siriosa 2000

sick kitten
couple weeks ago i took vita to the vet. her runny nose (which she's had since i brought her home in october) seemed to be getting worse. the vet said it was probably a virus, which she would probably have all her life, and prescribed an antibiotic, to deal with the probable bacterial infection on top of it.

so i gave her amoxicillin for a week. a couple days after that was over, she started acting ... odd. she flinched away from me when i reached out to pet her. started spending a lot of time hiding in dark places. she was eating and drinking and using the litter box, but she seemed delicate and withdrawn. sometimes she'd come under the covers and sleep under my knees, but mostly she was somewhere hiding

for a week i'd say to myself "tomorrow morning i'll call the vet and take her in," but in the morning i just couldn't bring myself to do it. i like to trust my instincts. it's how i got to be this old. Best Housemate Evar would've taken her to the vet already. i did, finally, make an appointment for next tuesday

my sense, though, is that it's not something fixable. that i could throw a lot of money at it, and the effect would be the same as if i just tried to keep the other kitten from pestering her, except she'd have all the trauma of vet visits and procedures, and we'd spend a lot of money, and eventually i'd feel exactly the same way i would if i'd done nothing.

everybody i know is going to die. it's vexing when it happens to the young ones, when there's those of us who are ahead of them in line. but what do you do with those you love when they're dying? you love them. you try to make them comfortable. and then you grieve.

practice makes perfect.

i've been exhausted lately. the least little effort just wipes me out. i can do what needs to be done, and then i need to be horizontal. some of this is anniversary stuff (teesaga began this time last year); some of it's from starting on organizing the attic (the folder of letters from 1997 surfaced); some of it is email from friends, surgery on elders, multiple intimations of mortality.

being alive is hard work. surviving loved ones is marathon. one wonders what might be the point. best i've been able to figure: it's being kind. it's opening up your heart in the full knowledge that it's going to get broken.

the friends who have expressed a preference between the two kittens unanimously prefer vita. virginia doesn't seem to need anything or anybody. she's selfish and fearless and thoughtless.

they say "only the good die young," but i think that's because we're never ready to say goodbye to the ones we love, and we're tapping our feet in readiness to say goodbye to the others.

anyway. that's the news from here.