Hannah Turns 10

Hannah turns 10 years old today.

We met during a crisis - I was coming to terms with a life-long trauma; she was abandoned by an abusive owner. It was May 2, 2006 when she was dumped at my feet at Saint Meow’s shelter in Cambridge, Ma., at the estimated age of three. I stood there, stunned.

She looked up at me with her green eyes and let out one long cry. Before I could think, I told the shelter manager, “I’ll take her.” She was my first pet. Together, Hannah and I learned what it meant to love safely again.

Hannah, post-adoption, age 3.

Hannah almost died of life-threatening pancreatitis in 2008, when she was five, but today she turns ten, and she’s healthier than ever. When I asked what she wanted to do for her birthday, she said,”sunbathe.” So be it.

Happy 10th birthday to Hannah! We thank all of this blog’s readers for continuing to follow our story as it’s developed over the past three years. Stay tuned…

- TLS

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Under Lockdown: With Two Cats & PTSD

Hannah, guardian kitty.

Last Friday, April 19, at 6:45 a.m., I awoke in my tiny attic apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, startled by the sound of an incoming text. I’d been having a dream in which I was running from two assailants who were bent on killing everyone in their midst with guns and bombs. I was frantically trying to find a place to hide, but nowhere was secure.

Such a nightmare is not unusual for me: I have PTSD. I didn’t know the reality that’d been transpiring while I was sleeping.

I sat up quickly and reached for my phone. The text was from the New England Conservatory of Music, located in Boston, where I’m liberal arts faculty: “Due to public safety concerns, NEC is closed…”

Seconds later, I received a text from a friend in Jamaica Plain: “Are you at home? Just checking in case you haven’t gotten the news to stay in. It’s all very unsettling.”

Was I awake, or was I dreaming? I turned on the television and saw the reports of bloodshed that had occurred in my town overnight, the death of one of the marathon bombers, the current search for his armed-and-dangerous brother. “Shelter-in-place”: I was not to go outside or answer the door.

What was happening was real. Surreal.

I began to panic: could the suspect on-the-run be hiding in the basement of the house where the garret was located? In the basement, there is a washer/dryer machine accessible to tenants in a neighboring house through a cellar door, which I’ve frequently seen left unlocked or open to the outside parking lot. As I watched the news, I was suddenly alarmed. My nightmare was still fresh in my mind: I needed a reality check, so I messaged a friend who knows I have PTSD.

My friend assured me that it was near impossible that the suspect was in my basement at that time, because the local news reported he’d been seen on foot in Watertown, a few miles from where I live, around 6 a.m., however it was a good idea to check the door. She wrote, “Be quick.”

In times of stress, Hannah and Sam serve as my danger gauge. If an intruder (or even a friend) were in the vicinity, I knew that Sam would be hiding under the bed. Hannah would have her nervous facial expression and twitching ears. But now neither exhibited signs of anxiety – they were curled up, relaxed on the bed.

I went downstairs with my legs shaking, holding my breath. The cellar door, to my relief, was shut and locked. Quickly, I returned to my unit and secured the triple locks on my door. Even though I live in an attic, I left the shades drawn.

In the days after the bombing, I’d witnessed so many Bostonians experiencing a mental state I’d had as my “normal baseline” for years: intrusive memories, intense fear, anger, sadness, shock. Over the course of my decade of recovery treatment for PTSD, I’d accumulated a stockpile of mental artillery to respond to the aftermath of traumatic events. I put them into practice.

On Wednesday, when a friend told me she couldn’t concentrate and was “in a fog,” so much so that she accidentally dropped a plate of food where she thought there was a counter, I recommended she avoid the media. How many times did we need to see the bombs go off, or hear the screams of terror as we watched spectators and runners collapse or flee? Once was enough: we understood the depth of destruction and pain.

In our attempts to mobilize, to emotionally arm, there’s a fine line between facing facts and re-traumatizing ourselves, the latter of which causes further harm.

But Friday, I couldn’t turn off the TV or Internet. As I watched events unfold, I felt numbness climb from my feet to my limbs to the top of my head. I trembled with the fear of traumatic experience.  The tenants who live below me weren’t home. Hannah and Sam, the “rescue” cats, were now sleeping.

I felt isolated.

For a time, I couldn’t receive or make calls – phone service was flooded – though I could get voicemails and texts. I posted status updates on Facebook. Thirty-nine and single, I tweeted, “It’s 1 of those times when I wish I didn’t live alone.”

I wanted to hug someone. I wanted to be hugged.

