Life Gets A Mite Hard: A Check-In

Today is Sunday. On Wednesday, Peggy left on her fourth vacation of the year. I kid her about only leaving home when the house needs cleaning, but this time was worse than that because all five cats were—and are—sick with URIs (upper respiratory infections), an extremely infectious illness commonly caused by feline herpesvirus. As with herpes in humans, herpes in cats is permanent, and can come screaming back when the cat is upset, after which he or she spreads it to other cats. It is often accompanied by a second viral or bacterial infection.

Saturday before last, I was out shopping when two of our sick felines started panting. We only have the one car, so Peggy had a friend take her and them to the emergency vet. Five hours and a thousand dollars later, they were sent home with meds, and we were advised to keep them quarantined so they wouldn’t make the other cats sicker by increasing their “viral load.” The room I’m in (the computer room) is where we put them. The day before she left, Peggy and I took the sicker of the two—Scully—to her regular vet and came home $250 poorer and with a week’s worth of Azithromycin.

Cats can’t blow their noses, so everytime the two sickest cats exhaled, they blew bubbles, and their fur became matted with snot which they put there while bathing. Snot also ran from their eyes, and their frequent sneezes left spots on windows, floors, and walls. The room even smelled of snot, but it being too cool to open windows, I had to live with it. I took Scully out of quarantine on Thursday, but Harvey was still so sick that I called the emergency vet for advice that same night. I thought they might tell me to bring him in, but I was instead told to apply warm compresses to his sinuses. I doubted that this would work, and when it didn’t, I got out a hot plate and a steam kettle, and imprisoned him in front of the kettle in his cat carrier. He liked the steam so much that I have kept him there for an hour a day for four days. To insure that he stayed warm, I also built him a cozy den in a cardboard box with a jerry-rigged roof. He preferred it to his regular bed as I discovered when I got up several times each night to check on him.

The other cats were so upset about Harvey being in quarantine that they shredded the hall carpet while trying to dig under the door. When I took him out of his weeklong quarantine yesterday, he walked around the house for a few minutes after which he returned to the computer room and showed every indication of wanting to make it his permanent abode. As of today, Harvey’s congestion has returned, and the other cats are sneezing, so I don’t know but what everyone is going to be sick again—two vets have warned that this could happen indefinitely. 

When Peggy is away the heart goes out of our home. I no longer have nearby friends, and if I didn’t have her, I would probably live in isolation. I still enjoy people—except on days when I can’t bear to be around them—but I no longer want to socialize. This is the opposite of how I spent much of my life. I understand that it’s not unusual for aging men to feel this way, whereas aging women often expand their friendship circles, as has been the case with Peggy. 

Additional reasons for my disinterest in socializing are a voice problem I’ve developed that makes it hard for people to understand me, and the fact that the back pain I suffer from is distracting, robs me of energy, and makes me feel vulnerable. I can’t even make plans to do things with people because I never know how much pain I’ll be in.

Because Peggy is away, I’ve been reflecting upon the fact that if I should, for whatever reason, need help, I don’t know anyone I would feel good about asking. I know people who I could ask, should it come to that, but I would feel like I was imposing because they and I don’t have a relationship built on reciprocity. In a few more years, my isolation could become a real problem, especially if I have to give up driving. 

This week has been especially hard for me, what with Peggy being gone, the cats being sick, and me being out of narcotics and sleeping pills. So it is that my days have been spent nursing—and anguishing over—cats; doing as much housework and yard work as I can manage; watching my beloved Grenada Television Sherlock Holmes series; and sitting up most of each night reading what is by far the most gory and depressing book about America’s Civil War that I’ve yet encountered (The Civil War Soldier, A Historical Reader). 

Despite how bad things have been, I can at least feel good that Peggy hasn’t been here because I have only negativity to offer, and all that would accomplish would be to make her feel bad and me feel worse. The good thing about cats is that, as long as their meals on time, they don’t seem to care how I feel. I can say what I want and do what I want, and they bear it extremely well unless I’m a half hour late with one of their three daily meals or their midnight snack.