I’m dead tired, but somehow have the urge to stay up late and watch Project Runway. With half an hour left to go until it’s on, and no guarantee that reading or watching TV will keep me awake that long, I thought I’d tell you about Pippin’s recent trials and tribulations because yay, verily, he has been sorely tested of late.

His story started rather in medias res when I came home from church and errands three weeks ago to find him favoring his back left paw. By the end of the day, the farthest outside toe was distinctly swollen and he was limping pretty badly. He couldn’t even get up on the couch for his nightly massage-n-purr session.

Now, I’m naturally something of a worrier when it comes to this kind of thing, so I started doing quite a lot of self-talk.

“Self,” I said, “animals hurt themselves, but they heal. Remember Toby’s knee? He could hardly walk for weeks, but he healed. And this looks like badly twisted toe, which is similar to a badly twisted knee, only less crippling. Also, remember that he has his annual exam in just three days, so you can just stop worrying and wait until the vet has seen it and told you what’s up with it. And you know what the vet will say? She’ll say it’s nothing and that he’ll limp for a week or so and then be done with it.”

This when on for quite some time.

The next morning he was no better. In fact, he was worse. His poor little toe stuck out from the rest of his paw like the thumb on a mitten.

“Just two days until his vet visit,” I reminded myself. “Hang in there. Don’t panic and reveal to the world that you’re such a worrier that you took your cat to the vet for a swollen toe. You laugh at people who do that.”

Meanwhile, I started grinding my morning coffee. And unfortunately, the sound of the grinder startled the cat and he jumped imprudently down from the table. The next thing I knew, he was dripping gloppy, watery, purple-ish blood from his paw.

That did it. 5 minutes later he was in his carrier (where he couldn’t get blood all over my carpet, or jump around on things, or hide in the deepest darkest areas of Under The Bed where I’d never be able to extricate him should we need to go to the vet) and had called the vet. They agreed that I should probably bring him in and even had a slot for him later that morning, so I emailed work and said I’d be out that morning and then sat down to wait for our appointment while Pippin complained about his incarceration loudly from the other room. Hell hath no fury like a cat caged.

Well, the first circle of hell, anyway. From there we got into the car (which is oh so much worse than simply sitting in the cage while it’s safely planted on the apartment floor). And just when he thought life couldn’t get any worse, I added insult to the previous two insults and his injury by dismantling the cage (to get him out of it, since he wasn’t eager to be cooperative).

“So, uh… Does he still have his claws?” Asked the vet tech as she strategized how best to take a very large, very scared cat away for weighing. And that’s when I remembered how hard I’d laughed while reading about another kitten’s acts of terror at a vet’s office. “Please don’t shimmer and turn inside out. Please don’t shimmer and turn inside out. Please don’t shimmer and turn inside out.” I repeated over and over to myself as I took his carrier over to the examining room’s sink and returned its insides to their normal tan color.

Just as I was reassembling his carrier, I started hearing persistent yowls echoing off the back halway’s walls but getting louder and nearer with astonishing speed. “Ouff, he is not a happy camper,” the vet tech exclaimed rather breathlessly as she burst into the room and Pippin leaped out of her arms to go stake out territory under the examining table and take up a stance which clearly said “Enter And Die.”

Understanding this universal language, the vet tech made a hasty exit and went to get the vet who, unfortunately, turned out to be Dr. Worst Case.

There are three vets at this office, only one of whom consistently has slots open for same-day appointments. Pippin hates him. I dislike him. And he seems to have very little concept that everything he says and does makes both Pippin and me more and more nervous.

“WELL HELLO,” he boomed in his over-loud voice. Pippin ducked under a chair, startled by the sudden decibel increase.

“SO, I HEAR WE’VE HURT OUR PAW,” he continued in his characteristic (and often confusing) first person plural. “CAN YOU HELP GET US UP ON THE TABLE, AND WE’LL SEE WHAT’S GOING ON?”

Pippin was so busy warding off the decibels that he didn’t even notice when I snuck up and got him up on the examining table. But once up there, he changed tactics and set up a guttural warning moan meant to chill the hearts of any within 100 yards of his position.

