Jean-Luc

He's my first, oldest cat. I got him in early 1994. I'd graduated college in fall of 1993 and left my parents' nest for the first time, moving into an apartment on the east side of town. One of my best friends in high school was moving back here from Texas, so we decided to become roommates. (As you might imagine, that turned out to be a mistake and the nail in the coffin for our friendship, but that's another story.) Anyway, soon after we moved in together, one of her sister's two cats had four kittens, and they needed homes. My boyfriend at the time adopted one, his mom took another, the sister kept one and I adopted the fourth and named him Jean-Luc after oh captain my captain, Jean-Luc Picard.

He was such a tiny, frightened thing when I brought him home, barely weaned from his mom. He hid under a dresser in my bedroom for almost two days. I would kneel down on all fours and try to coax him to come out, but all I could see in the darkness were two gigantic, shiny eyes looking back at me. Soon, he worked up the courage to venture out from underneath the dresser and scurry under some chairs. And within a day, he was scampering around the bedroom, chasing anything that moved and using his claws and scrawny arms to pull himself like Spider-Man up the side of my comforter onto the bed from the floor.

When the roommate and I parted ways about a year later, I moved into a very cheap, one-bedroom apartment downtown that unfortunately didn't allow pets. My BF at the time was gracious enough to take Jean-Luc, reuniting him with his sibling. As it turned out, I ended up taking in another old, sickly, partially lame charity case that hung out in the parking lot of my apartment building anyway. I somehow managed to hide my growing menagerie -- the sickly cat, a bird and a rabbit -- from the landlord.

The BF kept Jean-Luc and took great care of him for many, many years, and he has lived a long and happy life, growing up with his sister and two dogs.

A year ago, Jean-Luc became very, very ill. A vet diagnosed him with chronic renal failure, which I have dealt with in subsequent cats I've owned. CRF is just a fancy term for kidney failure of unknown cause, and there's no cure short of a kidney transplant, which, unlike humans, is rarely an option for a pet. (A quick Google search reveals that the University of Florida performs them at a teaching vet hospital, but they are not accepting any more patients. Grr.) There is a treatment that will slow the progression and give the animal more time, but it's not a cure.

The now former BF-turned-good-friend spent hundreds and hundreds at the vet and could no longer afford the bills, so I agreed to take Jean-Luc back. He's been with me since, and about every other day, I poke Jean-Luc with a needle and inject him with IV fluids. The supplies had been a not-so-insignificant expense until I found an online resource for ordering the supplies that is a fraction of the cost the vet had been charging me. (Frustratingly, you need a prescription here in the States to buy the IV fluids and needles, for which I had to ask my reluctant vet, but all of the supplies are freely purchasable -- and cheaper -- over-the-counter in Canada. Way to go, Big Pharma.)

Jean-Luc has lived far longer than his initial prognosis indicated. I've repeatedly said I want to keep him with me as long as he isn't aware of his illness but not to let him suffer when he goes into decline. He has been a doll with the injections, sometimes purring through them because he craves the attention. He is a wonderful, loving cat.

He had been pretty much asymptomatic until a few days ago. Today, looks terrible. I don't know how long I can let him feel this way. I know Jean-Luc's string of good luck will come to an end soon.

I am dreading The Day. The Day you know must happen at some point. The Day you push into the back of your mind when you bring home a pet. The Day you try not to dwell on, but as the pet gets older, haunts you more and more frequently. The Day you take your little buddy to the vet and return alone. My stomach is in knots. But I am so grateful and happy for the last 11 months of joy and companionship he's given me. Each day has been a gift.

Current mood: Sad