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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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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Come Together

Looking at this recent photo of Hannah with her little brother Sam, one might not realize that Hannah came to me traumatized, at the age of three, after living in an abusive home. When we first met, just a couple of years after I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), she was, like me, very fearful of closeness: she’d let me pet her but only in her kitty bed in the far corner of my apartment. She hid from visitors. Eating with her back turned was dangerous. I’d never allow her on my bed. Safety, in both our eyes, was never a given.

When I adopted Sam, he taught Hannah about companionship. Hannah wasn’t all for it at the time. She expressed such hateful guttural sounds, noises I’d never before heard from her; her reaction caused adrenaline to rush through me, triggered my PTSD. This was the difficult path to recovering from traumatic experiences of the past.

It’s been nine years since I was first diagnosed with PTSD. In that time, I’ve gone through a great deal of therapy and recovery. Hannah has, in many ways, reflected the changes I’ve undergone in healing.

A couple of months ago, I caught Hannah and Sam sleeping on my bed, their bodies comfortably touching. Hannah had never allowed Sam to be that close. I convinced myself she was doing it not for love but for warmth, survival: the weather had turned cold and the garret heat was not on.

When I showed a friend a photograph I’d taken of Hannah and Sam together on my bed, he pointed to the cat who was opening herself up with her extended paw: he thought that cat was Sam. I had to remind him that the calico was Hannah.

One night, after I’d come home from a long day of teaching, Hannah climbed up beside me on the garret chaise. She sat up tall for several minutes, gazing at me until I began to feel self-conscious. When I looked back at her, she stretched her front paws onto the rim of the chaise, stood, and lifted her forehead to mine, pushing at me affectionately. Then she sat down, curled up against my leg, and placed her paws on top of my fingers. There she stayed, purring for an hour.

At first, I thought something must be wrong, that she was sick. Was her autoimmune disease flaring up with a vengeance? Perhaps, I thought, she knew she was dying. No. She was simply being her true self, an inherent self I’d never seen behaving so openly and expressively, seeking and enjoying connection.

Once emotionally shutdown and timid, Hannah now displays a full range of behaviors. She is, I think, finally living a fulfilling, whole feline life. Curling up beside me on the chaise has become an evening ritual. So has play-fighting with Sam around the portable radiator she once put as a barrier between her and her brother (the “fighting” then progresses to a “cat-and-mouse” chase, or Hannah tackling Sam in a wrestling match). A few minutes later, they’re sleeping. In the past, I’d have run from this beautiful, sweet life playing out in front of me. Not anymore.

– TLS

{Writer’s note: I’m very honored and happy to announce that my memoir Notes on Proper Usage, has been selected for the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Literary Award. Notes on Proper Usage is a memoir about my relationship with my late writer-editor mother, in which Hannah and Sam have cameo appearances.}

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Cat Got My Tongue

Hannah, after feeling the earthquake.

Where’d the last month go?

After my post about taking Hannah and Sam to the vet, life seemed to get a little more than crazy, beginning with Maine’s 4.0 earthquake on October 16, which caused the garret to shake quite noticeably.

Hannah was on edge for hours, anticipating an aftershock, while Sam simply went back to playing.

Mother nature struck the east coast again two days before Halloween with Hurricane Sandy. Fortunately, the garret never lost power, nor did it sustain any damage, though it did sway quite a bit due to the high winds. I was saddened to see so many places I knew as a girl growing up on Long Island ravaged by the storm, with some areas obliterated. Many of my friends in New York and New Jersey are still without power. We’re hoping for a speedy recovery for all who’ve been so badly affected.

When what we’ve always had is taken from us, our lives are shaken. Our sense of how the world works, our daily routine, is turned upside down. It’s during disorienting and grief-laden times like these that it’s important to remember what we do have, what we can hold onto: our connections with others, both human and animal.

This past week, after getting the flu shot, I became quite ill, which meant I was stuck in the garret for many days. Hannah and Sam kept me company: Hannah hopped up beside me on the garret chaise, where she curled up for hours, purring and nudging her head and paws into my arms. Sam, on the other hand, provided comic relief, entertaining himself (and me) by dashing back and forth through a toy tube. For the video, click here.

As these November days bring us closer to Thanksgiving, I’d like to express my gratitude to the family and friends who are a part of my life, to Hannah and Sam for teaching me every day to appreciate the little things, and to all the readers who keep tuned in to the Hannah Grace blog. Keep your comments coming.

And for another Sam video, click here.

– TLS

Please share what you’re grateful for in the comment box below!

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Naughty No More

My days tend to be crowded with “productive” things to do: preparing for the upcoming teaching term, going to PTSD treatment, working out at the gym, paying the bills, picking up cat food, revising my new book. So I decided August would be the month I would finally get myself a “fun” project: clicker training.