To my surprise, people I knew and people I’d never met reached out: Novelist Sarah McCoy responded, “I empathize. One of the scariest few days of my life was being in apt alone during hurricane.” Boston Globe blogger and professor friend Delia Cabe wrote, “Yes, at least you can talk to us here. I’ve had those moments when I was isolated like that.” Author Jenna Blum tweeted, “You’re not alone. The Twitterverse is with you.”

For the next several hours, social media was my home base. I baked a pumpkin loaf cake and posted a photo. Others listed what they’d contribute to our “lockdown potluck.” Sam came into the living room then, begging as usual for dinner. I opened a window: Hannah hopped up to look out at the world.

Saturday morning, the terror over, I left Hannah and Sam, and my apartment, and walked down the street, reveling in such basic freedom. I took the T to Harvard Square, where I ran into an acquaintance and her friend at Starbucks. We shared a table and our shellshock. As we chatted over coffee and tea, I learned that they too lived alone, aside from their one or two felines. While our pets always provide us a source of companionship, during the lockdown we felt a keen separateness from the world, a longing for people.

We were relieved now, in arm’s reach. We embraced each other, and the simple pleasure of living.

– TLS

 What were you, and your pets, doing during the lockdown? Share your experiences and other comments below.

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Healthy Hannah

Hannah, the contented.

I still haven’t mastered the art of the vet visit.

This week was Hannah’s annual checkup. Last year, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that affects the liver, and includes such symptoms as vomiting and a lack of appetite. After months of steroid treatment, in October her liver level tested at the higher end of the normal range, so Dr. Parker recommended a re-test in six months, before then if her eating habits or behavior changed. During these past few months, Hannah’s appetite has remained normal – although she won’t eat her entire meal in one gulp (in the fashion of her brother Sam), she does finish her food, most days. Of course, the night before her annual vet visit, when I took out the cat carrier, she refused half of her dinner, and, for hours, Sam hid under the bed.

Sam, always the prankster.

Going to the vet holds a host of anxieties for the cat, but for the human, especially this human who has PTSD, it’s a whole production of mental and physical coordination. In years’ past, a vet visit would completely unhinge my ability to hold a thought in my head, and would send my mind back into the terror of my childhood. I’d have to refer to my pre-scripted (on a Post-It) list of statements and questions for Dr. Parker. Now, I manage to “keep calm and carry on” as well as can be expected when one is trying to get an unwilling cat into a carrier and transport her to a vet clinic in time for the appointment: layers of fur on one’s shirt, and some sadness and/or guilt for the inability to explain to the feline that she is safe and you’re not giving her away, will always be a given (for me, at least).

Five years ago, Hannah almost died of life-threatening pancreatitis and I’ve tiptoed around her ever since, fearing I might otherwise upset her to the point of psychosomatic-induced death. I worried about her wellbeing at times to the point of driving friends (and Dr. Parker) crazy. It’s taken a long time to work through my visceral fear of losing this being whom I love.

This year, on the verge of her tenth birthday, Hannah, at a trim 7.95 pounds, has received a clean bill of health. Dr. Parker says she has one of the best teeth he’s seen in a ten-year-old kitty (and I’ve never brushed her teeth, as I have to do for Sam). And, the great news: Hannah’s liver is functioning normally. She has exhibited a change in behavior – she has become quite insistent on cuddling on the garret chaise, during which time she rubs her wet nose and mouth, forehead and ears, all over my hands until my palms are drenched and my arms are covered with fur; she has also begun a practice of sticking her butt in my face for minutes at a time, which, Dr. Parker says, is simply her way of asking me to scratch her back near her tail, something she never liked before. I’d thought she’d been trying to tell me something was wrong, like she was the time she developed struvite crystals in her urine and kept running her tail (which was wet with pee) along my hand.

“Do you have any questions?” Dr. Parker asked.

For the first time in a long while, I didn’t. I felt suddenly relieved and happy, and my body relaxed. “I guess I just have to get used to the fact that Hannah is healthy.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Parker. “No more kid gloves for her.”

I tend to think of a cat’s lifespan – both physical and emotional – as reflective of a human’s, but at warp speed. Hannah has reflected to me the salvaged life of an abuse survivor, a kind of healing I never thought was truly attainable. I’ve always questioned its veracity. Now, I know such recovery is real, and to be trusted.