“DO WE GET VIOLENT AT ALL?” Dr. Worst Case asked, and a keen observer could hear the timid edge that had crept into his voice and demeanor.

I assured him that Pippin had never been violent before, but he’d also never been injured before.

“LET’S JUST GET A TECH IN HERE, SO WE’LL ALL BE A LITTLE SAFER, THEN. WHY DON’T YOU HOLD ON TO HIM FOR A MINUTE WHILE I CALL HER IN.”

The tech arrived and gathered a massive handful of scruff in her right hand, flipped Pippin onto his side, and pinned him with her left arm while her left hand kept hold of his lower arm. It was a wrestler’s hold designed to keep all the pointy bits away from human flesh. And with a couple of rests and re-adjustments in between Dr. Worst Case’s attempts to clean and examine the exploded paw, she managed to maintain general human safety.

Then Dr. Worst Case swung into his favorite act: Deciding on a Course of Treatment. He always relishes this portion of the appointment because it gives him the chance to demonstrate his diagnostic knowledge by laying out all the possible causes of the symptoms at hand, followed by all the possible treatments we could try. He particularly likes fatal diseases and invasive (expensive) treatments. All of the possible causes and treatments that he lists before these are simply appetizers, teasers to set the stage for the pièce de résistance.

“I DON’T KNOW WHEN I’VE SEEN A PAW QUITE LIKE THIS. YOU CAN SEE IT’S OPEN RIGHT DOWN TO THE MUSCLES AND LIGAMENTS, AND THAT SEEMS JUST A LITTLE EXTREME FOR A SIMPLE INFECTION. WE COULD TREAT IT LIKE AN INFECTION, IF YOU LIKE, BUT I SHOULD WARN YOU THAT THERE IS A FORM OF CANCER THAT APPEARS IN THE PAW. NOW, IT NORMALLY APPEARS IN DOGS, AND WE’RE A CAT, AND KIND OF A YOUNG ONE AT THAT. STILL, WE COULD DO A CANCER SCREENING JUST TO BE SURE. OR WE COULD JUST CLEAN IT AND WATCH IT. OR WE COULD GO UNDER SEDATION FOR X-RAY AND MORE THOROUGH CLEANING.”

I kept waiting for him to say which of these many options he’d recommend, but as usual, he wanted me to diagnose and plan for treatment. Exasperated, I reminded him that I hadn’t gone to vet school and asked what he would recommend (while ruling out the cancer screening, since I was pretty sure that suggestion was just an artifact of Dr. Worst Case’s love of, well, worst cases). Pippin was ready to hope back in his cage by the time we negotiated down from full-cancer-screening to an x-ray and deep clean followed by antibiotics, but he had to stay and get sedated, so I left to get a few hours of work in.

I wasn’t prepared for the phone call I got just after noon, though.

“HI, IT’S [Dr. Worst Case]. WE’RE ALL SEDATED AND CLEANED OUT NOW, AND THE X-RAY SHOWED THAT WE’D CRACKED A NAIL, WHICH IS PROBABLY WHERE OUR INFECTION STARTED. AND MY GOODNESS, WHAT AN INFECTION. THERE WAS DEFINITELY DEAD TISSUE AND A BACTERIAL ODOR. IN FACT, IT’S SUCH AN EXTREME WOUND THAT IT’S MAKING ME WONDER… YOU SEE, THERE’S A RARE LUNG CANCER THAT SPREADS TO THE PAWS. AS LONG AS WE’RE SEDATED, DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO A CHEST X-RAY? NO? YOU’RE SURE? OK THEN. WE’LL START COMING OUT OF SEDATION ANY MINUTE, THEN, AND YOU CAN COME PICK US UP ANY TIME.”

