A Hand to Hold
by Lauren
Sorry for the delay in blogging. My collaborator has been really busy with end of summer and beginning of school year things. My own blogging Muse ran away and left no forwarding address until now. She was rebelling because I’d used up all the ideas she’d given me while Mom was on vacation and busy with school. I felt guilty constantly reminding her that we had a blog to maintain and adding one more item to her already busy workload.
But today the Muse gave me a really good idea, so here I go.
As most of you know, Tim and I have four cats, one of which we adopted earlier this year as a result of a visiting neighbor’s feline. The neighbor’s cat was so sweet on Tim and warmed Tim up to the point he wanted to go get another when I suggested the idea. We browsed the Pet Finder for a little while and there was a really cute cat listed on the thing named Wilma whose first owner had died. It said she loved to play and head butted even the cameraman taking pictures for attention. We think head butting cats are adorable, so we went to the Pet Placement Center where we got Caramel and Hazelnut.
As things turned out, Wilma (whose name is now Pepper) also has a disease called stomatitis. It’s an auto-immune disorder responsible for a lot of things, but is manageable with shots. They told us at the time about how much things would cost and we thought she deserved a home, so we took her in.
She’s very playful and hyperactive and slightly crazy but also very sweet too and she loves to snuggle. She’s a lot like me. Must be why we love her so much, haha. 😀
Cats normally don’t like going to the vet and Pepper is no exception to that. Since Tim only has one good hand, the task falls to me to get the cats into the carrier whenever they need to go anywhere. Caramel waltzes right in. He’s perfectly healthy and has had no fear of getting in the carrier. Vanilla too, waltzes into the carrier like there’s no problem.
Hazelnut and Pepper are entirely different. Hazelnut fights like a demon cat and Pepper also struggles to get away. She broke free once, but her hiding place that she’d chosen to hide from me was a small bookcase she likes to use to jump on top of the china cabinet. She would have done better if she’d jumped actually onto the china cabinet, as there’s no way either Tim nor I could get her off the top of that thing to go to her appointment.
Thankfully I was able to recapture her and put her in the carrier the second time without a lot of fuss. Once the door shut, I could hear her cries. She’s not a very vocal cat unless she’s going to the vet. As I sat there listening to her cries, it suddenly struck me that this must have been how my mother felt. I was telling her it would be okay but she’s only a little kitty and it was very scary to her. Since I am sick this week with a cold, I couldn’t go with her and hold her paw, but I knew that Tim would reassure her.
I hated shots of any kind when I was little. Blood work for medical procedures was painful. Unfortunately for me, I had to have a lot of them. And I didn’t want to go.
I would cry and cry during the tests. Mom had to be the one to hold my hand and tell me things would be okay if I could just hang on a little bit more. Of course, I didn’t understand when I was a kid. I just wanted things to stop. Even as recently as my last heart operation I pitched a fit when they were putting the I.V.’s in. I didn’t want that needle.
They hurt!
A lot!
Now that I’m all grown up with “kids” of my own, know how hard taking me to get medical things all the time must have been for my mom. I’m just thankful I had such a good mom who took care of me when I needed it and helped me through the scary parts and gave me a hand to hold.