Mystery Blood and Medicare

To this day, I still don't know where the blood came from. One minute I was sitting at the kitchen table, paying bills like a good human, and the next I was grabbing cats in a frenzy, pulling up tails and examining teeth and gums looking for leaks. I never found any. I usually never do. I don't think many humans, unless they are trained in the fine arts of cat trickery by a master cat, ever do. I am incredibly gullible and ridiculously inept when matching wits with kitties, but I don't care. That is just how life is. They can't write computer software-at least I don't think they can-and I can't clean my own butt with my tongue, at least my few attempts so far have been far from successful. I am a cat owner, a special breed of human that is programmed genetically to be overly optimistic and quietly insane.

Just ask my husband what he thought that day. He came home in the midst of my frantic attempt to track down the owner of the trail of blood drops that stretched from my kitchen floor across the sink, just ending suddenly at the pantry door. There I was, wild-eyed and hair standing on end, grasping the front of a disgruntled feline with one hand and lifting its tail with the other, scrutinizing what was under that tail with what appeared to be at first, I am sure, a rather unnatural and rapt interest.

And to top it off, I was using my soothing voice to calm the cat, named Belle, whose emotions appeared to range from confusion to disgust to indignation, while simultaneously trying to shout instructions at my husband, Will, sounding something like this:

"There's blood everywhere, grab Desdemona and check her butt! It's okay, Belle, honey, Mommy needs to see what's under your tail."

"Check her what? What blood?"

"Her butt! Then check her gums! She could be bleeding from her gums or her butt! Look for wounds! Check her eyes! It's okay, Belle, let Mommy see those pretty-ouch!-pointy little teeth."

At this point Will shakes his head and picks up Desdemona, who is, in veterinarian terms, "an extremely low energy cat", and starts moving her around in front of him like he's flying a paper airplane. He peeks under her and shifts her from one side to the other, holding her like a Faberge egg, then sets her down and looks at me. I roll my eyes, of course, because his examination hasn't been thorough enough to suit me, and I reach for Desdemona, who feebly waddles toward the door in a desperate effort to get away. I get a good grip on her, lift her tail and point her rear end at Will, explaining in what I am sure sounds like the tone of voice you would use to correct a naughty child,

"Honey, we have to check orifices! I found a trail of blood in the kitchen, and it didn't come from me. Now, look at her butt!"

And this went on until all our critters were cleared-no wounds, no leaks, no damage anywhere. They were no worse for the experience, except that Desdemona now avoids the kitchen. But I'm not sure Will will ever be the same. He loves animals, but he just doesn't have the instincts for when to panic. He doesn't have sense enough to check for seepage when I find blood all over the kitchen, but freaks and calls me at work when Taffy, our diabetic cat, went into a coma.

"Honey, I'm sorry, but Taffy died." Sniffle, sniffle.

"What do you mean she died? Is she wounded? Is she stiff? Did you find a suicide note? What?"

"Just stiff." Choke, sob. "I found her in front of the door." Heart-wrenching sob.

"Take her to the vet. She's having a problem with her insulin."

And he did and she was, and now she is fine. He finds one stiff cat and goes to pieces, whereas I find enough blood to give a transfusion and he doesn't lift a finger, or a tail. This is why he does not medicate any of the cats. All five of them are older, and half of them are on medications for something or other-heart problems, diabetes, tennis elbow, etc. While I would trust him with my life, I would not wish for him to give Desdemona a pill and have her little eyeballs pop out or her tail suddenly shoot across the room. I try to save him the trauma of this, so I, of course, subject myself to it instead, which is, most of the time, not a problem.

However, there have been days when I get caught up in the hectic pace of life and can't remember if I have given Desdemona her medicine--enough, too much, or not at all. Or perhaps I took it. Who knows? A human you can ask; a cat just looks at you in a way that says, "Yep, you've probably killed me, you loony old bat, now what?" So Will and I have quite a few conversations like this:

"Oh no, honey, I think I gave Desdemona her medicine twice!"

"No, you didn't."

"Are you sure? Oh no, look at her! She can't stand up; she's lying down! She's lethargic!"

"How can you tell? She sleeps twenty hours a day."

"Look!" I hold up Desdemona, whose eyes are bugging out. "Her body is limp, and her eyes are rolling back in her head"

"She's trying to go to sleep!"

And so it goes until I finally am able to calm myself enough to look for real symptoms of an overdose. I have taken to writing every dose down to avoid this and one other glaring problem-the wrong cat taking the meds instead. Once I was engaged in a lively conversation with Will while feeding a medication-laced morsel to Belle, the intended feline recipient. I wondered why she was eating so fast, and when I looked down, it turns out I had just fed the medication to Polo, our only male cat, who licked his lips, smacked his chops, and, I swear, smiled.

A quick call to the vet confirmed that the pill wouldn't do any harm to the sneaky little monster, although it sent a shot of adrenaline through me that would fell a small bison. Since then I am extra careful when giving Taffy her insulin, even though she is the only diabetic and the only orange tabby in the bunch. I worry more about giving myself her insulin than any of the other cats, mainly because I can't get any of them to stand still for me since the mystery blood incident.If I don't pay close attention, I find that, on any given day, I may end up with a variety of animal medications in my system. I must say, though, that I feel better than I ever have. Although I draw the line at asking the vet to give me a pap smear, I think I start going to him when I have a cold or flu. Until then you'll find me, a cat in one hand and a pill in the other, making the most of my stature as a pet owner and living a happier, probably more medicated, existence.