I feel discouraged.
Kitty, my dearest and sweetest 11-year-old cat, has
hyperthyrodism. This explains why she now weighs a mere 8 lbs. So I either have to give her a pill twice a day forever, along with frequent vet visits for blood work, or I have to subject her to surgery or radioiodine treatment. The vet recommends radioiodine treatment, but it will mean kitty hospitalization for 1-2 weeks, where I can only look at her through leaded glass, and then a week of radioactive poop in my home. Her follow-up appointment is in 3 weeks -- November 12 -- so I'll see how she's doing on the meds and discuss whether I'd like to pursue alternative treatments. Poor skinny Kitty.
Lola, meanwhile, is 6 years old and about one billion pounds overweight. She weighs 17 lbs. That is more than Kitty and Betelgeuse put together. And she's been on a diet for a month, so who even knows how much she weighed before. I get her blood work results tomorrow, which will reveal whether she's diabetic or has her own thyroid or perhaps liver condition. I pray it's normal and that she's just fat. In the meantime, I had to schedule her for dental surgery. She needs to have two rotten little teeth extracted because the poor baby has
periodontal disease and gingivitis-stomatitus, which are apparently both quite painful conditions. I'm supposed to start brushing her teeth. Yeah right. You try to put your fingers in there.
For their various health problems, I have been instructed to feed them only wet food twice a day, along with two kinds of probiotics, along with the meds. So much for the cats being my independent animals.
Betelgeuse, now 7 months old, is just fine. She has completely recovered from her bout with Giardia and the ear infection, and her spay incision is pretty much healed. We just made eye contact. I telepathically sent her, "Stay healthy forever; never die."
Not sure she got it. She's not very bright. That's what makes it unrealistic to expect any of my animals to get jobs to support themselves; they're not that smart. Man, it feels inappropriate to joke about the financial burden of the animals -- especially when the thought of any one of them being sick or, God forbid, dying, leaves me in quiet and then loud tears.
Quite a predicament. But despite the inevitable pain of opening your heart to creatures or people or creature-people,
oh how I love to love. I will now kiss each of them on the head and try to pull myself together.

(Law Review Writing Competition, Chicago, IL, May 8, 2006)
(Chilling in Brooklyn, New York, October 17, 2009)