The Many Lives of Ash the Cat

We adopted Ash and Beaker from the same vet’s office in July of 2008.  We were going to just get one (Beaker), but then this little grey cat jumped onto Tim’s shoulder and literally won him over with a kiss.  So I went home with two cats who were best friends before they ever came to our house.  They have literally been inseparable for 90% of their lives as our pets, the only exception being when Ash lost his memory late last year.  But before I can get there…

Life One

I don’t remember Ash’s origins, but I do know that he was found as a tiny kitten, abandoned and alone, on his way to death.  Whoever found him and took him to that vet’s office saved his life.

Life Two

Not long after Ash came to live with us, he developed what I initially thought was a gross eye infection.  He kept the eye closed a lot, and it was leaking….gross stuff…constantly.  Eventually, though, I looked closer at it and realized that he had a huge chunk of his actual eyeball missing.  A frantic trip to the vet later, I found out that he did in fact have a chunk of his eye missing.  If I hadn’t of taken him in quickly like I did, the eye would have killed him.  We had to force this horrid thick crème into his eye three times a day for several weeks.  We had one very unhappy, but still alive, kitty (who kept one eye closed most of the time).

I was never positive, but I suspect play like this is to blame:

Life Three

In May of 2009, we moved into our current house, so we didn’t have a vet nearby.  Ash’s eye problems were a distant memory whenever Tim happened to feel a huge lump on his neck one night while petting him.  It was something that hadn’t been there even three nights before, so it immediately worried us a LOT.  I called the closest vet I could find on Google Maps and scheduled an appointment to take him in the next day.  It was that day that I met the GREATEST vet in the entire world (seriously, go to Suwanee Animal Hospital if you live ANYWHERE in the area. They are amazing.)  Dr. Madeline didn’t try to sugarcoat anything: quite honestly, she had no idea what could have caused the lump and it worried her.  She ran a couple of tests but couldn’t come up with anything conclusive at all.  She gave me an anti-biotic to try and said she’d call in a few days to see what it did.  I knew I didn’t have thousands of dollars to drop on a cat, so I prepared myself for the fact that quite likely, Ash wasn’t going to make it.  It was horrible.  I gave him the anti-biotics, though, and within three days the lump was totally gone.  When the vet called (which I didn’t actually expect her to do), I was able to report that he was back to normal and playing with his “brother” again.

Life Four

This time, Ash went a relatively long time without any major incidents.  We added a dog and another cat to the zoo, and then I got pregnant (which only further added to life’s confusion).  I was about 8 months pregnant whenever I decided that if Ash and Beaker didn’t go to the vet for their shots right then, then they likely would never go again, what with the baby arriving and everything.  So I took it upon myself to take them to the vey by myself.  Brilliant move. 

Beaker broke the carrier as I was trying to get him in it, so I thought that I’d just drive them the 5 minutes there, and then take them in one at a time with a towel.  Again, brilliant.  So I get to the vet and find that Beaker has managed to wedge himself completely underneath the passenger seat.  I spent about 10 minutes trying to get him out and finally convinced myself that he was stuck and going to suffocate.  I started to freak out and was on the verge on tears whenever a tractor trailer drove past Buford Highway and scared Ash, who jumped over my head and out of the car.  I slammed the door shut to keep Beaker inside and took off running after Ash, forgetting for a blissful 4 seconds that I was 60 pounds heavier than normal.  The asphalt and I became close friends quite quickly, as I managed to fall STRAIGHT down onto my stomach.  Meanwhile, Ash was tearing around the parking lot and out towards George Pierce Park…a HUGE county park complete with miles and miles of walking trails.  AKA I was never finding my cat, and that was assuming he didn’t get hit on Buford Highway.  I was screaming and being generally pathetic, so two girls who work in the office took off after him.  I got up and tried to run again (I am truly an idiot) and fell again. 

Ash, thank heavens, ran into the woods and planted himself firmly in the pinestraw, where I was able to walk calmly toward him and grab him, at which point one of the vet people tackled him and took him inside.  Another coaxed Beaker out of the car, so we all went into the office where I called my OBGYN to report my stupidity.  Luckily, the baby (or Braeson, as I now know him), spent the next 10 minutes kicking furiously, letting me know exactly how pissed off he was at what had transpired.  Ash was left with cut pads on all 4 of his feet and quite a bit of dirt in his mouth, all of which healed quickly, but I still can’t drive past the vet’s office without feeling sick to my stomach. 

Life Five

This life really deserves its own post, but I really think that your limit of reading about my cats is probably rapidly approaching. 

When we first brought B home, Ash was really the only cat to pay him any attention.  So I guess that’s why about three weeks later he lost his mind.  Our best guess (now) is that the stress of the CONSTANT SCREAMING eventually wore on his nerves and he literally had a breakdown.  For weeks he did nothing but A) sit in his safe spot of the week (which for the first two weeks was the guest bed, so much so that we moved food and water up there, but then transferred to be Braeson’s crib, which wasn’t cool) or B) walk around looking at everything like he’d never seen it before ever. He was utterly terrified by EVERYTHING, and he acted like the floor was lava.  He’d literally jump across every piece of furniture we own to avoid touching the floor.  He looked at us like he didn’t know us, though he never got aggressive or mean. 

And poor Beaker, who was used to at least 4 hours a day of violent fun with his best friend, was left with no one to play with him, as Tim and I were only slightly busy with this newborn baby.  It was to the point where Beaker would sit in my lap the millisecond that I sat down, even if I was holding Braeson.  It was ridiculous.

This was scarier because even the vet had no idea what was going on.  She said basically either he’d come back around or he’d end up dying from some horribly expensive to fix undetected illness.  See a trend here? Luckily, it took about 4 weeks, but he slowly started coming around.  One day he’d be downstairs when I woke up; the next, he’d willingly walk around the kitchen for a few minutes.  Eventually his safe spot migrated to the couch downstairs.  It was over a month before he made any attempt to play with Beaker, though, and about two before they were back at it full force. 

Seriously, what else can this cat manage to do to risk his life?  Oh, yeah.  The other day he jumped from the top of one cabinet to another…. missing the ceiling (and an 8 foot fall) by about a centimeter.