A Stubborn Case Of Murphy's Law

By Lauren Merryfield

We have experienced all kinds of illness, even the death of a childhood
friend, all in about one week, which is totally mind-boggling.  The cats
know things have been rough around here.  Go away, Mr. Murphy!!

My left ear, which has been problematic since childhood, needs to shape up
in less than to weeks or it's tube time!  In my middle age?  Hmmmm.
Painful fluid build-up!  Good riddance, Mr. Murphy!

Our daughter, a Senior in college, became very ill with a urinary tract
infection and upper respiratory infection simultaneously!  First time she's
had a fever for years!  Within another week, her boyfriend of three years
broke up with her.  Guess he's looking for Pollyanna.  Bug off, MS.
Murphy!

My husband was diagnosed with a mean, nasty virus and was hospitalized for
a couple days, with something to look forward to--two rounds of IV antibiotics
daily, every twelve hours, for about 20 days!  He is allowed to do this as
an outpatient but it took literally *hours*, after he was discharged,  to
get the insurance paperwork all figured out.

The very next week, he hit the back of his hand on who knows what, bringing
about an infection and a torn tendon!  Ouch!   Even the cats
agree all of this is not at all aMEWSing!

A schoolhood friend of mine that I've known since she was four years old,
went to the human equivalent of Rainbow Bridge on Tuesday, August 13th
after years of a power struggle with cancer.  Her husband and 13-year-old
daughter will carry on.

I was too far away from my original home, and too much needed here,  to
be present at the memorial service, which is just too sad!  Don't make me
cry, you of the unyielding M. Law!!!

And then to the feline arena, we had Gabbie tested again, since she gave
us the Pee Sign again, on a damp bathmat.  It turns out she didn't have
blood in her urine.  Her total bilirubin was way up; gallbladder problems.
Liver is fine.

The pharmacies near us only had the human doasage which was too large and
too much for a little kittycat, but the vet's pharmacy had a suspension
for cats--tuna-flavored!  Gabrielle gets her "tuna juice" twice
a day for a month.

This was not at first good news, as re remembered the recent battles with
Gabbie and the pink stuff.  We needed to change our plan.

Plan?  With cats?

We began by capturing her, one of us holding her, the other shooting the
tuna juice in her forced-open mouth. Sound familiar?   This was not
any more workable than before.

What is that definition of insanity?  ... Doing the same thing over and
over, expecting different results.

We soon discovered that we didn't need to pick her up, just corner her,
ask her to open her mouth (which she did)   and squirt!  We
noticed her licking what missed  her mouth which brought up plan C.

(Well, somewhere between plan C and Plan Z).

We squirted the tuna juice into a small bowl, set it down near Gabbie,
and corraled the other two cats.  This worked great for Gabbie while
unimpressing Jaspur and Mikey.

And then came Jim's hospitalization.  Now it was up to me, totally! 
Not so.

It was up to me and the cats.  Would they cooperate or not?

Not only did Gabrielle begin begging for her tuna juice right on time
(how do they do it?) but the other two sat there, watching, like they finally
understood two things.

1: If we don't bother her she'll get done sooner,
and
2:If we don't bother her, we won't be shut up in another room.  Wow!

Smart cats, huh? Scat, Murphy Cat!

And now, back to the human world, they're talking about a "work stoppage"
on August 30th, for baseball! (Well, thank goodness this was avoided.)
Boo, hiss!  Instead of Go Mariners it could have been No Mariners!

 Maybe Murphy's Law  needs a "stoppage" of some kind.

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Lauren has written about cats since she was in grade-school.  She is a
member of the Cat Writers' Association, and has contributed human and
animal-interest articles to several publications.  Read more at:
http://www.catliness.com