Jane Ganahl

I think there must be an unwritten rule that you shouldn’t blog when in the depths of a blue mood, but here I go anyway.

Big Mike, after being so sweet and docile on Monday for his bandage change, was his absolute worst tonight. He growled and howled and thrashed around like a crazy thing (tho refrained from biting or scratching), and three of us could not keep him down. Smearing blood on the white bathroom counter, Mike bucked so feverishly that Dr. Sue was forced to redo his bandages three times, which just enraged him further. Sue was not much happier. The decibel levels were at defcon three. She left the room and came back with a hypodermic needle, and, dragging him out from under the bed by his scruff, plunged a sedative into his neck.

I watched my sweet, terrified boy go limp in the grasp of the two medical pros, and felt myself go limp with upset. I held my tears until they left, but then I exploded in sobs.

It’s been an emotionally challenging week, with the hospitalization of Patricia (my son-in-law’s mother and my dear friend) and the death of Jonathan’s godmother, Nancy (Patricia’s best friend of 50 years and also a friend of mine) from cancer on Thursday morning. I’ve been too crazy-busy with the festival just three weeks away to adequately give vent to my grief, so watching Mike get roughed up served to pop the cork. I lay down on the carpet under the bed with him, and stretched out a hand in apology. His eyes were as unfocused as a drunk’s, but he saw my hand and rested his head on it, as he does when he is content. Leaving it there for a few minutes while I cried, I tried to sense what it was he was going through, and where I could not guess what he was thinking – why he rebelled so angrily tonight – i did get a sense of pain. His or mine? I wasn’t sure.

The doctor thinks that Mike would be well-served by a second surgery – this time to implant skin grafts on his still-open wound. She suggested I leave him with her while I’m gone for two weeks next month, so she could perform the procedure and keep him there where she could tend him every day. I don’t love the idea. I know she would give me a deal but I’d need to start a second funding campaign – something I’ve been resisting doing. And the thought of him spending two weeks in a cage – even a roomy one – keeps the tears flowing. He would regress, I know (hard to imagine him curling up with me affectionately for a while after he comes back home) but maybe it’s what has to be done. Or is it?

St. Francis, a little guidance would be much appreciated. Meanwhile, I need to buck up. He’s doing fine, he’s getting better (if slowly) and most days he is the Reverend Jetsun – not the plucky parking lot stray, Big Mike. And you know what? I love him either way.

Big Mike continues to heal steadily, but I’m selfishly starting to get anxious about my annual post-Litquake two-week getaway. It’s not supposed to start for another six weeks, but at this pace, I fear he won’t be healed yet. And if he’s not healed, he’s not adoptable. And if he’s not adoptable, I’ll need to leave him for those two weeks – putting both a burden on my petsitter, and worries on myself that he could backslide.

I know I’m an impatient person; it’s one of my crosses to bear. Taking in and loving Big Mike has been a lesson that things happen in their own time, and no amount of wishing or high-tech wound tools will speed it up to a significant degree. So I wait. And wait. And try not to worry.

Make no mistake: he’s doing GREAT. He spunkily decided enough of the surgical collar he’d had to wear for 2.5 months, and doffed it about a week ago. When I saw that he hadn’t been tearing at his bandaging, I decided to leave it off and see what happened. Luckily, he’s been good as gold. And the collar-doffing has had additional benefit: his eyesight has improved, his spirit has improved, and he has decided enough with the subterranean living – underneath the bed – and has made himself a new nest next to Erin’s old stuffed animals! It’s kind of hilarious to see him with that lineup. He’s even adopted Grizz as his cuddle partner.

“Back off! I’m tryin’ to sleep!”

Just seeing him without his collar lifts my heart – he is starting to look like a normal cat! He continues to be quiet and wise and patient with ME, and all my fumbling attempts to heal him. He looks me square in the eyes, and forgives. (I’ve started calling him by another name: JETSUN – a Tibetan Buddhist term for a revered teacher. Also close enough to the name of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon of the 60s to amuse me. 😉 )

In general, though, he is becoming more and more of a love bug, generous with his kisses.  BigMike4

However will I let him go? St. Francis, as always, guidance appreciated.

Big Mike 3 You watch this video and think, how could he ever be pugnacious?  😉

I’m convinced that animals – like childen – are put on the planet to make us liars. After waxing rhapsodic in my last post about how Big Mike curls up into a ball when we torture him with healing measures, he abruptly decided he’d had enough.