– TLS

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Matters of the Heart

Hannah

Two weeks ago, on the cusp of February, Hannah, who had grown increasingly constipated in December and January, left her litter box empty. Still coping with the death of my mother, I became worried that this might be the start of the feline slippery-slope towards death (it was also the four year anniversary of Hannah’s life-threatening pancreatitis). I gave in to my PTSD-induced anxiety and brought her to the vet.

“Oh she has a heart murmur?” Dr. X said, after struggling to hold Hannah down on the exam table and placing the stethoscope to her chest. Dr. Parker, our regular vet, was out for a few days.

Hannah hid her face in my arms. “A heart murmur?” I repeated. What did this mean? I wasn’t sure if I trusted the opinion of this vet, who was a stranger to Hannah. I decided I would follow up with Dr. Parker after he returned.

In the meantime, I took the advice of my friend Stephanie and fed Hannah pure canned pumpkin, which she loved, and then I chased her around the garret (my own idea) until, finally, she went to the litter box and did her business. Unfortunately, three days later, she stopped loving the pumpkin and snubbed her nose at the tablespoon-full. Luckily, Dr. Parker had just returned. He recommended 1 teaspoon of Metamucil daily mixed in her wet food, and an echocardiogram for the heart murmur.

I bought a carton of Metamucil – the smallest I could find was itself the size of Hannah (I think this will last us for more than nine lives). Struggling to make ends meet each month on a part-time teaching wage, I admit I debated whether or not to skip the echocardiogram, which cost a few hundred dollars. But, if Hannah had a heart condition, she could die if I were to leave it undiagnosed and untreated. So I went forward.

Two days later, I awoke earlier than usual to bring Hannah in for the echo. As I removed the carrier from its hiding spot next to the refrigerator, in reflexive reaction, Sam fled under the bed. Hannah seemed relieved to have the living room to herself, finally. I picked her up, held her close to my chest, placing a towel over her paws to prevent her from straddling the top of the carrier (and thereby preventing entry), and lowered her in. When I opened the garret door to carry her out, she began to whine, and then her throat opened with crying meows that echoed and tore at my heart.

“I know, sweet girl,” I said. “You love living in this apartment much more than I do.”

“Hmmnh,” she responded as I turned the key to lock the door.

Sam refused to come out from under the bed, even for his favorite "cat dancer" toy.

I hated the idea of leaving Hannah at the clinic for the day, but that was the procedure. Drop off the cat at 7:30 a.m., pick up the cat in the late afternoon. The doctor would call when the results were ready. I left a plastic Ziplock bag of her duck and green pea kibble, in case she got hungry after the test: comfort food.

“This is the plan,” I talked to Hannah as I drove, my injured tailbone hurting without the donut pillow beneath it (in my anxiety I had forgotten it inside the garret). I knew she could not understand my words but I hoped my tone would somehow communicate to her that I was not giving her away. I was not giving her up. “I’m going to drop you off,” I began, “and you’re going to have this test so that we know what is wrong with your heart, and I’m going to go to work while you do that, and then, this afternoon, I’m going to come pick you up and take you back home, ok?” Hannah shuffled around the carrier as I spoke, meowing intermittently. “I love you, sweet girl.”

With my mother’s recent death on my mind, I wondered if this was the beginning of another end. I did not think I could tolerate losing my best feline friend, who had been with me through three apartments, four jobs, two brief relationships, and almost six years of PTSD recovery. She had been my one constant while my life fell apart and I worked to build it back up again.

Standing in the lobby of the clinic, watching the vet tech take Hannah out of my grasp, the scene from four years before flashed in my mind.

“This is not then,” I told myself firmly. “This is not then.”

In fact, it was not. Hannah’s Auntie Stephanie was here now, with new cousin Gabby-cat. Four years ago, I did not even know Stephanie. There was some comfort in having a familiar human – and her cat – present. It was, in some small sense, kind of like having family, which distracted me from feeling too much of the ache that spread across my chest and throat as I caught a glimpse of Hannah’s eyes, her gaze veiled with confusion, as the vet tech carried her away.

Seven hours later, Hannah was diagnosed with a heart condition labeled “dynamic right ventricular outflow tract obstruction” and “diastolic dysfunction significance unknown.” This was due to a benign cause, Dr. Parker said, however it could progress to heart disease quickly, or never in her lifetime. A blood panel would be a wise thing to do at this point, he added, to rule out any underlying disease in other organs that could be causing the murmur. The results showed that Hannah’s liver enzymes were elevated, which indicated inflammation, and her thyroid level was borderline. Testing for hyperthyroidism would be prudent. I agreed to this, despite the accruing bill, because knowing the answers could save Hannah’s life.

