Arthur

I wind up posting about my doggies a lot, but today's post is devoted to one of my five cats (no, I am not a crazy cat lady - five cats is what happens when two cat lovers combine households).

This picture is of me with Arthur, who is the first pet that I acquired after I starting living on my own. I'll never forget the night in January 1998 when one of my law school pals called me and said, "Hey, do you want a cute 3-month-old black kitten? I have one sitting on my lap right now who needs a home." My friend and her housemates on Capitol Hill had taken in a mama cat who had given birth to five kittens, and this one was the last to need a home. I'd been wanting a cat of my own for a while - I'd been living on my own without one for five years - and it was right around my birthday, so figured that there was no harm in at least going to look at my friend's kitten. But before I did that, I went to PetSmart to get a cat carrier, kitten food (wet and dry), food and water bowls, a litter box, kitty litter, and a scoop - not that I had already made up my mind or anything. . . .

I lived downtown at the time, so I drove up to Capitol Hill on an icy night to look at the little black kitty, and he stole my heart immediately. His mama cat, Ebony, clearly was not pleased when she realized that I was taking her last baby, so my glee was mixed with guilt as I left my friend's home and drove toward my own. When I finally got back to my apartment and saw this little bundle of shiny black-coated, kitteny joy romping around my apartment, I forgot the guilt and experienced unadulterated happiness. I called my mother to tell her I'd actually gone through with the adoption, and we discussed some potential names. I wanted a real boy name but not something on the top-10 baby names list. At some point my mother said, "What about Arthur?" "Hmmm. Arthur. That's pretty good," I said, at which point the little kitty looked at me. So I stuck with Arthur as his name. (Although I didn't know it at the time, this was the beginning of an "old Jewish man" naming theme for all of my subsequent pets).

Arthur was sweet as a kitten but he also was hell on wheels. He climbed the draperies from top to bottom, shredded the couch, and for a while liked to pounce all over me when I slept. Luckily, for us both, I let him live through kittenhood and he turned into a pretty mellow young cat, but as he got older he decided he didn't really like any humans other than me. All guests to my apartment, and later my house when I moved to Arthur's home turf of Capitol Hill, received a mandatory "Arthur warning" upon entering. "He will come up to you and rub against your leg like you're his best friend, but no matter how strong the temptation DO NOT PET HIM!!! As soon as you reach your arm toward him HE WILL SHRED YOU!!!" Most people quite sensibly gave him a wide berth after a warning like that, but some of my hard-core cat loving friends just could not help themselves. The most notable of these was my friend HSA, who actively invited Arthur to shred her and took to calling him "the shiny wicked guy." "Shiny and wicked" was a description that stuck (it sounded better than Darth Vader, which was what I tended to call him when he got in one of his moods), and I still describe him as such today. He is one handsome shiny black dude, even though he can still be wicked at times.

I think that Mr. Shiny and Wicked probably delayed J's decision to move in with me, in part out of fear for his own safety and in part out of fear of what might happen to his two cats. I promised J that all the cats eventually would work things out just fine, although there probably would be a period of fur-flying and weird yowling sounds, and I argued strenuously that J would be safe if he became The Food Guy. The cats integrated far more quickly and peaceably than my fondest hopes, and after a few weeks of being The Food Guy, J no longer walked half way around a room to avoid Arthur. After a few months of being The Food Guy, J actually made friends with Arthur. But Arthur continued to have dominion over all the other cats, and the dogs, too, for that matter. OK, I admit it, Arthur is the alpha-creature of the entire house, even the humans, although he lets us keep our blood in our own veins because he realizes that we are his devoted servants.

Arthur is now nearly 11.5, and J and I have noticed that he has been slowing down a bit over the past couple months. Two weeks ago he was leaving us evidence of pretty bad urinary tract distress, so we took him to the vet and got meds for that. Although Arthur stopped leaving the evidence after he finished the meds, this Tuesday and Wednesday a.m. he didn't eat much and he walked around our house extremely slowly looking like he was stoned. I was worried that he had a UT blockage and so took him to our usual vet first thing on Wednesday a.m. on an emergency basis. He was not blocked, but an x-dray showed fluid in his abdominal cavity, which was evidence of a much bigger kind of problem. We spent half the day yesterday at South Paws Veterinary Referral Center (a very impressive place) seeing an internal medicine specialist to try to find out what was going on.

It turns out that Arthur has cancerous tumors throughout his entire abdominal cavity, including in his bladder (which explains why he was leaving us all the scary UT evidence). It obviously is too late for a cure or even a life-prolonging treatment, so we are giving him prednisone and subcutaneous fluids to see if that will at least bring him some comfort for whatever time he naturally has left. The vet said that some cats do really well with this kind of palliative care and get a few more quality months, while for others it does not work at all. J and I now are in the unenviable position of monitoring Arthur carefully to determine when enough is enough -- although I will miss Arthur terribly when he goes, I don't want him to suffer needlessly for even one minute for the sole point of delaying my own grief.

This morning Arthur ate fairly well and moved around OK - slowly, but without any evidence of pain - and he seems to be hanging out comfortably with the other cats. He's staked out one of the dining room chairs as his safe spot, and Thomas, who was my second cat and is Arthur's best cat pal, will not leave Arthur's side and has taken up residence in the adjacent chair. The other cats, and even the dogs, are hanging around the dining room a lot, too. They all know. In fact, I think that Jacob the dog has known for a while -- he and Arthur have traditionally been neutral toward one another, but about six weeks ago Jacob started going up to Arthur on a daily basis to sniff and lick him. I thought it was sweet, but a bit odd, when I first observed it, but in retrospect I think that was Jacob's way of acknowledging Arthur's condition and starting to take care of him.

Now we're all taking special care of Mr. Arthur and will continue to do so for as long as we can keep him comfortable, and we are preparing ourselves for the inevitable day when that will no longer be possible. Last year, as I watched several of my friends lose their beloved pets, I thought to myself how lucky I was that my oldest cat was only 11 and should have lots more time. Shows you what I knew. These last three days have been a stark reminder for me of how unpredictable and tenuous life is and of how little I really control. I suppose that if there is a bright side to this situation, perhaps it is receiving a reminder of some of life's inevitable truths.