It was only a matter of time, I supposed. Even reincarnated deities can’t be expected to tolerate an unending series of indignities when they’re pissed off about them. (The Dalai Lama famously told Time magazine that if a human being “never shows anger, then I think something’s wrong. He’s not right in the brain.”)

Once again, Mike proved himself all too human. Kim and I were changing his bandages a week ago, and he f-r-e-a-k-e-d. Began bucking wildly like a bronco, while I tried desperately to hang onto him. I hate scruffing a cat that big – and Mike doesn’t have much fat to scruff – but I had to, to prevent him from leaping off the bathroom counter with his bandaging incomplete. (His wound, while better every week, is still open and I fear him getting more crud in it like he did in the field.) After an interminable amount of struggle, hiss, growl, contortion (tho no biting or scratching – he refused to sink to that level), we finally finished and let him go. And my right hand was throbbing, tweaked anew.

I was stunned at this new development. After Kim left, I found him hiding under the bed and lay down near him. What the hell was THAT? I demanded. He again looked sheepish, stretched and came over to rub his giant head against my aching hand. His eyes told me, I had to try. I need for this to be OVER.

I know, I told him. I need for it to be over too. I need for you to get better. I need for you to get a beautiful home because every day it gets harder to imagine packing you into a carrier and taking you far away where I won’t get to see you anymore. I need to stop getting weepy when I think of the above. I need to make more money so I can keep you in cat food. (I have never seen a cat eat this much!)

One thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is the difference between wanting and needing. One reason I’ve always been so bad with money is because I confused the two – really up until I started the animal rescue work four years ago. I needed a new purse every year. I needed that getaway I couldn’t afford. More, I deserved it.

I’m now humbled and bemused at how wrong my thinking was. What we truly need (in addition to food and water and shelter) is to be compassionate, to love our friends and family, and to hopefully ease the suffering of those who need help. The critters deserve it.

And make no mistake – I would LOVE to have a new purse. I’ve had the same one for three years, and it’s getting so beat-up. But money has been tight this year (I wasn’t kidding about needing to make more) and when I weigh the cost of rehabilitating a gorgeous being like Big Mike, there’s no contest. The new purse can wait; I might want one, but I need Big Mike to be well, and he needs me to help make it so.

Big Mike is finally experiencing a real improvement – his wound is starting to heal more quickly. Huzzah! The difference, I think, has been some high-tech (read: expensive) new first aid supplies sent to me by my rescue ace friend Sandy. A hand-held laser, some bandage patches with colloidal minerals, second skin spray, silver spray… I believe that these are things that have turned things around, and I am awash in gratitude.

Mike? All he knows is that every 2-3 days I drag him out from under the bed, put him up on the bathroom counter, and put him through about 20 minutes of misery, while someone able (with my feeble assistance) removes the existing bandages from his open wound, redoes them after about 15 healing steps – some of which cause him great pain.

How does he react to this brutal doctoring? He curls up in a ball, and all but goes to sleep. It’s really quite remarkable – even the vet can’t quite believe it. And when we’re done, and I put him back under the bed in his safe place, I just assume he’ll take hours before “speaking” to me again. But yesterday, after Dr. Sue’s visit, I went back after 15 minutes to apologize. He saw me, stretched luxuriously, and came out to rub against me. As nurse Kim puts it, “he seems to just really GET IT – that you’re trying to help. I think he’s a really old soul.”

This was never more evident than last week, after Kim and I changed his bandages one day, and the next morning they were down around his ankle, leaving his wound exposed as he had also peeled off the stocking covering the bandages. I almost melted down. Are you kidding me, you bad boy?? I whispered, and left to collect myself.

When I went back in, he came out, rubbed against me, and curled up on the floor next to me, assuming the position he takes when he is worked on. I was stunned. Another time, as I was visiting with Big Mike by lying on the floor next to him, window open to the August sea breezes, a baby started crying nearby. Loudly. Mike lifted his head toward the window, and seemed to listen intently for a long minute or two while the baby continued to wail. Something seemed to click in his big head (ah, yes, a human baby!), and he relaxed again. I just stared at him. Who ARE you? I asked. He just blinked wisely, Buddha-like.