“I’ll pick up the cat, thank you very much, but I won’t be picking you up, nosirree bob.” I muttered after hanging up and congratulating myself for negotiating down from yet another cancer screening, through bacterial culture, and right down to a wait-and-see approach with a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

To make a very long story only a little bit longer, Pippin and I then spent some quality time together every 12 hours for the next 10 days as I forced one and a half dropper fulls of antibiotic between his resisting teeth. And all this joy was followed by a follow-up vet visit, this time with Dr. Calm. She speaks softly but with conviction, gets down on the floor to examine Pippin there where he has the illusion of control (though he couldn’t hide his fear from her stethoscope and her astonished count of 200 heart beats per minute).

Oh, and Dr. Calm confirmed that Pippin’s paw is healing nicely, which flies somewhat in the face of the cancer diagnosis.

I know, I know… not a whole lot of writing here lately. But I come out of hiding to bring you this guide to cats.

Every evening for about 10 days, I trundled over to a friend’s house to feed Pidgin. No, Pidgin is not a bird. Nor is she a hybrid language. She is a cat who sounds like she’s speaking a hybrid language all the time. A paralyzed vocal fold causes her to greet me at the door with a cooing sound rather like a cautious pigeon, follow me around sounding like an expectant pigeon, and sit on my lap a purr sounding like a cross between a pigeon and an insistent baby goat.

“What have you been up to today, Pidgin?”

“Mmmaaa-aa-aaa-aaaa”

“Are you hungry?”

“maa-ha-ha-AAAAA”

And there’s nothing quite like listening to her eat or take a bath. Every breath out while her mouth and tongue are at work sounds like a tiny child eating and saying “Om nom nom nom… Om nom nom nom.”

Of course, part way through my stint as Pidgin-sitter, Pippin realized that I’d begun cheating on him with another cat. I’d get home only to be greeted by a disapproving flick of the ears and a haughty stalking away to another room. I’d sit down on the couch and wait for it… wait for it… and shortly he’d reappear, too curious to know where I’d been and with whom to stay away long. He’d attach his nose to my fingers, my pants, my sleeves. He’d shove that nose deep into the cracks between my fingers, and my nail beds. He’d lick and sniff, nibble and sniff, nudge and sniff trying to figure out what this other cat must be like to entice me away from him.

This interrogation done, he’d turn his back on me, place himself neatly in a seated position with his tale tucked primly around his front paws, and contemplate the nature of love and betrayal, the apparent appeal of older female cats, his status as a young male cat, and whether or not this would affect his food supply. In the end, he’d decide that jealousy might best serve his cause. Perhaps if he could make me believe that he no longer cared for me, I’d realize what I was missing give up my liaisons with this new mistress. He’d saunter off in a show of boredom and nonchalance, “forgetting” his customary nap on my lap, and wander off to find my down jacket to cuddle for the evening.

This summer I learned of a cat food that’s not only all natural, but that’s also supposed to be really good for cats with asthma. So when all my travels were over, I chose a quiet week to switch Pippin’s food from his familiar Purina to the new food, Nature’s Logic. I knew all about starting with a little bit of the new and taking a week or so to slowly introduce more and more of the new food, so that first night I just added a teensy bit of the new food. Yeah… that didn’t go over well. I was greeted by cat puke.

At first I attributed the annoying upchucking to a combination of other stressors plus the food, so I tried again the next night… with no change in the results. Maybe cats can’t change as easily as dogs, I thought, so I went online to look it up only to find the standard advise that I already knew wasn’t going to work for me.

After a couple days of rest, I tried again. This time he upchucked and decided that eating was for the birds. He just stopped. Even when I gave him a bowl full of his beloved Purina, he wouldn’t touch it. A day and a half later, out of desperation, I started feeding him his absolute favorite food in all the world, Fancy Feast, just to get him to take something in. Luckily that went over well and the hunger strike was called off.

At this point, friends started telling me of their multi-month battles to change their cats’ food. Apparently, this isn’t all that uncommon. Also, it turns out that the main food don’t play fair. They spray the equivalent of cat-candy on their kibbles to make them more attractive. A pox on them.

