Betsy Horvath

Category: Cats

  • A Gift That Came Early

    The holiday season is all about gifts. Whether you get gifts under the Christmas tree, or during the eight nights of Hanukkah, or the seven days of Kwanzaa, or celebrate the gift of light at the solstice, most of the holidays happening in December include gifts.

    This year I received a wondrous gift a little early – he came to live at the Palatial Horvath Estate at the end of September.  Here is the thrilling tale of our adventure thus far.  It’s filled with pathos, roundworms, and a whole lot of love…

     

    Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was a young prince who had fallen into despair. He was alone in the forest, frightened, and so, so hungry.

    Just to be clear, the young prince was a cat.  But he didn’t know he was a cat.  He knew he was a prince.

    To continue…

    He didn’t know how he’d gotten into this mess, or why it had happened. He didn’t know what he had done wrong, or what he could do to make it all better. He only knew that he was hungry, and frightened, and lonely.

    Then one day, when he was at the absolute end of his rope, he found a big bowl of food sitting outside a house. It was real food, too! Not rocks or bugs! He ran up to it and ate and ate and ate. He wasn’t about to leave that place!

    A woman came and when he went up to her to say “thank you,” as courtesy demanded, she grabbed him and said things about “cars” and “coyotes” and “raccoons.”

    The young prince had met some raccoons already, so he let her put him in her garage until she could “find him a home.” Whatever that meant.

    He was really scared, but there was food in the garage, so he stayed.

    Another woman came. He liked her, too, but changed his mind when she came back a few days later and put him in a crate and took him to a place called “vet.”

    At the “vet”, there were shots, and talk of already being “fixed,” and mention of roundworms, and medicine.

    More on the roundworms later.

    The woman took him home to a place she called “The Palatial Horvath Estate” and gave him his own room with a LOT of toys. Well, he knows they’re toys now, but then he just thought they were scary. And he thought the woman was scary. And he thought that the other prince and princess who were already living at the Estate were scary. And they thought he was scary, too.

    Then the woman, who was apparently the Queen of the Horvath Estate, gave him this luscious stuff she called “wet food” and that made it all seem a LOT better.  He decided to stay for a while.

    The Queen started calling him “Mickey”, which was strange because his name was really Prince Cedric Meow Meow the 532nd. But he didn’t care what she called him as long as she kept giving him the “wet food”.

    There were some rocky patches over the next few weeks. The prince and princess who already lived at the Estate were not fond of Prince Cedric (his name wasn’t “Mickey”, no matter what the Queen said). Prince Albion Scratcher Hiss Hiss the 768th (whom the Queen called “Eddie”) took it upon himself to chase the newcomer whenever he saw him. And Princess Celestia Purrskins the 1854th (known as “Tasha”) was scared of him. So the young prince had to entertain himself. But that was okay.

    Even though there was food everywhere, Prince Cedric was still SOOOOOOOO HUNGRY. He ate and ate and ate and ate, but he could never seem to fill up. And his tummy didn’t feel well all the time. But he was afraid to say anything. He really liked his new home, even with Prince Albion and Princess Celestia, and he was beginning to think the Queen was okay, too. He slept with her every night and purred and purred.

    But it came to pass that one day, the young prince felt…odd. Before he knew it, he was throwing up right at the Queen’s feet.  How embarrassing!

    “Holy sh*t!” the Queen exclaimed when she saw what he had done. “It’s freaking moving!”

    And it was. Mickey was very interested because the puddle he’d just thrown up was moving on the carpet. He tried to get closer to sniff.  The Queen yelled at him and pulled him away, but he’d seen that there were worms in the puddle. That was pretty disgusting. He’d just thrown up worms.

    Ick.

    Then the oddest thing happened. The Queen got paper towels and gathered up all the worms and put them in a plastic bag. Then she got some of the prince’s poop and put that in another bag. And THEN she grabbed Prince Cedric, shoved him in a cage and rushed him to that vet place again. She spent a lot of time telling the vet that he had been “clean”, which, of course, Prince Cedric knew. He was still clean, thank you, because his mother had taught him how to groom himself. The Queen gesticulated wildly, wondering loudly where worms had come from when he’d already been dewormed.

    Well, they’d come from inside him. Hadn’t she noticed?

    Ick.

    First there was more medicine – not just for him, but for Prince Albion and Princess Celestia too. Then the Queen did a LOT of laundry. And then the litter in all the boxes got changed, and the new litter didn’t smell right anymore, so both princes and the princess had to go from box to box to make sure it did.

    With all the commotion, Prince Cedric became more and more anxious. Would the Queen decide he was more trouble than he was worth? Would he be kicked out again?

