Our world turned upside down on May 19, when a physician’s assistant silently walked into an examining room, handed Peggy the results of an MRI which contained the words “probable metastatic process,” and walked out. That day marked the end of either of us of us being happy for more than a minutes at a time. This is such a hard way to live that I've often had the thought that there probably aren’t many ways that are worse.
Then, two weeks ago, things got worse when our when our fifteen-year-old tabby, Brewsky, was diagnosed with stage two kidney failure. Before adopting him, Peggy so hated cats that she had nightmares of being pursued by unstoppable cat demons. Then our little black schnauzer died, and Peggy surprised me by suggesting that we visit the pound to look for a dog the very next day. When the pound had no dog that suited us, Peggy surprised me a second time by saying. “Let’s visit the cattery.” Six-month-old Brewsky was the first cat we saw, and Peggy felt no need to see another.
August 6, marked fourteen years and six months that Brewsky has spent every day of his life under this roof. Peggy was working evenings when when he moved-in, and while she was at the hospital, he would often scare the wits out of me, dog person that I was, by yowling and running circuits through the house, a practice that he continued until recently. He was also so troublesome as an adolescent that he would stare me in the eye while doing things I had just told for the fortieth time not to do. This always resulted in him running through the house in apparent terror while I chased him while cursing and slapping furniture with a yard stick.
Despite doing everything that I could do short of violence, his disobedience continued. Then came the night that he suddenly stopped running, rolled onto his back, and looked me in the eye as if to ask, “What are you going to do now, Mr. Bad Man, beat me to death with your yardstick?” “You bastard, I never scared you for a moment did I?” I said as I dropped the yardstick and lay on the floor to pet him. Thus began a nightly ritual that continued for many months until he lost interest.
Brewsky soon matured into a mellow and confident 15-pounder who has since parented four other kittens, one of whom he has literally “nursed” since 2015. He has also, at times, served as a parent to the humans of the household, which might be why, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Peggy said to him and him alone, “Brewsky, you’ve got to help me beat this thing.” Two weeks ago, we took him to the vet with what we thought was a simple respiratory infection and were told that he also had stage two kidney failure. After telling the vet of her own illness, bald-headed Peggy, said, “You’ve got to save my cat.” Since then, Brewsky has stopped bathing, vomited blood, become incontinent, and stopped eating or drinking.
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