Dyrim

I don’t often qualify my entries, but I will say this:  This entry is somewhat graphic, and probably incredibly upsetting to some people.  Please don’t read it if you’re squeamish or in any way afraid of medical procedures.

Dyrim had his eye removed on Wednesday, and we got him back Thursday.  He looked very much like a "Frankenkitty."  I was very excited for his stitches to get removed (due for the day after Christmas), and for the fur and whiskers on the right half of his face to grow back in (a month or so?)  Then he’d be more of a pirate and less of Frankenstein’s monster.

I still thought he was cute.

I use the past tense because he died last night.

Bryan and I had planned a movie night with some of our friends.  I was initially a little wary because Dyrim could be very skittish around people, and I didn’t want to upset him too much after the surgery.  He was doing so well, though.  It was clear that the surgery just took away all the pain.  He was peppy, he played with his toys, and he was eating so much more.  He talked to us quite a lot more, and had bundles more energy.

About 5:30 he started acting kinda funny.  He’d been a little loopy the last few days, and we’d attributed that to the painkillers.  He wasn’t walking in straight lines very well, and every now and then he’d pick his feet up very high as he walked.  He was just a little stoned, and it was pretty comical.  We also knew he’d be coming off of the pain meds on Sunday (today), so we weren’t too worried about it.

But last night.  He was running back and forth in the apartment.  He’d run and hide under something, clearly get spooked by something else around him, and run and hide under something else.  I’m not talking scared as in skittish kitty, I’m talking full-fur bristle, yowling for fear of his life scared kitty.  I tried to pick him up to calm him down, and he screamed in fear, clawing at me every which way to try and get down.  Dyrim never used his claws on me.  It was one of the things I really liked about him.  This was an incredibly scary change in behavior, and when he started foaming at the mouth 10 seconds later, I wrapped him in a blanket and drove like a crazy person to the emergency clinic.

They immediately took the cat into the next room, holding him at arm’s length by the scruff of the neck as he hissed and spat and clawed at everything.  His pupils werepupil was dilated almost to the size of his iris.  I filled out paperwork, paced back and forth, the veterinary technicians asked me seven times whether there was any chance he’d gotten into any recreational drugs.  It really hurt that he didn’t believe me.  I mean to say, it was very clear that the cat was tripping balls, but with the amount of times they asked me about it, I started feeling like I was lying to them.

They said that sometimes painkillers can build up in cats’ systems.  It’s rare, but it happens.  They said to just stop giving him the pain meds, and it would probably exit his system in a couple of hours.  I paid my ninety-four dollars and left, cat (in carrier now) in hand.  I put Dyrim in the bedroom, moved his food and water in there, and shut the door.  Some of my friends had arrived at this point, and Bryan had been spending time with them in the meantime.  If Dyrim was going to spaz-cat, I didn’t want him mixing with my friends, for everybody’s sake.

I checked on him every half hour or so.  Partway through our movie he seemed finally fine.  He mewed at me rather than yowling, let me pet him, and let me pick him up.  I opened the door to the bedroom, figuring that if he did want to come visit, it was probably okay at that point.  Happy that the kitty is better.  My kitty will be okay.  He did come out and visit, and cuddled on my lap for about 10 minutes.  He then stood in front of the TV stand for a few minutes, just looking around.  It seemed like all of a sudden he realised that people were there– and it scared the fucking shit out of him.

He went to full bristle again, puffed up to twice his size.  He ran under the couch, ran out from the couch and under the chair, out from the chair, across the room and under the piano, he pounced something invisible.  Something scared him again…  I tried to pick him up by the scruff of his neck to move him back into the bedroom.  He sliced my wrist open and tried to bite me.  Bryan got him into the bedroom while I cleaned myself off.

"He just needs some time to get it out of his system."  "It usually wears off in four to six hours, he should be okay in a little bit."  I kept trying to convince myself that he just needed time to get the drugs out of his body.  Please drink some water, I mentally pleaded.

The movie ended, my friends went home, and Bryan and I poked our heads in to see how he was doing.  Bryan immediately went to check under the bed, his favorite safe place, but I saw him the instant we walked into the room.  He was lying completely motionless on his side, his mouth slightly open, his tail making an awkward "U" straight out behind him and then bent at a right angle.  I grabbed Bryan and just pointed.  "Is he dead or…?"  Even working for a vet back when I was seventeen, I’d never seen rigor mortis.  Bryan pushed Dyrim a little to the left, and his entire body slid, holding its shape perfectly, weird U-tail and all.

And then we just hugged for a very, very long time.