Given the general stubbornness of cats, the candy coating of the old stuff, and his willingness to declare hunger strikes, how was I to get this stupid cat to recognize that the new kibbles were food? Well, I put a bowl of the new kibbles a few feet away from his normal food dish. After a few days, he tried one… and didn’t barf. From then on, I waited to feed him until after he’d eaten one or two of the new kibbles. (I had to watch carefully, though, because if he ate more than 2 or 3 kibbles, he’d barf.) Maybe 2 or 3 weeks later, I started putting no more than 5 or 6 new kibbles in with the old. And then, ever so slowly, I started transitioning this pickiest of picky eaters to his new food.

It has now been almost exactly 3 months since our ordeal started, and this week, I think we’ll complete the transition. At this point, I’m just scattering 10 or so old kibbles on top of the new food.

And Pippin? He is doing very well. He’s still not thrilled with the new food. He always sniffs it, gets a look of supreme disappointment, looks to me for mercy, realizes I have no mercy, and finally eats. But his coat is SO soft, and just recently he’s rediscovered his purr.

The poor guy must have had sore lungs his whole life because he really hasn’t purred worth the name since he was about 8 or 9 months old. He used to do this raspy, squeaky breathing to indicate a purr, but this last 2 weeks or so (ever since he started eating more new food than old food) he’s started launching into deep, throaty, luxurious purrs. He wanders around the apartment purring. He curls up on my lap purring. He bats at toys purring. He’s just a purr-full little guy. I hope that means his lungs are healthier!

Friday morning I packed up enough clothing for a long weekend, fished my cat from his hiding place under the bed (he hates road trips, with a passion), and set out on a six-hour drive to my parent’s house. We’ve been having incredibly stormy weather lately, so that morning the clear blue sky and intermittent puffy white clouds seemed like some special and undeserved gift. I’d also just turned in the two major and very scary projects I’d been stressing over at work, so with my iPod feeding episodes of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “This American Life” to me over the car speakers and my cat sleeping in his carrier on the seat next to me, everything seemed aligned in my favor. I don’t remember the last time I was that care-free. I didn’t have to think about anything. I didn’t have to make any decisions. And I know the route from my place to my parents’ so well that I don’t even have to think about which lane to be in any more. Vacation had begun.

Three into my trip I realized the I hadn’t actually copied all the episodes of my radio shows onto my iPod. So I pulled off at a gas station, fired up my computer, and started transferring the files I needed. And just when I was chuckling at modern technology and how easy it is to make a good road trip even better… my cat let out a few distressed cries and then proceeded to gasp and pant with his mouth wide open.

It’s been two years since his last asthma attack (which was also his first asthma attack), but I recognized the signs. He was also spiking a fever. Suddenly the iPod, the blue sky, and puffy white clouds weren’t very interesting. I was three hours from my vet and three hours from my family’s vet, and Pippin was struggling to breathe.

With the help of my cell phone, my dad, and his internet connection, we located the phone numbers of 5 vets in the two small cities nearest me on the highway. But none of them had any openings. Openings? You have to schedule openings for a cat who can’t breathe? Each gave me other phone numbers to call, but pretty soon I’d called everyone in a 20 mile radius. So I called my dad again and told him I was going to start driving and to get back to me when he’d found a vet that could see me. Poor Dad. But he was a good sport and within 15 minutes had located a vet in a town 40 minutes from me, and had called up directions so that he could guide me in. Thank goodness for cell phones.

So a full hour after Pippin had started breathing strangely, I pulled into a teeny little vet clinic in the last real town for the next 70 or so miles. By this time the cat was simply breathing quickly and shallowly, not rasping and gasping like he had been, and I’d calmed down quite a bit. So I was able to carry him into the little front room of the vet clinic and more or less calmly wait for the vet to finish up with a previous patient (a large adolescent black lab).

The vet’s cat wandered up to great me and was only slightly put off by Pippin’s grumpy hisses. He sharpened his claws on the chair next to me, and then wandered off to stretch luxuriously in full view of my caged cat. A sign advertising a horse for sale hung on the wall. Lambing bottles lined the shelves. This wasn’t like my vet’s office…