Anyway, I am beginning to think that Big Mike’s and my bond might be karmic, and that he’s got a great, big, interesting story that goes back lifetimes. Darling boy, what are you working out to have come to this lifetime and found me in your darkest moment? I don’t know – it’s not important that I know – but I do know that when it comes time to find a home for him (it crushes me to even think of it) it will need to be with someone I know. Well. Who will let me visit. Often.

Guardians of all critters, thanks for the assist. Help me see this through with a maximum of love and a minimum of tears.

Just a quick update to say that I clearly take my own words both seriously and prophetically. Soon after writing the previous post pondering why I feel so close to this battered and bruised boy, I guess I decided to feel even closer to him by getting battered and bruised myself.

Walking briskly toward the entrance New Leaf for some frozen yogurt (always dangerous, quipped Jack), I tripped on the curb and went flying, landing on my stomach and hands. My normally-problematic knees were spared, but my right hand was numb for hours, and turned out to be sprained. (Not broken, thankfully.) But I be in a world of hurt; only Advil and kitty purrs are making me feel better.

And Big Mike of course. He seems to understand. Putting his paw in my hand is one of his favorite things, and is it my imagination, or is he doing it more gingerly now? Dear boy, I SO feel your pain! If only I could handle mine with as much grace and dignity!

Something tells me I’ll be looking for Mike’s forever home soon. His wound is doing better, and he’s starting to show signs of restlessness. How long can I keep a sweet soul in a bedroom when he has so much love to offer?

I had decided that I needed to move Big Mike upstairs to the guest bedroom, after he’d been in the bathroom for a month and had started showing signs of restlessness, looking anxiously out the door when I’d walk in as if he’d finally realized there was a big world out there with lots of interesting things (and food! maybe FOOD?!) in it.

The day I planned to move him I came downstairs to find the door open, the bathroom torn up and Big Mike nowhere in sight. Did we have thunder during the night? And how on earth did he get the door open?!

I panicked a bit, though in fact there was little bad that could happen if he were loose in the house – short of fisticuffs with an indignant Iggy, Claude or Lena. But as they were all slumbering peacefully, I was mystified as to where the lumbering, limping sweetie could have gone. I finally found him in the linen closet upstairs, looking a little anxious but otherwise fine.

I moved his things to the guest bathroom, which is twice the size of the downstairs one, with a window for natural light and fresh breezes. When it was prepared, I hauled him carefully out of the closet and made him comfortable in the bathroom, putting up the folding gate between bathroom and bedroom. He’ll never get over that, I thought – not with his limp and his wound.

When I came back an hour later, he had not only scrambled over the gate, he had now ensconced himself under the bed – just the place I did NOT want him to be. Even though it’s an antique bed with  a lot of head room underneath, I needed to be able to reach him both for socializing purposes and doctoring purposes. I needn’t have stressed; after a day of hiding, he began happily coming out for food (his raison d’être) and cuddles.

Doctoring, on the other hand, was less of a motive. My one and only meltdown during this month of playing nurse to a wounded cat came when Dr. Sue was unable to work me into her schedule and told me I should change his bandages myself. To say I did it clumsily was an understatement. No longer acting like an abused cat who curls up in a ball and waits for the misery to be over, Big Mike has discovered that if he wriggles and tries to escape, he can curtail the poking, prodding and peeling to a certain degree. So this is NOT a one-person job – especially for the likes of me, the world’s worst nurse. Pleased that I was able to stomach the suppurating wound without barfing, I broke down in tears when after just a few hours he had managed to shed all the bandaging in one fell swoop, and it now encircled his ankle again like a Flashdance devotee.

Even as I moaned and groaned and cussed, when I looked up he was sitting in front of me quietly, looking me in the eyes. Sensing a cat version of an apology, I kissed his giant head and told him it was okay.

I enlisted the talents of Kim, my friend and petsitter, who has worked in the medical field, and she and I redid my clumsy attempt yesterday, and so far things are holding together. I still feel like there’s something more I could be doing to speed this process that we’re both getting so frustrated with. My friend Sandy is letting me borrow her veterinary laser that she swears by, and I’m pondering getting a second opinion, though I’m not crazy about spending the money, and Big Mike’s fund is about maxed out.

I am already starting to think about who might want to adopt him, once his wound has healed, and it kills me to think about giving him up. It’s hard to say why this kitty has so captured me since he first appeared in the field in May, trailing blood behind his gruesome wound. His bravery? His sweetness? Could it also be because I am dealing with a wound myself (a scar from having a basal cell carcinoma removed two weeks ago) that I so empathize with his plight?

