It's All About Me

I was born in September 1996. You do the math. I'm a cat. I don't do math.

I had six brothers and sisters. Dad says I was kind of the instigator of the litter, so my first human mom named me after tough guy actor James Cagney.

Not sure where most of my sibs went, but my sister, Callie, and I originally went home with my dad when we were a couple of months old with the plan that his cousin, the one who named me, would take us in, but that didn't work out real well. She had an older cat and a wheelchair, and Callie and I liked to jump around on both of them, so we went back to Dad's apartment. That's a picture of us when we were little kids. That's me on the right.

Things went pretty well for a while, then Dad met Mom and life got even better. But just after our 4th birthday, Callie got sick. Mom and Dad said she had something called "diabetes". All I know is, one day they took her to the doctor, and I never saw her again. They said she crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

I miss my sister.

It was about that time that Mom and Dad first moved in to their own place. They're OK, but I was kinda lonely without Callie, even though Mom brought her delicious looking birds with her. They're named Arie and Bonnie.

Anyway, a little while after we all moved into our first place together, that's when Blair joined us.

Blair wasn't the happiest of cats when she first came home, but she warmed up after a while. That's her to the left.

Pretty soon, though, she got sick, too. She had something called "FIP", or "Feline Infectious Peritonitis". She got some medicine for that and saw the doctor a lot, and she got a lot better for a while. She even started to run around the house and play with me. But then she went off to play with Callie.

I was alone again. OK, so I had Mom and Dad, but it wasn't the same, and Blair left just when she seemed to be having fun for the first time in her life. Mom liked Blair so much, she even named her jewelry making business after her.

Just when it seemed like I'd be forever alone, along came Sassy. She's been my buddy for a few years now, and for quite a while we had run of the place all to ourselves. She chases fairies about as well as I do and she's a fair wrestler, too.

But just before I turned 10, Mom and Dad bought a house which was pretty exciting, because I was getting sick of moving every couple of years. Not that I really wanted to move again, but the place we were living had hard floors and that made it difficult to chase Sassy. Mom and Dad told me the house had carpeting and lots of room to run around.

But there was something they didn't tell me about. When we got to the house, there was this -- thing -- locked up in Dad's office, hanging out in MY CHAIR!

That was Billie. She was living under the house and my humans decided they couldn't just leave her out there, so they took her in.

As it turned out, she had a couple of kittens in her, Lindsay and Stevie. That's them with their mom. I know they look sweet and innocent in that picture, but believe me, they're neither.

So, a new house, a new family to deal with, and a lot of new territory to claim for myself.

And then things got weird.

I went to the vet to get my teeth cleaned. To do that, he had to give me anesthesia.

Important tip: If you're of a "certain age" and have to have anesthesia, make sure your doctor gives you some blood tests first and get the results back to make sure it's OK to give you the stuff. Otherwise, you could end up dead.

Like me.

OK, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Turns out I have diabetes just like my sister had 6 years earlier, and had the doctor insisted on getting the test results back before putting me under, he would have known that and my diabetes might have remained under dietary control.

Oh, and then when he finds out I have diabetes, he gives me, like, a gazillion units of insulin that shouldn't be used for cats to begin with and puts me into a hypoglycemic coma.

Did I mention the DKA, Diabetic Ketoacidosis? My body's own insulin was gone, and dumping more in just sent my body into a panic.

Fortunately, Mom rescued me from my now-ex-vet and took me to an emergency clinic where they knew what they were doing. The doc there put in my record that I was "essentially a dead cat" when Mom got me there. My blood sugar was below 20, my temperature was below 90. As Mom put it, I had one paw on the Rainbow Bridge.

The doctors and techs never gave up on me. Oh, sure, I had a few problems when they brought me back. My pupils were blown, I stumbled when I could walk at all, and I couldn't meow worth a darn. Mom and Dad came to see me and they brought me stuff that smelled like them to keep me company when they couldn't be there.

A few days later, I got to go home. I was still shaky, but I was home. Mom and Dad even got me a new bed to lounge about in.

Now Mom and Dad test my blood sugar at least twice a day by poking me in the ear, give me insulin shots, and keep me and the other cats on a better diet. At least I get some yummy dried chicken treats when I get my tests, so it's not all bad.

And all those problems I had -- they're gone! I'm back to normal, although my humans like to say there's really nothing normal about me.

That's true. I'm not normal. I'm extraordinary!