“She was very cuddly the whole time,” the vet tech said when she brought Hannah to me.

When I brought Hannah home, and opened the carrier door, she galloped around the garret, from room to room, checking to see if everything was still in its place – the living room, the water bowl, the mouse toys, and Sam – Sam looked at his big sister but he stayed under the bed. Not even his favorite “dancer” toy could lure him out. When he did finally emerge, he remained very quiet, refraining from his usual somersaulting over mouse toys and throwing his body off high ledges. He approached Hannah delicately, sniffed her tail, and made a face as if to say “ewww, you stink!” and backed away. To a cat’s nose, Hannah smelled foreign, like the clinic. She spent the next hour giving herself a bath and chewing off a patch of skin on her hind leg where her blood pressure was taken.

That night, Hannah cried, waking me. I turned on the light: 3:30 a.m. I got out of bed and followed the sound, found her sitting in the middle of the living room floor. She let out long mournful cries every few minutes. What she in pain? I wondered. Hungry? She hadn’t cried this way since the day I adopted her. I ran my palm across her back, and she pushed her head into my hand. I sprinkled some kibble in front of her, which she gobbled up quickly. Sam sat a few feet away, looking anxious. I gave him a pat, then got back into bed. The crying went on intermittently for the rest of the night, and nothing I did made it stop. I came to the conclusion Hannah was distressed from her day and needed to get it out of her system. Crying was her release, her way of returning to herself again.

Three days later, hyperthyroidism was ruled out and Hannah was placed on a prescription of feline SAMe to bring down the liver enzyme count. Dr. Parker asked if I could “pill” Hannah. I reminded him that it took two vet techs to hold Hannah down to pill her when she was deathly ill four years before – and even then she spit out the pill. She was a fighter. Dr. Parker said SAMe had to be taken on a empty stomach but using a pill pocket would be okay. I was skeptical about whether or not Hannah would be tricked by a pill pocket; while SAMe had her little b(r)other’s name in it, it was known for having a bitter taste, one I was sure Hannah would detect upon licking. I imagined she would eat all around the pill and leave its tiny pink face glistening on the floor.

When I opened the package of duck-flavored hypoallergenic pill pockets, Hannah arrived at my feet, sat, and looked up at me expectantly. She wanted the pill pocket. Quickly, I stuffed SAMe within the malleable “treat,” and placed it on the floor. In her usual cautious manner, Hannah first sniffed, then sampled a brief taste, then ate the rest, pill included.

“Good girl!” I praised her and repeated, hoping she would not spit out the pill. “Good girl.”

Having ingested her medicine, she walked away happily to perch on the back garret window and sun herself. Twenty minutes later, however, she vomited up the pill pocket, and the pill. So I took out another pill pocket and placed the (undigested) pill inside, and fed it to her again. This time, thankfully, she kept it down.

Soon, Sam caught on and wanted a pill pocket too. However the package only had 40-count and with 30 days of pills for Hannah, anticipating having to do it twice should there be vomiting, I could not afford to give out free samples. So I bought Sam a new toy: a large mouse stuffed with catnip. I tossed it on the floor and he went for it as if it were prey. He held the toy mouse in his mouth, sat and growled, then scared himself with his own growling and ran into the bedroom, where he kept the mouse beside him as he watched the traffic go by the window. Later, he buried it in the water bowl in the hallway.

Last night, as I sat down for the first time to relax after the long week, Hannah and Sam began to play a game of “cat hunt.” All of a sudden there was a blur of orange tabby and calico cat rolling on the floor in a ball, Sam on the bottom, his mouth open, Hannah towering over him (even though he stands an inch taller than she), pounding him with her paws…more tussling…then a scream (I’m still uncertain if it was Sam or Hannah), and then both were on all fours with Hannah blowing a tremendous hiss in Sam’s face. Sam’s eyes watered from the play-fight. He blinked and licked his lips and began to caterwaul with a baby voice. Hannah stood her ground as the alpha and hissed again, inching her body forward, putting her paw in the air as if to say “don’t make me hit you.”  Finally, Sam backed off and, a moment later, all was calm.

{Postscript: Just after posting this blog entry today, Hannah refused to ingest her SAMe pill. She ate all of the pill pocket around it, then left the pink pill. I tried again. No luck. I’m going to wait an hour and try again. I welcome any and all suggestions, readers….Post-Postscript: Ok, two hours and four pill pockets later, I shut Sam in my bedroom and gave Hannah some extra-special brushing by her favorite window seat, and then offered up the pill. She ate it, finally. Now let’s hope she keeps it down!}

– TLS

How do you deal with a sick pet? Share your stories in the comment box below!

