Creature From The Cute Lagoon

I understand that mostly what Life is doing right now is hammering away at my ego, keeping anything that I might try and label as 'love', 'safety', 'stability', or, 'fantabulousness' far, far from my living. Which is actually producing a sense of hilarity in me, a surrender to it all that comes complete with belly laughs in recognition that I am so not in control of what's happening, and at the pointlessness of all the striving and organizing and fighting and thinking, those crazy mental machinations that we mistakenly call a life.

Sweet Baby Wallace, with his dueling love of chasing wiggly things and snuggling warm things, is still so dang sick. For whatever reason, his immune system can't kick the virus, and so it blasts at him, his eye swollen, the cornea scarred and opaque with a lesion generated from the rubbing of his third eyelid. His little gums are swollen, bleeding from an auto-immune response to it all, and he continues to have extreme skin reactions to the flea problem that no amount of frontline, flea-maxx, or capstar can stop.

I've logged in close to $400 at the vet so far, including the latest weapon: $120 opthamalic viral eyedrops. The vet wants to do a surgery where they take a flap of eyelid and create a sort of patch over his eye so that it can go all cave-like and possibly heal. But of course, thanks to both The Hoon and his kidney/heart extravaganza, and Jacinta's need to go radioactive, the coffers for state of the art pet medicine is rattling pennies at this point. (You know you are hopelessly in love with your fuzzy guys when you'll drop $2900 on vet visits in four months, but when you need dental care, you spend $10 down at the community college's school clinic.)

The vet's energy changed noticeably when I told her this past Friday morning during our latest visit that I wasn't able to swing the surgery. "He may lose the eye," she said to me. 

I don't tell her that I'm well aware of that particular fact. Or that I understand that the virus is impacting his overall health, longevity, and ability to withstand other illnesses. 

But I'm not unhappy about any of it. I really get what is going on here. That this is Simply The Deal in my living. Death, illness, stress, anguish, yelling, judgment, money stuff, apartment stuff, health stuff. Nothing I can do can stop the flow. And I understand on some level that it's not about stopping it, but finally, finally, seeing through it all, seeing that 'chaos' has no relation to my experience of joyful grateful aliveness.

And so with Baby Wallace I do what I can do, as much as I can. There are three rounds of meds, one by mouth, two that have to be put directly into his eye, twice a day. I bathe his eye with warm saline and clean the gunk out several times a day. I apply salve to his flea-ravaged nether regions. And give him lots of lovin. So much lovin. Chase him around the house with the kitty tease (which is essentially a small fishing pole with a patch of cloth strips at the end). Feed him high quality kitty food. Make sure he has access to an open window for sun and fresh air. Lend him my remaining credit card so that he can go to The Pussy Club for male bonding with other neutered males from the Tom community.

Where the frak did that last sentence come from??? Probably because I'm being all serious and sh*t as I type this, while beside me, Baby Wallace purrs and yawns and looks at me with sparkly kitty love eye(s) and says: yo, life is good, because above all else we're alive, and that is a dang good thing. Then he tucks his nose under his tail, and drifts off to sleep, snoring and purring intermingling with small snot bubbles.

So, really all is well here. Jacinta even let me pick her up last night, and instead of the rottweiler-like growling she usually does these days, she purred, and we had a small love fest, and that was really awesome. 

And last weekend, I caught the two fuzzy weasels in what appeared to be a snuggle, the first time I've ever seen them that close and not engaged in a vicious (her), hardcore punky playful (him) headlock. Their first official snuggle caught on camera:

And here's one of luscious Sweet Baby W, in soft focus for your delicate sensitivities. (I stopped posting pics of him because he's such a mess that he looks a little scary. But cute. Oh lord is he cute. Hence the title of this post. He really is just a cute, snuggly, wiggly, weaselly little fuzz punk.) 

Comments

[Julie]

Dear Katie. I'm so sorry to hear about the latest feline sickness. They are such a delight but such a worry, aren't they?
I'm currently in the middle of The War Of The Canines as my two males fight to the death whenever they get within biting range of each other. Much more of this and they will be losing their 'family jewels' before I lose my marbles!

[Kris]

Oh, that poor baby's eye. He is SUCH a love, too. It sounds like even with the illness that he's a very, very happy little guy.