    He’d tried to be good. He’d tried to do his best. He hadn’t climbed curtains or clawed furniture – he’d always been careful to use his scratching posts and he’d always made the effort to at least stand in the litter box. What was the Queen going to do?

    One day Prince Albion came to him unexpectedly and said, “Although, lo, I have chased you and will chase you still, I am weary and you do not go away. I sense the intruders are gone from your body, so, although I will continue to chase you for form, you may now call me by my familiar name – “Edgar” or “Eddie”.”

    “Thank you, sir,” said Prince Cedric.

    Then Eddie chased him, and he did run, but he did not cower long.

    Next Princess Celestia came to him and said “Although I am frightened of many things, I am no longer frightened of you for I sense the intruders are gone from your body. You may now call me by my familiar name, “Tasha”.”

    “Thank you, ma’am,” said Prince Cedric. And Tasha gave him a bath which was very pleasant.

    It was nice to be on more comfortable footing with the other prince and the princess, but Prince Cedric was still worried.

    The more he thought, the more nervous he became. What in the world would happen to him?

    Just when he thought he couldn’t take it any more, the Queen came to him and pulled him into her lap.

    “I don’t care about the worms,” she told him. “I mean, I do care in that I hope I’ve killed the little bastards, but I don’t blame you for having them. I know a lot more about the roundworm lifecycle now, so I know I should have been more cautious. I’m sorry.”

    What? She was apologizing to him? Prince Cedric didn’t move.

    “But you are one of my princes and you will not leave me. I will never desert any of you. I will never cast you out into the cold. You have found your home, and you will be staying, even if the worms return, although, God, I hope they don’t.”

    Prince Cedric hoped so, too.

    “You are staying. You will be with me. You are one of my greatest gifts, and I thank you for placing yourself in my care.”

    And that was when Prince Cedric realized that the Queen was not just “the Queen.” She was also his meowmy. And he was one of her princes.  The barrier around his heart crumpled and fell.

    “My name is Mickey,” he said.

    “No,” his meowmy corrected.  “Your name is Prince Mickey.”

    And he kissed her right on the nose.

    The moral of the story?  Sometimes the greatest gifts come to us in unexpected ways. And sometimes they come with their own challenges and problems. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t great gifts.

    Although I’d like it a lot if the roundworms were gone now, because that really was disgusting.

     

     

    And they will all live happily ever after…if the Queen has anything to say about it.

     

     

     

  • Distractions

    dis·trac·tion

    dəˈstrakSH(ə)n/noun

    1. 1.  a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else. “the company found passenger travel a distraction from the main business of moving freight.”

    synonyms: diversion, interruption, disturbance, interference, hindrance   “a distraction from the real issues.”

    1. 2. extreme agitation of the mind or emotions.  “he knew she was nervous by her uncharacteristic air of distraction”

    synonyms: frenzy, hysteria, mental distress, madness, insanity, mania

     

    Distractions can come in many shapes and sizes.  Sometimes they aren’t all that pleasant – “what’s going on with my health?”  “what’s going on with my job?” “what’s going on with my money?”

    Sometimes they are warm and fuzzy and very cute.

    Exhibit A – Meet Mr. Masha Miguel de Cervantes Horvath (known informally as “Mickey”).

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    Mickey is an incredibly delightful, wonderful, awesome, fluffball of a cat.  I am so glad that he came into my life, and into my home.  It’s not his fault that I turned him into a distraction of epic proportions, a distraction creating inertia that lasted for almost the entire month of September.  No, this had nothing at all to do with him, and everything, as it turns out, to do with me and my fears.

    As I entered into the month of September, I realized that, since the first drafts were finished for both my next novel and my novella, I needed to move forward get working on the second drafts.  And I choked.  Honestly, I always choke going from the first draft to the second draft.  I’m always SURE I won’t be able to straighten out the book and come up with something even remotely decent.  I look at the mess I’ve created, and I don’t have the slightest clue what to do about it.   This time, the feeling was worse than normal, augmented by a MASSIVE amount of insecurity about the books already published.

    Enter Mickey.  He’d been dumped, starving, at the house of a woman I know.  She couldn’t keep him, and I’d been thinking about bringing in a third cat, so she told me about him needing a home.

    I’d like to tell you that I made the calm, rational decision to adopt this sweet little guy, and then concentrated on breaking through my anxiety and mental roadblocks and moving forward with my work.

    I’d like to tell you I was a professional.

    I’d like to tell you that I did not descend into madness.

    But I can’t.

    No, I didn’t focus on the real reasons for all of my anxiety and insecurity and doubt and fear.

    I focused on Mickey.