My essay, “Writing Taboo: Speaking the Unspeakable,” has just been published in the anthology Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching, available at your local bookstore.

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Cats & (My) Coccyx

{Writer’s Note: I’m pleased to announce that my nonfiction story, “The Wreck,” has been nominated for the upcoming Pushcart Prize. Winners will be announced in April.}

Yesterday, I did something I’ve never done before. I injured my coccyx. Was I doing something heroic when it happened, such as saving a cat caught high in a tree? Or exercising my athletic prowess by doing a deadlift or squat, or climbing a mountain? No. I was teaching a humanities class.

I left the garret early in the morning, with Hannah and Sam meowing “stay home, stay home,” ready for the first day of my new professorial gig at Lesley University, where I am teaching humanities and creative writing classes this semester. When I entered the classroom, I saw a sea of quadrangle tables linked together to create ten separate clusters of octagons. With an attendance list of fourteen in a room made for 100, I quickly began to rearrange the tables to form a horseshoe-shaped “desk” to fit my students into more of a shape conducive to discussion. Still nursing a torn ligament in my wrist, I forgot to think about the rest of my body, and I backed myself into one of the quadrangle tips. Hard. Within a few hours, I developed a large bruise on my butt. In the evening, I sat on a tray of ice.

This morning, Sam climbed up on my bed and began to tiptoe over my body, from my feet to my legs to my hips, paw after paw, his face inquiring. So I got up. It hurt to sit, walk, laugh, sneeze, and bend over.

Because the garret stairwell is not large enough to fit the loveseat to which she grew so accustomed over the years, Hannah has made the living room floor her petting palace. This morning she nudged my calves but I was in too much pain to lower myself to the ground. “I’m sorry, sweet girl,” I said. “I can’t bend down.” Hannah looked up at me, then whined.

I went to the doctor, whose office is located at the local hospital, a place I was trying to avoid. Ever since my mother passed away a few months ago, hospitals aggravate my PTSD: I tried to breathe deeply and to not look at patients and gurneys and death, so as to avoid dissociating. After the examination, my doctor told me I definitely bruised my coccyx, also known as the tailbone. She told me the story of another patient, a woman my age, who came in presenting a bruise the size of one full buttock, swollen into a raised triangle. “You’d be surprised how often this kind of thing happens,” she said. “You’ll have to buy a donut, you know, one of those butt pillows.”

To rule out fracture or misalignment, she ordered an X-ray. I had to travel down to registration for that, at which time I had to update my emergency contact information (I had listed my mother: “She’s passed away,” I managed to say, then swallowed and tried not to think). I was directed to a waiting room, where I was to change into a gown and sit for twenty minutes amidst people who were fully-clothed. I googled “donuts” to pass the time. I wanted to see my options.

Finally, I was called by a young tech, who had an intern by her side. “How’d you do it?” the intern asked, then covered her mouth as I almost tripped over an unconscious man on a gurney. “Oh, you don’t have to say.”

I told her that’s okay. I’m an open book. “Do you have a donut?” I asked, trying to get one for free, not wanting to have to endure the pain of walking to the store.

In the end, I had to take the bus to a medical device outlet, where I bought my donut, from an actual donut salesman. I have to sit on this thing for the next four-to-six weeks. Hannah and Sam are afraid of it. Sam has tried to sniff it a few times. Hannah simply won’t come into the room. She’ll forgo petting, she says, until this thing is gone.

I have a feeling Hannah and Sam will come around. They’re cats, afterall. It’s the humans that concern me. I’m going to have to bring this thing to class, in the car, on job interviews, and dates. I asked the salesman if he had a different color, perhaps something less conspicuous, or inflatable, but all he had was a big black square, which he said was for someone with a larger rear. This is going to make for some great introductions, I know. Perhaps I’ll stand until spring.

– TLS  

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Happy New Year!

As we count down the hours to the new year, Hannah, her little brother Sam, and I are here to send you our best wishes for 2012.

WordPress.com recently prepared a 2011 annual report for the Hannah Grace blog, counting the number of readers this year as comparable to that needed to fill all the cars on a New York City subway train three times. This year, Hannah Grace reached around the world, attracting readers in the United States, Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Spain, France, South Africa, Germany, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Asia, and the Cayman Islands.

The most popular posts were “Hannah and My Mother” and “The Road Taken.” December 7 was the most popular day for reading the Hannah Grace blog. If you missed anything, you can still check it out in the archives!