I don’t know. But I do know it’s been miraculous to see him transform from a scared, possibly abused kitty to one that trusts and loves again. When he does go, it will be to a cherry-picked someone I know will change his life the way he’s changed mine. This I promise to both this saintly kitty and the saints who brought us together.

Big Mike has utterly captured not only my heart, but that of every visitor who drops in to see him. Painfully shy when he first arrived, the docile boy is starting to come out of his shell more and more. As this video shows, he’s even getting a little playful! Note how he does a gentle nibble of my fingers.

Big Mike 2

He still has his… issues? Happy to nuzzle me cheek to cheek, when I move my hands to his back, he shrinks to my touch. And his response to a stranger is usually to curl up in a ball. Is this evidence of his possible past abuse at the hands of humans? He is so dear I can’t even bear to think of it. But every day, he opens up a little more, risks a little more, raises his head a little higher like petals toward the sun. It’s such a beautiful thing to see.

His wounds are also coming along, but slowly. The shoulder abscess, which disgustingly gave up five foxtails to the vet’s tweezers, has finally healed up! But his leg continues to daunt our efforts at healing. Dr. Sue managed to suture the worst section of the wound; he managed to open it up again. She bound his leg tightly with wrapping; it slid off in one giant, snakeskin-like section. The problem, she says, is that his wound (hold onto your lunch) is so… moist. And binding it means it can’t get the air it needs to heal.

So yesterday she got creative, and affixed some sock-like fabric on his leg, affixing it with tape to his ankle, and anchoring it around his neck like a fashionable scarf. Tres chic!! Like a ballet dancer wearing leg warmers. Today he seems quite content with the arrangement and has made no effort to bite it off. Progress!

Despite the fact that I raised more money than I thought would be necessary for Big Mike’s care, he is plowing through the reserve with aplomb, with once- and sometimes twice-weekly visits for bandages changes. I am lighting a candle fervently that this latest technique will do the trick and help him turn the corner toward complete healing.

I know that this gentle giant’s forever home is out there waiting. Already I get tearful thinking about letting him go. But I’ll take consolation in knowing I helped him along the road to the beautiful life he – and every living creature – deserves.

As I mentioned previously here, when I first thought about catching the gravely wounded Big Mike, I realized I was asking to contend with some fairly scary medical bills to nurse him back to health. But I could not just let him wander around the bushes, leg oozing blood and pus, until he died. My heart broke for how much he was clearly suffering. So I took him in, and asked Dr. Sue to both give me a break on the costs, and also on her policy of expecting payment when services were rendered. I had no idea how I would raise the money to bring him back to health, but I knew it didn’t make good [ahem] fiscal sense to empty my own meager bank account for a kitty I just met. My own brood costs me enough as it is!

Then I learned about this terrific new website: https://www.loveanimals.org It turns out that you don’t have to be a nonprofit to do some crowd-funding on it – you can do it as an individual needing help with vet bills, as long as the money goes directly to the vet. So I took a chance, set up a campaign page for Big Mike, sent my request to some friends I knew were aware of my work… and within a day, my fund was filled! The biggest heroine: my old friend Jessica, who adopted the kittens Oberon and Ariel two years ago.
https://www.loveanimals.org/big-mike-needs-help-with-his-vet-bills.html

I seriously could not believe it. To say I was humbled by and deeply grateful for the outpouring is a vast understatement. I knew that Big Mike wasn’t the draw; it was the work itself. My work. I’m trying to let that soak in and it feels pretty wonderful.

So I’ve met Mike’s bills, and even have a buffer in case he needs a second surgery. As for the patient himself, he met the news with a contented yawn, not realizing what a lucky kitty he is. “Lucky” is not how he’d describe himself after Dr. Sue’s visit today, in which she cleaned and re-dressed his leg wound (which is getting better!) and dug around in his shoulder abscess, pulling out no fewer than FIVE foxtails, which explains why it refuses to heal up. I steeled myself to watch her work this time, so that I could become a better nurse, but when this extraction started happening, I had to take my heaving stomach in the other room. Mike, on the other hand, and despite some squirming, took it like a champ.

“You call this lucky?!”

