Feeding Skelton

Tom Skelton is my favorite character in one of my favorite books, Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree (read it!). Tom Skelton is also our youngest cat, our sweetest boy, our gentlest boy, our ‘fraidy cat. Our Tom Skelton was diagnosed with severe liver disease this summer, and we have been see-sawing with him ever since. His prognosis is “precarious,” according to the Internal Medicine vet. (I never thought I’d be a specialist vet consumer, but when it’s one of your babies, there’s not a second thought.) He will never be completely well; his liver enzymes will always need to be monitored, and he will be on medication – of one sort or another – for the rest of his life, which Dr. Theissen says will probably be shorter than we hope. He turned eight years old this year.

All of this since June. Before June, Skelton was the Easy Cat, the Healthy Cat, the Low-Maintenance Cat; unlike his brother, Gans (aka Hell Cat), who has urinary tract issues and eats a special diet and has never been too shy to assert his desires and dissatisfactions on the world. Gans swaggers down the dividing stripe on the highway of life believing he’s entitled to the most, the best (and he is!), while Skelton tiptoes along the shoulder and sneaks in his love and affection from the periphery (despite his self-effacing nature, he is also entitled to the most! the best!). It’s a personality thing, you know; we adore them both.

One of the struggles of having a cat with liver disease is making sure he continues to eat. Cats – unlike people or dogs – can’t go for long without eating; it damages the liver. And cats with liver disease are often nauseated and have decreased appetites.

I am not a morning person. Used to be, my mornings looked like this: curse the alarm, stumble to the kitchen, dump food in the cat bowls, walk away, wash face, get dressed, etc. But that one small piece of routine – dump food in the cat bowls, walk away – has stretched into a lengthy, sometimes frustrating 30-45 minutes of coaxing-Tom-to-eat. Skelton’s liquid medication – an anti-inflammatory – must be mixed with just the right proportion of his preferred wet food (we serve flavors in weekly rotation), a smidge of dry food, and a small spoonful of tuna juice to make a tasty sludge. Skelton used to be an indiscriminate eater (Gans still is!); this pickiness is new for him, and for us. Usually, after offering Skelton the medicated sludge, I can bustle around the kitchen, making tea and putting my lunch together, paying only half a mind to Tom. But once he finishes the appetizer, I work (and work hard!) to see he eats as much more as he’s willing.

Skelton is an anxious and distractible cat. Rush him and he walks away. Get frustrated with him, start moving too quickly or loudly, and Tom hunkers down in hide-me mode and shuts his eyes – “I can’t see you, you can’t see me!” In order to get him to eat, I once again prepare the perfect concoction of wet-dry-tuna delight sans medication, and I sit on the floor next to him, sometimes petting him, sometimes talking to him. I watch him eat and every bite, I feel nourished somehow, somehow stronger. I feel joy sometimes, watching Tom eat, even when he mouths a bite and spits it back out, even when he crunches over the floor and leaves crumbs. I love his careful, thoughtful process: pick up a piece and hold it on the tongue, spit it out, try another, find the perfect bite to actually chew, swallow, study the bowl, re-approach the bowl from a different angle, begin again. I don’t know why he does this, why he doesn’t just scarf the meal like he used to. I don’t know how much he would eat if I weren’t there – is he eating to please me? Does food taste different than it used to? Why does the food taste better after I’ve touched it and offered it to him between my fingers? Is he not hungry? Is it nausea? I don’t know, but I’m growing to love my early mornings with Tom, sitting by his little (9 lbs and holding) black self, stroking his coat – which is not as luxuriant as it used to be, running my hands along his bony back, and coaching him, “Eat, papa, eat! No one wants a skinny Skelton!” Reminding him how he used to love to sprawl on his back and flaunt his fat belly. I am not a morning person, but mornings with Tom are lovely; every bite a moment to love him longer.