Mr. Wuss
I was drifting off to sleep last night with Mr. Wuss sleeping about two feet from my head, the sliding glass doors open with the screen in place and the fan blowing over us both. Suddenly Mr. Wuss shot straight into the air yowling as if he were in a fight for his life, falling to the floor still scrambling (catching the fan cord and pulling the plug out of the wall) then running for the living room and the open door to the balcony. I followed him as best I was able and found him sitting in the open door, licking himself, clearly distressed. He eyed me warily and moved underneath the desk in amid the boxes.
I was trying to think what happened. Had some animal climbed the tree outside my building and managed to enter the apartment through the open balcony? Didn't make sense. Wuss just exploded on the bed and shot out of the door into the living room. I crawled down under the desk and scratched him around the neck and face. He seemed OK, bright eyed and aware, but he growled as I ran my hand down his side, growled as if he were hurt. Or freaked. I worried about his hind legs. Was he dragging them?
I've been reading the comments about Pamie's entry on the death of her own cat. I'd seen it, of course, but had decided against reading it. Rien had written about Tin as well, finding a lump under her skin, thought to be small enough to operate with a good chance success, but freaking him out as well. Now Mr. Wuss is lying under the desk in the dark with his head in his paws not moving. He's a little fucking cat, eleven and a half pounds. He doesn't have much protection. He seemed OK, but he was clearly hurt and hiding. I could run my hand down his back and side now, however, without him reacting so I assumed he wasn't wounded, that he hadn't broken or bruised anything when he hit the floor. He'd lost his bowels in the living room, though, and that more than anything freaked me out, made me think this was serious in some way I couldn't determine. He didn't seem in pain (don't cats hide that) and he was clear and aware, but I didn't know how to help him.
He's lying under my desk now twenty hours later. He hasn't eaten, but he seems to use the cat box without apparent difficulty. The vet went over him square inch by square inch and said he seemed all right, that it was possible he was bitten by a spider, that his pulse and his breathing were about three times normal, but maybe that was because he'd just been brought to a veternary hospital in a box. She didn't want to take a blood sample and freak him out any more than he was already, but she wanted me to watch him and bring him back if his pulse and his breathing didn't go back to normal. I think they're back to normal.
So I didn't read Pamie's entry and I didn't read Beth's entry and I'm damned if I'm going to write any more than I have as this fucking apartment has turned hostile.
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