A Long and Sad Vigil
I have been watching my housemate's cat these last couple of weeks. He came home a few weeks ago walking very stiffly, like he'd been kicked or beaten up or was sick. Since then, he's gone in to see the vet who pronounced him in need of a run of anti-biotics and that would set him up right as rain again.

But that just hasn't been the case. This is an animal who would bash (literally) his head against the door when he wanted to get outside again. A cat who'd jump from the second story balcony into a tree to get out when he had to be out and about.

Some quick background, he thinks he lives in a park a couple of streets over from our house. Reason being was that was where he spent much of his kittenhood because the house he actually lived in was across the street from the park and very small so he'd be taken over there to play. And Jagr grew into thinking it was where he lived. Up until when he got sick he would always end up there and that's where we'd go to get him if he decided to stay out for too many nights in a row.

This is also a cat that thought nothing of walking into a running shower and laying down in the water like it was totally cool. Or play in a sprinkler like a dog. He's been a most unusual and enjoyable creature.

But anyway, since he's gotten sick ihe's been a very different cat. He'll stay huddled up like he's cold for half a day at a time. He moves with a slow gait (sometimes moving so slowly that I don't see him move just that he has relocated from place to place in the living room or into the upstairs), he sits awkwardly, he barely eats, he lays down in strange ways, he has no bounce in him, his eyes are rhuemy (sp?) and he appears to be a very, very old cat. Last night I spent a few hours with him nearby so I could keep an eye on him. I saw him in the living room laying down but with his neck bent sharply (and looking horribly uncomfortable) to the left so that his face was against his stomach. I straightened him out (more to make sure he could) and he stretched himself out, as if he had a cramp but didn't have the energy to fight it so it locked him up to that side. I stretched him out a couple more times over the night, tried to get him to eat and would lay him down somewhere comfortable when I could.

At one point, after he'd been curled up under the overhang of the big bean bag chair, he got up and wandered about the room for a little while, slowly and unsurely, like he'd never been in my room before. At one point I watched him try to walk a straight line and fall over to the right (against my bed) and then to the left where there was nothing to catch him and he fell over. I think he's vision's gone bad on him because he peers very intently at nothing at all, walks through things he'd normally avoid. Last night I thought he was peeing in his water dish but instead kind of got caught in it and was pumping his leg to try and get through it. And then he kept his low saunter around the kitchen, notably uninterested in some lox I'd been cooking with and put a bit down for him.

Or he tried to sleep with his head inside my mini-liquor cabinet and then, as he turned over, knocked a few rolled up posters down onto himself and then just sat there looking around like he was totally bewildered about the world. Almost, though I shudder to say it, as bad as Ozzy Osbourne looks more than half the time on his show.

I am nearly distraught really, he's been such a good friend for a number of years now that I hate to see him so infirm. Hate to see him look like he's suffering, hate to think he's dying, hate to think of not having him to hang out with, hate to think of him gone.

And the awful part, the truly terrible part of the whole thing is that I know, one of these mornings, one of those late night trips to the bathroom, at some point I will come upon him and he'll no longer be breathing his labored breathes and his body will be stiff as rigor mortis has set in. It's my fervent wish that he does turn a corner and come back to us, that he gets better and returns to the cool, fun kitty we all know and love. I want it badly but I haven't seen any signs that he's improving at all. I just want him to live forever, is that so much to ask?

Maybe I should investigate that whole Peter Pan and the clapping thing to see if that would work over the internet?