    First I had to stress about whether or not I was doing the right thing.  My other two cats are at opposite ends of the spectrum – Eddie is definitely Alpha.  Tasha is definitely Omega.  Where would Mickey fit in?  Could he fit in?  I take my responsibilities as a pet owner very seriously.  Would bringing him in be fair to all of them?

    Then, once I’d visited Mickey, realized he had exactly the right personality for my house, and decided to take him, I had to stress about whether I’d made the right decision.  Had I done the right thing?  Had I made a huge mistake?  What if I brought him home and Eddie was aggressive to him?  How should I introduce them?  How could I make sure he didn’t get hurt?  How should I set up my house?  There was a delay in me getting him, so I had to stress about when to bring him home.  What day would be best?  Should I take him to the vet first?  Would he let me handle him since he hardly knew me?

    When he was finally with me, I had to stress about introductions and how to ease the transition with the other two cats.  I put him in a little spare room I have, and sat with him, playing with him, stressing about whether or not he was lonely, and about Eddie, and how he seemed to be afraid, and what would happen when the two met face to face?

    Do you know what happened?

    Eddie hissed at Mickey a little bit and chased him once or twice.

    It got better the next day.

    And better still the next.

    And now they’re on the way to becoming good friends.  Mickey is part of my household, and I can’t imagine life without him.

    And it’s October.

    And Betsy blinks open her eyes, looks around and says, “What’s going on?  What did I do in September?”

    And the answer is – not much.

    I stressed.

    Because I stressed, I fell back into my habitual patterns for dealing with it – I ate inappropriately for my diabetic condition, and I did not sleep.

    Because I ate inappropriately and I did not sleep, the stress increased.

    Rinse and repeat.

    I focused on Mickey, obsessed about him. I stressed, and I ate, and I did not sleep, and I did not write.  Even more importantly, I did not work on the real problem.

    Because the real problem, the problem I was trying to avoid with all of this stressing and eating and not sleeping, was the fact that my first drafts were finished, and I was terrified to move forward with them.  Even when I told myself that I was working on my writing, what I was doing was more in line with dealing with insecurity about the books already finished, rather than moving to finish the ones I’m currently working on.

    So, what’s the point of me sharing all of this?  Other than exposing my neurosis, what’s the purpose of this exploration into Betsy’s psyche?

    It’s only to say that distractions come in all shapes and sizes and degrees of awfulness or wonderfulness.  They can crop up when you least expect them, out of a perfectly sunny sky.   Anything, really, can become a distraction – from a sweet and wonderful little cat, to the horrible presidential election, to the newest Netflix TV show.   We create these distractions, and we focus on them so we don’t have to focus on something else that might be more difficult and more important.

    Yes, I had to decide what I wanted to do about Mickey.  Yes, I had to make sure I felt like I was making the right decision.  Yes, I had to deal with that situation, and I’m so glad that I made the decision I did.  Mickey IS extremely important.  But I did not need to spend the entire month of September stressing about him.  The impotent, unproductive stress WAS the distraction.  I focused on that instead of moving forward, taking the next step, pushing through my fear and the barriers set up by the part of my mind that says I CAN’T.

    It happens so often, at so many points in our lives.   We’re sailing in our little boats, and then a current comes and knocks us off course.  If we don’t notice what’s going on, we can sail around in circles.

    The trick, I guess, is to see it, and steer back into the stream again.

    I’m going to go hug Mickey, and Eddie, and Tasha.  And then I’m getting back to work.

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  • The Most Difficult Thing About Pets

    poppiesI was debating whether or not to write this post.  It is rather personal.  It’s also Mother’s Day, so I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate.  But it’s what I’ve thinking about, so I thought I would write it.

    As you may know, I lost my cat Oliver to small cell lymphoma and pancreatitis about six weeks ago.  I wrote a blog post about it here.  In the blog post, I mentioned Oliver’s sister Emily, who also had cancer.

    Emily developed a growth on her side last September.  The lump grew extremely rapidly, then ruptured and started to bleed.  The vet removed the growth at the end of October 2013, and it was determined that she had an aggressive cancer.  We weren’t exactly sure what the cancer was, but it seemed to be some kind of a mast cell tumor, which is extremely rare in cats.  At the beginning of December, I found out about Oliver.  At the end of December, I realized Emily had another growth developing on her side.  I took her to the vet immediately and he operated and removed the growth. The biopsy confirmed that the cancer had come back.

    Emily came home after her second operation on December 31st.  Oliver went to the vet on January 1st, which is when he got his feeding tube.

    The next few months were all about Oliver, until I lost him in the middle of March.  The following week I realized Emily had a lump under her front leg and another growth on her back hip.

