn’t.
This is not our first round of extraordinary pet care. I thought I was finished with the plastic container of pills on my kitchen counter and the robotic voicemails from CVS reminding me that a pet’s prescription is ready for pick-up. Our rescue West Highland terrier, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge last summer, suffered from chronic liver disease. Vinnie took ten pills a day for five years, prescribed by a veterinary internal medicine specialist at the same practice as Baxter’s cardiologist. “Oh, hi, welcome back,” they said when I called for an appointment. Our eight-year-old Westie was diagnosed with Addison’s disease as a puppy and requires monthly injections and twice daily prednisone to replace the cortisol her body cannot produce. She wears the dog version of a medical alert bracelet with a collar tag that says, “Addison’s Disease. I need medication.” Somehow, these animals find us.
When Baxter is particularly resistant, usually at the bedtime dosing, I reach the point of profanity and tears, and I have to remind myself that I can’t project my human frustrations on an animal. He doesn’t understand that the pills keep him alive. He just knows they don’t taste good no matter how we try to disguise them, or they make him nauseous, or he’d rather play games with us to get our attention. When it comes to human intelligence versus animal instinct, instinct always wins.
Baxter comes into the bathroom every morning to be lifted up onto the windowsill where he watches the birds. I fill the sink so he can play in the water, drinking from his paws and spattering the mirror with droplets. He wanders downstairs and meows to go outside where he nibbles on the nearest plant and then regurgitates what he just ate. Cleansed, he comes back in to curl up under a bed or on my desk chair. He doesn’t run up and down the stairs the way he used to, but then, neither do I. Baxter still jumps up on my husband’s nightstand and chews the phone charger cord with his remaining teeth when he wants a midnight snack. His purr still fills the room. He doesn’t know his heart is running out of beats.
