Saturday, 17 November 2007

To distract Jackie from her beastly heart monitor, we went on a trip and thereby we spent the better part of the day in traffic jams.

We were on a mission as Ken (our decrepit cat) has been looking worse and worse. A few weeks ago he lost his last tooth and could no longer manage his cat biscuits: he stopped eating the biscuits so we stopped giving them to him. His health deteriorated fast: his coat became dishevelled, he mews constantly, he uses the catflap like a tortoise with bad sunburn, and he has done other things it is best not to write about in a blog that might (who knows?) be read by younger people.

I thought we should take him to the vet. Jackie wanted to spoil him a little. So we bought him some new special biscuits, and some special cat milk, and some special fresh catnip. I suspect we both thought of this as mere palliative care.

But after a bowl of his special cat milk, a plate of his special 11+ cat biscuits, and a good snort of fresh catnip, Ken perked up instantly: his coat became sleek and glossy, his nose glistened and he seemed playful and happy. It’s a miracle.

I have a terrible horrible ghastly feeling that we have been slowly starving him these last few weeks.

At 3:00 pm, Jackie was finally able to remove her heart monitor. She had worn it for 24-hours without experiencing any palpitations - despite a stressful day stuck in traffic jams and despite my two separate attempts to frighten her. Immediately we returned the monitor to the hospital and sat down for a cup of (caffeine free) tea, she had three successive “waves” of palpitations only a few minutes apart.