    I took her to the vet at the beginning of April.  He confirmed what I pretty much already knew. The cancer was back and was in her lymphatic system this time.  She did not have a good prognosis.

    First, I cried.  Then I decided I would not take drastic measures.  Emily was a skittish cat, and going to the vet was very traumatic for her.  Taking her to the vet every week for chemotherapy, or to an oncologist for radiation treatments would have made her life a living hell.  If I tried to hand-feed her as I did with Oliver, she would have been living under my dresser to avoid me.  What kind of life was that?  Then there was the cost.  I had already added on a pile of  debt dealing with what we’d been through already – I couldn’t handle much more.

    I decided we were in a hospice situation. The vet agreed.  Although he had to tell me about possible alternatives, he didn’t believe they would be effective against this cancer and would, ultimately, be worth nothing.

    So we waited.

    About two weeks ago, Emily stopped eating.  I thought she was eating a little bit, but now I don’t think that was the case.  Last Saturday, she started throwing up bright yellow bile, which meant her liver was failing or had failed.  She stopped drinking water.  Finally, on Monday the cancerous lesion on her hip ruptured and began bleeding.

    I said goodbye to my sweet, sassy Emily on Tuesday night.

    I love all of the pets with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to share my life.  But this is the part of owning a pet I hate.  This part is absolutely devastating.  It’s not even the fact that I had to say goodbye to two of my dear little friends, although I have an empty, aching, pain in my stomach right now when I think about them.

    No, I think the hardest part is the utter sense of responsibility you feel when you’re faced with this kind of a situation.  How do I know if I’m doing the right thing?  Who the hell am I to be making these kinds of decisions?  Is it right that I put a feeding tube in Oliver when he stopped eating, but didn’t do the same for Emily?  Is it right that I took them to the vet to make their final transition instead of letting them go at home?  Did I make decisions based on my own needs or convenience?  Should I have waited?  Did I wait too long?

    I don’t know.  I tried to read what they were telling me, I tried to do the best I could.  But I was playing God.  I was deciding when a life should end – down to the minute.  What right do I have to do that?

    All I can say is that, for better or worse, I am the one who loved them and who loves them still.  I am the one who was called upon to end their suffering.  And they were suffering.  They were in pain.  So, right or wrong, I made a decision.

    I’ll tell you that some of the hardest things I’ve ever done have been making phone calls to the vet to vocalize the decision that it was time to end the pain of another creature.  Some of the bravest things I’ve ever done have been following through with those appointments because a creature I loved needed me to do so.  Even when everything inside me didn’t want to make that trip.

    And I’ll tell you that the only thing I’m certain of in this whole situation is that all of the decisions I made – right or wrong – were made out of love.

    I guess that’s the best anyone can do.

    But BOY!  I sure hope the two cats I still have don’t put me through this for a long, long, LONG time.

     

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

     Emily and Oliver

     

  • Challenges, Cats, and Coming Home

    butterfly1So, I haven’t been here for a while.  The last couple of months have been extremely challenging for me on many different levels.  I was sick for the entire month of January (literally).  I fell trying to shovel my elderly mother out of her house and was laid up with a badly sprained ankle and strained Achilles tendon for the month of February (it’s still giving me trouble).  It snowed almost every freaking day from Thanksgiving until, well, the end of time.   And two of my four cats were diagnosed with cancer within weeks of each other.

    Emily was diagnosed first with a rare and aggressive mast cell tumor on her side at the end of October.  She was operated on and seemed to be doing okay.  Then, at the beginning of December Oliver was diagnosed with small cell lymphoma, pancreatitis, and a mass in his small intestine.  Despite all of that, his prognosis was pretty good, so we started chemotherapy.

    At the end of December, Emily went back in for another surgery because her cancer had already come back.  This was the last surgery we could do for her, and the surgeon was as aggressive as he could be now that we knew what we were dealing with.  The next step would be to take her for radiation treatment, which I had already decided I was not going to do.  Not only is it incredibly expensive, but the animal has to go under anesthesia for each treatment.  She would not handle any of that well.

    Emily came home from the hospital on December 31st.  Oliver went back in on January 1st.  He had stopped eating and was just sitting around drooling.   We couldn’t get him to start eating again, so eventually we decided to put in a feeding tube.  The thought was that with a feeding tube he could get nutrition while we waited for the chemotherapy to work.  Then, when he was feeling better, he’d start eating on his own again.