On December 27, my essay “Writing: To Carry On,” was published in Beyond the Margins. While it’s not directly about Hannah or Sam, it speaks to the circumstances surrounding my completion of the book, Hannah Grace, and so I post the link here, as we close out 2011.

See you in 2012~

- TLS

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Reading from Hannah Grace

Last Wednesday, December 7, I was invited to read from Hannah Grace at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., where I presented an excerpt from Chapter 7, titled “Legacy.” Many who could not attend asked if there would be a video recording, and, thanks to one of my friends (who used his iPad), there is. Due to issues of file size and uploading to Youtube, the video is in two parts, so be sure to click on both Part 1 and Part 2 to view the entire reading. As context, when the video begins, I was in the middle of saying something about how memoirists are known as the writers with the most angst. You will indeed see my angst displayed in my feet throughout the reading, unhidden behind a half-podium.

I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to Lesley University – and to the low-residency MFA faculty who were behind the invitation – for the opportunity to share a part of this book. I was moved by the number of people who attended. Many thanks as well to the Sherrill Library staff, who presented me with The Paris Review Interviews: Women Writers at Work, with an introduction by one of my favorite writers, Margaret Atwood.

Lastly, check out “Tracy Strauss: Five Questions,” a brief interview of yours truly on the This Might Be True  (and it is) website. Best wishes from Hannah & Sam for all of your holidays!

- TLS

As always, I welcome reader comments and questions. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the space below!

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The ‘Cat’astrophe

{Writer’s Note: Please join me at Lesley University’s Sherrill Library on December 7, when I will be reading from Hannah Grace as part of LU’s student reading series. This event is free and open to the public.}

Saturday morning, I awoke to find Hannah’s little brother Sam standing beside my bed, up tall on his hind legs. His front paws pressed against the edge of the mattress as if he might hoist himself up at any moment. His eyes were fixed on my face, quizzical, hesitant, and anticipatory.

His mouth opened slightly, showing his bottom teeth. “Meow?” he asked.

I propped my head on my hand, my elbow on my pillow, which allowed me to see Hannah seated on the floor in my doorway as if she were a security guard. When she saw me rise, she galloped into the living room. Then Sam started meowing as if he were just given permission to sound off as my alarm clock.

When I tossed my feet to the floor, Sam circled my calves and grazed my skin with his orange tabby tail before he threw himself down on his back and began to purr deeply as a truck motor. I bent down to give him a belly rub, which he received for just a moment before he, in escalating excitement, rolled over and over and dashed out of my bedroom for the living room, calling to me all the way with insistent meows. I followed. Hannah was waiting in the middle of the living room floor. She seemed to snub her nose at Sam – she was too old for such vocal displays – though she would, momentarily, approach to ask me for her own belly rub, stretching her paws out on the floor as far as they would go, for as long as her post-trauma nerves would tolerate the openness, which, similar to my own PTSD adjustment, depended on the day.

That’s when I saw, to my dismay, the remnants of Sam’s orange fishy string toy on the floor: the orange fish and the yellow “pole” were present, but the 10-inch string connecting the two was missing, except for a quarter-inch frayed piece at the tip. Oh no. I felt my pulse quicken. Becoming frantic, I searched the carpet for the string. I picked up Sam to check his mouth but he twisted his back and rolled his head under my neck and cuddled as if he thought I was attempting to give another belly rub.

Every night, before I went to bed, I always put all the mouse and ball cat toys away in a bag, which I placed on top of a high and deep bookshelf, away from a cat’s grasp. Hannah and Sam had never tried to climb the bookshelf or retrieve the bag. I considered it safe. The string toy I never left out – it was only visible when I was supervising, when my hand held on to the end of the stick.

“Did you eat it?” I asked urgently, half-hoping Sam would nod yes or no as I put him back down on the floor. He ran to stand at attention at the high shelf, his body like an English Pointer. He looked at me and then back at the shelf. The bag. Toys. He wanted to play.

As I dialed the vet, I believed I would be seen as an irresponsible pet owner. I was ashamed of myself for letting this happen. I had spoken to the vet just a few days earlier when he relayed the good news that Sam’s stool culture had come back clear: the parasites were finally gone. However, he suggested I give Sam a probiotic for a month in order to resolve his persistently stinky poop. I began to think that Sam was becoming almost human. In fact, he had begun to sit for long periods of time like a Buddha. But he still did not seem to understand the phrase “no, don’t eat that” when it came to consuming inedible objects.