He’s sleeping it off, and I’m basking in the fact that his needs are taken care of. It really does take a village to heal a cat, and I’m so grateful to those who have my back. And to my spirit guides for helping me be the connector for good things.

This beautiful, brave boy’s physical health is improving, though it’s slow going. The wound is still open, and the abscess oozes off and on. It’s testing my abilities (or lack thereof) as a caretaker – I almost get sick when treating him.

But oh my – what a difference in his emotional health! Since I wrote this last post, he has lost the last of his fear of me (or has forgiven me for this laundry list of indignities he’s had to tolerate in the last month) and has become quite the lover boy. Two days ago, as I lay down on the cushion in the bathroom, he got up on wobbly legs and came over to me, circled, and lay down in the crook of my arm! I was stunned. But I shouldn’t be. Mike is showing himself to be the ultimate survivor, and despite his shyness, has the heart of a lion.

Dr. Sue has come twice since I brought him home, to change his bandage and drain his abscess. When she manhandles him (albeit with patience and kindness), he just goes limp, as if knowing she has the upper hand. It’s kind of hilarious and poignant to see.

This last time, she had to put a collar on him because he would lick his wounds so incessantly that he would remove bandaging, stitching and even a catheter. Despite his ongoing medical ordeal – and perhaps because of his new superhero cape – he’s starting to look less ragged and more like the aristocrat he was born to be.  😉

His face is still a little lopsided, and when he meows, his face twitches a little. (Not sure what that’s from – hopefully not pain.) But he is blossoming into better form, as his wounds continue to heal. Every day he is a lesson to me in perseverance and open-heartedness – two qualities I’m just now learning, even at this antique age. Thanks, Saint Francis, for this opportunity.

As soon as I got back from Mexico, I picked up Big Mike from Dr. Sue, where he’d been cooling his paws for a week. I was a little stunned to see him still looking so bad: his leg wound had spread to a shoulder abscess, and his bandages were still seeping blood. He was also withdrawn and lethargic – the result, I suspected, of spending more than two weeks in various cages.

Dr. Sue said she might still have a possible home for Big Mike, “if he heals.” IF? This was the first time I’d heard a bit of worry in her voice. What happens if his wounds don’t close? Will he have to be put down?

Worried he would languish further if I put him back in the dog crate, I decided to let him set up housekeeping in my downstairs half-bath. It was a risk – I was still unclear if he was a feral whose behavior would change for the worst once he started feeling better, and I didn’t relish the idea of caring for a feral in close quarters – one who might continually bolt for the door. I needn’t have worried. For two days I had to feed him inside his carrier as he refused to come out into the tiny room.

I should point out that my own re-entry into life after Rancho La Puerta was a little rough. Okay, a lot rough. For one week while I was there, I got to pretend a lot of things: that I was a person of means (I was teaching there so the trip was free); that I had time in my day to work on myself with exercise, meditation and thoughtfully prepared food; that my professional life (i.e. Litquake) has some semblance of balance. And the minute I got back, reality proved otherwise. An avalanche of bad news emails, emotions running high, far too much to humanly do. My life was a runaway train and all I wanted to do was jump off.

As I spent time with Mike those first days back, I could sense his resistance to the good things I had to offer. Clearly, he doesn’t understand that my snatching him from the parking lot was for his own good; all he knows is that since I did, his life has been a blur of needles and pain and cages. When I took his carrier out of the bathroom, he huddled behind the toilet, bandaged leg sticking out at an awkward angle.

He refused to make eye contact unless I was down at his level; when I stood above him or touched his back he tucked his head in and cowered. (Increasing evidence that he was, perhaps, abused.) He refused treats even when waved under his nose. His wound continued to seep.

After a few days of this I found myself nearly begging him. Come on, Big Mike. Buck up. There’s a lot of love and life ahead of you, but you have to get better. You have to open your heart and go with the flow. 

I caught myself. Are you talking to Mike or are you talking to yourself? 

I lay down with him, and cautiously reached my hand under his chin. He did not move away. As I began to stroke his cheeks and neck, he rolled his huge head over gently until it came to rest heavily on my open palm. And then I heard it at last, radiating from his damaged and scared kitty heart: a first purr. Not wanting to end those gorgeous moments of forgiveness and awakening, my arm went to sleep in that position.

“Okay, Mike,” I sighed, tears welling. “Let’s go on together.”