Walter the Cat and Mr. Neb
For anyone under 50, Walter Brennan was a popular movie star of the “old” generation. He often played crotchety sidekicks, or grandfathers. Part of his portrayal was a “hitch in his get along”, better known as a limp. I was astounded to see him at an awards ceremony and find out he did not have a real limp, it was just part of the act.
A few days ago, Bob, our older cat, developed a sever limp. Whether, she and Frankie, the little one, got into a fight, if she fell off something, if she tried to outrun a mouse, who knows, but the limp was serious. We took her to the vets, where she was folded, stapled and manipulated beyond belief by the vet during his exam. The result was a cat with a much worse limp, and the news that she has basically blown her knee ligaments. Better known as the Joe Namath Knee. The vet thinks the trauma of surgery would be harder on an old cat than the stress of the injury. I’m glad because the stress on the wallet of the owner would be worse than the trauma of seeing her limp. She seems quite fine with the whole thing. Since she sleeps 23 hours a day and since she does not need much athletic ability to catch her food dish, I think we will rename her Walter and forget it.
Last Monday I went to the Human Vet, to see if she could do anything about my cough. I started about six weeks ago and the cough has gotten steadily worse. By New Year’s Day I was starting to feel run down and found sitting on the couch doing nothing much preferable to getting up and doing anything – except eating Kate’s chocolate chip cookies, which did lure me of the couch way too often.
At any rate, the Dr. went over me thoroughly and decided I have asthma. Well, I never did, and I don’t think I do now, at least not what I think of as asthma, but a rose by any other name is still a long term cough so what the heck. She prescribed some new antibiotic and a nebulizer – MR. NEB. She warned me the Nebulizer might make me nervous and jumpy.
I went home, hooked up the wires, tubes secret medicine vials and blew drugs down my throat, all the time thinking where was this stuff in the sixties when I could have used it. Anyway, the first night, the results were really good. No side effects and the cough let up. The next morning I fixed a big cup of coffee and hooked myself up for the AM fix. Within an hour my arm took on a life of its own and started jumping, my heart rate was around 100 and I was pacing the floor. Somewhat alarmed I Googled the drug. One recommendation jumped out at me. “Avoid Caffeine while on this drug” Gee, couldn’t they have mentioned that?