Sam, sitting like a Buddha.

I thought he had outgrown such behavior. Last March, when he was a tiny kitten, he ingested a five-inch tassel from my blanket. At the time, I had no idea he had committed such an act, until the tassel came out, whole, in his poop. After that, I removed the blanket from the premises. Then he began biting off the tails of mouse toys and eating them like a four-course meal. I cut off the remaining tails, and ears, before bringing a sample to the vet to ask if I ought to be concerned about possible ingestion. At the time he told me not to worry. Only longer string-like objects were problematic, he said, using his hands to measure, as they could get lodged in the intestines and cause a life-threatening blockage. I don’t recall if he actually said “life-threatening” but that was how I took it in, and that was what I thought about Saturday morning when I could not find the string of the string toy, which was the diameter of a piece of spaghetti, slightly elastic in composition, and as orange as Sam.

“Is he behaving normally?” the receptionist asked, to relay to the vet.

“Yes,” I said, as I watched Sam, who was now taller and four pounds heavier than Hannah, romp around the living room floor like a toddler, tossing himself into somersaults, racing from room to room, gobbling up his breakfast, and overall becoming a blur of fur that dashed from site to site while Hannah sat quietly and observed the craziness.

Was Hannah like this when she was a year old? I wondered. When I adopted her, she was three.

As long as Sam was acting normally, the vet said, eating and using the litter box, as long as he was not vomiting, then he was okay. The string would most likely end up passing in his poop. The “digestion” process, it was estimated, would take 24-48 hours.

I was aware of the way my mind was spinning. I had read on the internet that string could get caught in the cat’s digestive tract and “become like a saw,” cutting through major organs. I worried Sam was going to die, this feline being to whom I had grown so attached, as had (there is pictorial evidence to prove it) Hannah. The impending catastrophe, I surmised, was all my fault. I was dizzied by thought, and thought, and thought.

Breathe, breathe, I told myself, it’s the PTSD. I reminded myself that I was in crisis mode: my mother had recently died. Death had just “hit home.” I expressed my worries to my friends who relayed incidents of their pets – cats as well as dogs – ingesting foreign objects, including a pair of plastic glasses, a long piece of gift ribbon, and a (small) broken glass vase, and not only surviving but thriving.

This morning, Sam, who, overnight, ate and slept and drank and peed and pooped without disaster, hopped up on my bed, waking me out of an agitated sleep: my body jumped in startle response. Sam leaped down to the floor and sat politely then, blinking up at me expectantly. He seemed okay. So did Hannah, who remained in the doorway, like a guardian angel. I got out of bed and followed them into the garret living room, where they both called me back to life.

- TLS

Have you had a similar situation with your pet? Share your story, and comments, below!

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Trick or (Cat)Treat

When I was a very little girl, I wanted to be a cat. One Halloween, when I was almost three years old, my mother made me a cat costume. She used black felt to make a body suit, a feline-shaped head “hood,” and a tail, which she safety-pinned to the back. She added white felt patches to the belly and paws, a red and white bow “collar,” and some black mascara-painted whiskers to my face. She told me to “act like a cat!” and as I meowed and stroked the air with my paw-hand, my mother took my picture. I insisted on being a cat for Halloween the year after, and the year after that, at least.

Me, almost age 3, in my cat costume on Halloween

Hannah and Sam are my first real cats. I’ve been tempted to dress them up in style for Halloween but of course cats are not like dogs – they don’t go trick-or-treating (at least not usually) and they would not tolerate any kind of costume. Also, Hannah looks at anything “pumpkin” with disdain, though Sam shows curiosity when I wear the Mr. Pumpkin “waving” pin my mother gave me one Halloween when I was a kid.

This Halloween, I wonder if the garret neighbor’s cat, who has been appearing on our fire escape “balcony” (I put “balcony” in quotes because it’s really nothing but a flimsy grate), will come to our window and meow maniacally, and hiss and spit like a horror show.

Hannah shows disdain for Mr. Pumpkin

Although I have told my neighbor that the cat has been terrorizing Hannah and Sam, nothing has been done to curtail the way this feline roams. For a time, I resorted to hanging tin foil on the metal rungs that attach her “balcony” with the garret’s, which, for a while, did help to discourage the cat from coming by. Perhaps I should put out a sign saying we don’t have any candy. Ahem, I mean catnip.

Scary neighbor's cat on garret's so-called fire escape/balcony.