Clicker training is something I’ve tried once before – a few years ago, as a volunteer at the Animal Rescue League, I went to a one-time seminar on the subject, specifically geared towards training cats for adoptability: acceptable behavior as well as cute tricks. Dogs are known for doing quite well with the clicker; cats are a little more difficult to train, but it’s done. At the time, I brought home my complimentary clicker to see if I could train Hannah to sit on my lap. As soon as I depressed the clicker, however, Hannah flinched at the sound. Some cats need a few clicks to get used to it – pair the sound with a delicious treat and they’re supposed to associate pleasure with the clicker. Not Hannah. So I tossed the clicker, and let Hannah be.

This past June, one of my writing mentors in Washington, D.C. emailed to tell me she was successfully clicker training her two cats. She taught them not only to sit and “come here,” but to do tricks such as standing on their hind legs and raising their front paws. She described how much fun it was for both her and her cats. I thought about Sam, how he cries for me to feed him an hour before mealtime and tries to steal Hannah’s food, and how he gets territorial and aggressive at times when I’m brushing Hannah. I’ve tried to ignore him, put him in a “time-out,” and otherwise not reward the behavior, to no avail. So I thought I could train him and as a result alleviate a growing tension in the garret household.

I bought a new clicker and the training book Naughty No More!, a publication put out by Cat Fancy, which my writing mentor recommended. (Of course when I typed in the title on Amazon, it came up with rather pornographic literature before I finally realized I ought to type in the additional word, “cats,” along with the name of the book.) I also bought two bags of treats, which I tested out on Sam before the arrival of the clicker and training materials – he thought they were scrumptious.

Once the clicker and book arrived, I read the instructions from cover to cover, excited to begin. The book’s foreward discussed the idea behind changing unwanted behaviors through positive reinforcement: “”Clicker training is actually fun for both you and your cat. …It’s a win/win situation for the cat and [his] human family.” Unfortunately, Sam did not make it even to the first trained behavior titled “Please Touch The Target,” because he was terrified of the clicker. When I clicked the clicker and tossed him a treat, he ran faster than I’ve seen him run since he was a kitten, and hid under my bed for the next hour. I thought, ok, perhaps he needs to get used to the sound. No – Sam’s reaction got worse. After the fourth total click (spread out across three days), he acted as if I’d administered an electric shock. As a sort of post-script, the book does say one can use a retractable pen for a more gentle “click” sound, should the cat be “shy” around the clicker, however when I took out a pen Sam took one look at it and ran away to hide for another hour. Hannah, on the other hand, simply sat there watching, as if she was bored.

The next time Sam began to cry for his dinner, I took out the clicker and clicked once. His crying ceased for thirty minutes after that. So I decided to keep the clicker and to use it for the complete opposite reason for which it was made: to deter behavior, not to reward it. I’m not sure how long this will last. Honestly, I hate depressing the clicker, because Sam seems so chagrined when I do.

I have trained Sam to sit, but not with the clicker. When I’m carrying a dish of kibble, Sam meows and quacks and dances around my feet. I tell him “sit” and he circles my legs and taps my calves with his tail. I say it again, “sit” and he lowers his rear and looks up at me, continuing to quack. “Shh,” I say, “no meowing or quacking.” He can hardly contain himself. Finally, when he’s sitting and quiet and almost bursting with delight, I deliver his reward: dinner.

– TLS

Have you tried to train your pets? Share your experiences and other thoughts in the comment box below.

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Cat Star

Hannah’s little brother, Sam.

As Hannah’s little brother Sam approaches his 2nd birthday, he continues to do his mission work in the garret household, helping Hannah to heal from her previous trauma (the latest: he’s trying to teach her how to cuddle), and reminding me to laugh, every day. Today he was profiled in The Fluffington Post. Click here to see our Sam.

A little over a week ago, I had to go to New York for my late mother‘s memorial service. I left Hannah and Sam alone overnight with two automatic timed feeders. The evening before my trip, I set the feeder timers so that I could test them both to see if they would deliver food at the appropriate times and amounts of Hannah’s and Sam’s twice daily meals.

When the clock struck “food time,” the feeders made a whirring sound before spitting out kibble into the bowls. At first, Hannah and Sam ran for dear life. But then they became intrigued: food. I’d heard from friends that setting the amount of food to be dispensed from the feeders could be tricky, and it was. Hannah’s hypoallergenic kibble, which Sam also eats by default, is larger than the recommended feeder size. So I set the timer to deliver a larger amount to make up for the deficiency in output. It worked fine overnight. However, in the morning, just before I was to leave, I walked by one of the feeders and it suddenly dumped an extra quarter cup of kibble into its bowl.

