The Why of It All

My thirteen-year-old cat Jackson needs a urine culture, and the vet couldn’t get him to cooperate yesterday, so we are drugging him in preparation for today’s attempt.

First drawing the viscous liquid into the syringe, then grasping him by the neck, I squirt the Gabapentin down his throat. Looking at me in disbelief, he salivates and then drools in response to the bitterness of the medicine and my audacity in ambushing him.

My heart pounds, buried memories surface, taking me back to the roughly six months during which my husband was “actively dying.” I see Dan’s face, his eyes as wide as Jackson’s, as I suction his trache tube for the umpteenth time. So many medications and procedures, so much anxiety, so little I could do to ease the pain, the sadness, the loss. 

After Dan died, I suffered from PTSD for many, many months. Now, four years and then some later, the flashbacks return. The sameness of each day’s travails, punctuated by moments of pure terror when something went wrong—no nurse showing up to help me, the suction machine failing to turn on, Dan’s blood pressure dropping precipitously, the death rattle beginning. My tears fall as I wash out the syringe.

Most likely, Jackson is fine. Or will be with a minimum of medical care. As will I be, once I have the information that I need to handle whatever it is that might be the cause of our vet visit. I watch as he lumbers toward the bedroom, already uncoordinated and drowsy from the medication. Ten minutes later, on cat’s paws myself, I peek around the corner and spy him on the bed, asleep on my pillow. Unlike Dan, Jackson does not understand the why of it all. But then again, neither do I.