But the truth is, we do have catnip on hand in the garret, and, because the vet has said we need to watch what Hannah and Sam eat (less grazing, no treats), that will be the only candy in the house this Halloween (isn’t catnip zero calorie?). Readers, have a safe and happy Halloween!

And stay tuned for news about the fate of Hannah Grace in the weeks ahead…

Trick or Treat!

– TLS

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‘Cat’amination

Hannah & Sam, en route to the vet

Where do I begin? Hannah’s little brother Sam had his one-year exam with the vet this past week. The day before, I was working on Hannah Grace, the book, when I heard Sam meowing in brief from the bathroom. When I walked in, I found he had deposited a piece of poop, with a 5-inch long object protruding from its middle, on my new plush blue foot rug.

“Ohhhhh!” I said aloud as I did the time I caught Sam with a mouse. “Ohhhhh!” Quickly, I put on gloves and scooped up the turd with a paper towel, staring at this thing that looked like a piece of spaghetti – I thought perhaps Sam had swallowed yet another inedible object – was it a twig or a leaf stem I had accidentally brought in from outside? I wondered as I disposed of it in the trash.

The following day, when I took Sam to the vet for his checkup, I brought along a stool sample, because he’s had the tendency to stink up the entire garret with just one visit to the litter box, ever since he was a kitten. No longer a kitten, it seemed odd to me that he was still producing something so smelly. As a kitten, Sam was diagnosed with several parasites, including roundworm, which can cause such odor. He was fully treated, his system rendered clear. However, into his adulthood, his poop continued to have that pungent kitten stink. The vet said most likely he was simply sensitive to Hannah’s prescription duck and green peas, the a la carte daily meal. We could try a probiotic. But first, we should test his sample.

The next morning I got the call: that thing protruding from Sam’s stool? An adult roundworm. It was imperative to treat Sam right away, as well as Hannah, as she had been exposed. The strongest medicine came in the form of a one-time pill. Because I had, when she was gravely ill, failed in my attempts to “pill” Hannah, I decided the best situation for all involved would be to bring both cats back to the clinic for the deed.

I placed Hannah in a soft zip-up carrier; after an initial struggle, she bowed her head politely under the carrier top.  Sam, however, ran and ran and ran around the garret as soon as I took out the new plastic crate the vet recommended for “difficult carrier cats.” Once I got him in, he thrashed his entire body against the sides of the carrier, and pushed his nose up against the metal grate, scraping himself as he howled. I carried them both twenty feet to the car, hearing their voices echoing down the street. “I know,” I said, the adrenaline pumping through my limbs. “It’s not fun for me either.” As if they could understand me.

While we waited in the clinic for the vet tech, Sam looked at Hannah in her carrier, as if for direction. He continued to let out intermittent howls, then quieted, as if to follow his big sister, who huddled quietly. Then the vet tech appeared and carried them away.

It is no secret that I am coping with PTSD. Since my mother’s death six weeks ago, my symptoms have flared a bit. Sam’s parasite diagnosis triggered the return of a contamination phobia I battled a couple of years ago. The idea that Sam could have had this chaotic parasite for months without detection made my stomach turn. In my mind, there was not enough bleach in the world to clean the garret. I wanted to burn everything. Not to worry, dear reader – I refrained, though I was tempted.

I did, however, ask a lot of hypochondriac-type questions: how easily is roundworm transmitted to humans? I asked both the vet and my primary care physician. What if I walked barefoot in the bathroom, somehow picked up some fecal matter, and it made its way into my mouth? Could invisible parasite eggs, as I’d read on the internet, have contaminated the entire garret? I don’t know if I was more embarrassed by my phobia or my questions. As long as I washed my hands after cleaning the litter box, I would be just fine, they all said. I was, however, warned that I would likely see “a lot” of those worms appearing in the coming days.

The vet tech returned with Hannah and Sam tucked back into their respective carriers. Sam, the tech said, was scared to death but let her pill him easily. Hannah, on the other hand, put up a fight: “She’s a fiesty one,” said the tech.

When we returned to the garret, Sam ran under my bed, where he took his dinner and stayed for the remainder of the evening. Hannah ate everything in sight, her usual reaction to a vet visit, then sat in the living room. I stood in the middle of the garret for a moment, and wondered where to begin. Chaos seemed to surround me. The smoke detector malfunctioned, a male voice yelling from the speaker, “Error! Error in master bedroom! Consult manual,” and the garret closet door fell off its hinge. I put these items on my list of things to fix (I was not going to call my landlord), after I disinfected the bathroom.

– TLS

Have you had any cat-drama lately? Share your experiences, thoughts, or comments below!

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