Hannah is a grazer by nature while Sam eats anything available; this is the reason why I originally had to initiate timed feedings, to control Sam’s weight. This meant sneaking Hannah food behind Sam’s back, since she wouldn’t eat her meal in one sitting. As I looked at the timed feeders releasing more food against my orders, I let it go. It would be twenty-four hours, I told myself, and Sam would be well-fed and Hannah would need to learn to be there to eat, ready or not. (When I returned from my trip, it seemed all was well.)

Meanwhile, I think Sam’s stardom has gone to his head. He won’t stop gazing at himself in the mirror.

– TLS

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Turn That Frown Upside Down

In my last post, I was just starting Hannah on a liver pill, known as SAMe, a derivative of her little b(r)other’s name. I’m here to give an update:

Hannah has, over the past weeks, shown her smarts, eating the pill pocket all around the pill and leaving the glistening pink medication on the floor. I’ve had to lock Sam in the bedroom to block his ability, and desire, to go at the SAMe like prey, to gobble it up for himself. After all, it does have his name written all over it.

One evening, I spent almost three hours trying to cajole Hannah into taking her SAMe. She simply stared at the lump I left on the floor in front of her, shrugged her shoulders, then left the room. Finally, I opened a can of tuna. On a hypoallergenic diet, Hannah is not supposed to eat tuna, but I got the “ok” from the vet to douse the pill pocket with tuna juice. Hannah ate it up quickly. However, a few days later, the novelty of tuna juice wore off. After another three-hour session of pill-giving tries, I lightly dabbed the pill pocket with organic tomato sauce. Success: Hannah ate the pill in one swallow (I wonder, is this the cat’s equivalent of pizza?). Let’s hope this lasts for the rest of the pill pack. Later next week, I’ll be bringing Hannah back to the clinic to have her liver enzyme level checked. I’m hoping for positive news. If not, I will probably have to learn how to use a pill gun.

Meanwhile, Hannah’s little brother Sam has begged for his own daily treat. Since he has grown tired of his new mouse toy, I purchased a smiley-face laser light. Here’s a video glimpse of him (and, for a small part, Hannah) playing laser tag for the first time (click here). Be sure to watch until the end, when that frown turns upside down.

To be continued…

– 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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Homebodies

Hannah (right) & Sam (left), with the garret portable radiator

Do you ever wonder what your pets do, exactly, when you’re not home? Do they sleep? Play? Destroy things? Read the books you’ve neatly stacked on the shelves? Recently, I was away from the garret at a nine-day writer’s residency at Lesley University. I returned most nights to find Hannah and Sam lingering in the hallway, between the door and the living room, looking stressed, meowing “hello!” and, more importantly, “where’s dinner?”

Hannah, who is more independent than her little brother, methodically took in the scents of my day, sniffing at my clothes and hands as if to decode where exactly I had been and with whom. She looked into my eyes and snorted quietly and pleasurably when I rubbed her forehead with my thumb.

Sam, however, ran into the bedroom and hid there, as if I were an imposter, until I opened a can of wet food in the kitchenette. Then he was by my side, meow-meowing incessantly and making gurgle noises in his throat while he circled my feet, bumping his body into my calves, until I finally put the dish down in front of him. When it was my turn to eat, Hannah warmed herself by the portable radiator and Sam tumbled over onto his back before me, showing his belly, purring from deep within.

Hannah stole Sam's laundry basket perch

Although I did come home nightly, Hannah and Sam both showed signs of stress during my absence. One day I arrived home to find the foot-tall cat condo had been half-demolished by Sam, who has a carpet fetish: individual pieces of carpet had been plucked off the sides and top and deposited in a pile on the floor. I hoped he hadn’t ingested any.

When I sat down to give both cats my undivided attention, neither wanted to be second, and Sam pawed and nipped at Hannah whenever she came close. Hannah, on the other hand, became aggressive in her need for affection. She practically toppled me over as she rubbed her whole head around my knees and pushed in. She even (gasp!) attempted to sit on my lap, something she has never done, then decided that curling up right in front of me with her head propped on my thigh was a safer bet. Around the food bowl, she displayed great hesitation. I frequently had to pick her up, holding her close as I carried her back to the bowl, encouraging her to eat. Secretly, I think she wanted the extra physical touch.

Sam

Hannah stole Sam’s perch atop the laundry basket. Then, Sam began to sit on my lap, something he has not done since he was four months old. He alternated between my lap, and sitting on top of my feet, as if to make me stay put, the vibration of his purring warming my toes.

– TLS

What is it like for you, and your pets, when you are at work all day or away on vacation? Share your experiences below!

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