Funnyface doesn't have leukemia or HIV! Yea!
The vet called a few hours after that last journal entry, and when I heard it was the actual doctor on the line, I thought surely she was calling to give me bad news. But no!
This means that Vern and I can now commence giving Funnyface treatment for her fungal infection, which will improve her quality of life and maybe make it so she doesn't have to struggle to breathe. She may be able to take a deep breath in a month!
I love it when God smiles down on us, even if it is just in helping a small kitty. It gives me hope that all of us might meet with that kind of compassion someday, when we most need it and least expect it.
I am thankful.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Funnyface: Part One
From my journal entry this morning:
Today, perhaps, is a day of doom. Having not the capacity for detachment that most people manage to possess, I have taken it into my head to save a sickly stray cat. This kitty, whom Vern and I call Funnyface, is a lovely, furry, skinny gray tabby. And her poor little nose and throat are so congested that she labors to breathe.
We took her to the vet yesterday--I knew she would need flea mendicine and the insides of her ears were very dirty, so I knew they needed to be cleaned and disinfected. And I hoped that they might just say she had a terrible cold. Unfortunately, they took a slide of her mucus and found that she had "cryptoccocosis" (I don't have the inclination currently to look up whether or not I have spelled that word correctly)--a fungus that attacks cats' nasal passages, lungs and can even move into their central nervous system. The vet related it to cancer in humans, in the sense that it may or may not get better with treatment. She told us of some medicine that we can use to possibly and hopefully get rid of it, but there is, of course, no guarantee. That is sad, but the possibility of hope--that it could make her better--is enough to convince me to try it.
However, the dark fear that is sitting in my mind is this: cats who get this fungal infection are generally in possession of a compromised immune system. They took blood to see whether she has feline leukemia or feline HIV. They are supposed to call us with the results today. If she has either of these, there is not much hope that the crypto fungus will get better. Also, feline leukemia is passed through casual contact, so we can't let her around Billy--and we can't even really let her outside--she could infect other cats with it.
Perhaps I shouldn't worry about any of this because we don't know the results of that test yet. But I have an awful feeling. And that means what? That we might have to put this sweet, unassuming, love-starved cat to sleep? She trusted us! I was trying to help her, to make her better! Not to get her killed. I just pray that my feeling is wrong--that she doesn't have those illnesses and has a chance at a better life, with her respiratory problems medicated and hopefully cured. I want this cat to be okay. To live. Please God. Let her live.
Today, perhaps, is a day of doom. Having not the capacity for detachment that most people manage to possess, I have taken it into my head to save a sickly stray cat. This kitty, whom Vern and I call Funnyface, is a lovely, furry, skinny gray tabby. And her poor little nose and throat are so congested that she labors to breathe.
We took her to the vet yesterday--I knew she would need flea mendicine and the insides of her ears were very dirty, so I knew they needed to be cleaned and disinfected. And I hoped that they might just say she had a terrible cold. Unfortunately, they took a slide of her mucus and found that she had "cryptoccocosis" (I don't have the inclination currently to look up whether or not I have spelled that word correctly)--a fungus that attacks cats' nasal passages, lungs and can even move into their central nervous system. The vet related it to cancer in humans, in the sense that it may or may not get better with treatment. She told us of some medicine that we can use to possibly and hopefully get rid of it, but there is, of course, no guarantee. That is sad, but the possibility of hope--that it could make her better--is enough to convince me to try it.
However, the dark fear that is sitting in my mind is this: cats who get this fungal infection are generally in possession of a compromised immune system. They took blood to see whether she has feline leukemia or feline HIV. They are supposed to call us with the results today. If she has either of these, there is not much hope that the crypto fungus will get better. Also, feline leukemia is passed through casual contact, so we can't let her around Billy--and we can't even really let her outside--she could infect other cats with it.
Perhaps I shouldn't worry about any of this because we don't know the results of that test yet. But I have an awful feeling. And that means what? That we might have to put this sweet, unassuming, love-starved cat to sleep? She trusted us! I was trying to help her, to make her better! Not to get her killed. I just pray that my feeling is wrong--that she doesn't have those illnesses and has a chance at a better life, with her respiratory problems medicated and hopefully cured. I want this cat to be okay. To live. Please God. Let her live.
Monday, November 3, 2008
NO on 8!...and some inspiration
My new Ma and Pa-in-law were on NPR today speaking out as Mormons to vote NO on Proposition 8. They make me feel like there are still some good people left in the world. I'm sure the podcast will become available later today if you'd like to hear it. It was on http://www.scpr.org/ under the segment "Day to Day."
In honor of these wonderful people and their wonderful cause, I'd like to share these quotes with you:
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt (Paris speech at the Sorbonne, 1910)
Or this one:
"Thomas Merton wrote, "There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues." There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus." --Annie Dillard, from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"
Or this one:
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion....
It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
Or how about these?:
"Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance." --Henri Matisse
"Come now!...Were everything clear, all would seem to you vain. Your boredom would populate a shadowless universe with an impassive life made up of unleavened souls. But a measure of disquiet is a divine gift. The hope which, in your eyes, shines on a dark threshold does not have its basis in an overly certain world. --Marcel Proust, "By Way of Sainte-Beuve"
And lastly:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."
--Edmund Burke
In honor of these wonderful people and their wonderful cause, I'd like to share these quotes with you:
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt (Paris speech at the Sorbonne, 1910)
Or this one:
"Thomas Merton wrote, "There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues." There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus." --Annie Dillard, from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"
Or this one:
"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion....
It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
Or how about these?:
"Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance." --Henri Matisse
"Come now!...Were everything clear, all would seem to you vain. Your boredom would populate a shadowless universe with an impassive life made up of unleavened souls. But a measure of disquiet is a divine gift. The hope which, in your eyes, shines on a dark threshold does not have its basis in an overly certain world. --Marcel Proust, "By Way of Sainte-Beuve"
And lastly:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."
--Edmund Burke
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