    He was in the hospital for over a week, and when he came home I had to feed him via the tube four times a day – 6am, noon, 6pm and midnight.  Now, I have to work for a living and these feedings weren’t quick.  You had to syringe the food in gradually so his stomach would accept it.  Each feeding could take a half hour to 45 minutes from start to finish.  So, while I was sick in January, hurt in February, shoveling snow every time I turned around, and housing my mother when she lost power for a week, I was also syringe feeding my cat four times a day.

    But he was doing pretty well.  He even gained weight in January, which was awesome.  Then things started to take a downward turn.  He started throwing up.  Just every once in a while at first.  Then several times a day.  Then whenever he was fed.  Then while he was fed.  He was so nauseous he couldn’t walk more than a few steps at a time.  I tried slowing the feeding down – which meant it was taking an hour or more each time.  I tried increasing the number of times I fed him from four to five.  All to no avail.  The cancer was getting better, but the inflammation of his pancreas was not.  He was miserable.  And I knew that I wasn’t helping him anymore – I was torturing him.

    So I lost my sweet Oliver on March 13th.  A day later I realized Emily has a lump under her arm on the same side as the other surgeries.  It might have been growing for a while and I just didn’t notice it.  We have a doctor’s appointment at the beginning of April to check her out, but it could very well be the cancer back again.

    A challenging couple of months.

    But, here’s the thing.  I’ve learned so much during these months.  Because I survived.  I know not everyone will agree with what I did, but I did the best I could.  I made the best decisions I could for MY conscience.  I put one foot in front of the other, and I kept moving to do the next thing.  I know I still have challenges ahead of me with Emily.  I grieve terribly for my Oliver and feel the guilt that maybe I did the wrong thing or didn’t do enough.  I have to deal with the financial consequences of my fight to save both of them.  But the upshot is that when the pressure cooker was turned up, I kept slogging.  I didn’t stop and drown.  It didn’t even occur to me to stop.

    Knowing that is worth a heck of a lot.  Knowing that makes me feel stronger.

    All of the time spent feeding and caring for Oliver gave me another advantage too.  It gave me time to think – about my life and where I want it to go.  About how you just can’t waste the time you’re given.  And about the direction I want to take.  I’m not going to go into all of that now, but I will say that I’m back to writing.  Lots more on that in future blog posts.

    So that’s where I am and where I’ve been.  It has been a long journey, but I feel like I’ve come home.  I’m glad to be here.

     

    sunrise2

     

  • Cat Haiku

    As I was shuffling through papers the other day, I happened upon the following examples of haiku poetry written from a cat’s point of view. I have no idea who wrote them, but my cat Eddie has taken to wearing a beret and insisting on being called “Francois”. Reach your own conclusions.

    For those who do not know, Haiku is a form of poetry consisting (in the English language) of 17 syllables split over 3 lines in a 5-7-5 pattern. The poems that follow do use the haiku rules, but I’m not sure how good they are. I assume no responsibility for quality. Besides, they were hard to transpose because the handwriting was terrible. Well, that is only to be expected if one is trying to hold a pen in one’s paw.

    Okay, here we go!

     

    1.
    cough cough hack hack cough
    fern is NOT a vegetable!
    squishes between toes

     

    2.
    must snuggle you now
    hot and humid summer night
    my fur sticks to sweat

     

    3.
    sunshine patch on rug
    obviously time to nap
    right where human walks

     

    4.
    feed me feed me feed
    me feed me feed me feed me
    feed me feed me… what?

     

    5.
    Wait, wait, wait until
    the litter box is cleaned. THEN
    climb in it and poo.

     

    6.
    Bug flys through the air
    I jump, I leap, I scramble
    Curtains? No longer

     

    And finally…

     

    7.
    Clip nails? I think NOT!
    I have many scratching posts
    The sofas, chairs, your legs…

     

     

    Have a lovely evening! I’m off to use antiseptic on a new scratch 😀

     

  • Miscellaneous Pictures of Cats

    Hooray!  The first draft of my book is finished!  But my writing frenzy sapped me of all creative energy.  Thus tonight I present you with miscellaneous pictures of my cats.  Because when you don’t know what to post, post pictures of cats.

    And away we go…

    1.  Emily and Oliver as babies.  Emily has the black ears.  Oliver is a very discrete gentleman.

    2.  Awwww… doesn’t it look like they were hugging?  They weren’t.

    3.  Oliver now.  He’s grown.

    4.  Emily now.  She’s grown.

    5.  Tasha when I first rescued her.  She was fluffy.

    6.  Tasha now.  She’s grown.

    7.  Eddie when I first took him in.

    8.  Eddie was a little shy in the beginning.

    9.  He’s better now.

    10.  Bonus shot of Oliver’s tongue

     

    I hope that you have a warm and fuzzy evening!  I think I’ll go pet some cats.