Fretful Mother

I dropped Snick off at the vet this morning. It's time for that momentous event that comes to every young male cat: the snip-snip. My little boy is growing up.

He's also, after much soul-searching and consideration, losing his front claws. Three things combined to bring me to that decision, which I initially had no intention of making: one, he barely allows me to touch his claws, front or back; trimming them is absolutely out of the question. The minute he hears the clipper drawer open, he takes off; if I try to catch him off-guard, he yelps and flinches the minute the clipper touches the tip of the claw. He lets me pet them, lets me squeeze his paws to LOOK at them; but the minute I show the slightest inclination to clip, that's the end. It's not a pain thing, I don't think; the yelp isn't an "ouch!" as much as it's a "oh HELL no." Both his fronts and his backs, as a consequence of this, are now about to reach the point where even the cat can't stand them anymore. This has enabled him to learn a new trick, as well, which is the second reason for my decision:

The other night, I was sitting in the living room and suddenly Snick bolted across the room, leaped into the air, planted a front paw into the drywall on each side of the door-frame, about four feet off the ground...and just HELD there. He hung off the wall for a good three or four seconds before he let go. I looked at all the other doorframes in the house with that configuration; every one of them has a few sets of claw-marks etched deeply into the drywall on either side of the frame. This little guy is BONKERS, y'all. Between the drywall and the blinds, this is not something that I want to allow to continue, and the squirt-gun only stops him when he sees it in my hand. "Get him a scratching-post," I hear you say...yeah, but somehow I don't think that's gonna solve the whole problem.

The third thing that led me to decide in favor of declawing is that my vet told me they no longer do the old-style surgery; now they do laser declawing, which is much less painful to the cat and has a much faster recovery. (The neutering is done by laser as well, which leads me to hope that maybe he won't have to wear the silly lampshade collar; poor little guy needs his dignity, after all.) I don't want to put him through any more pain than strictly necessary...this is my little buddy--but so is Badcat, and he's getting the worst of Snick's claws, too. Poor Badcat...he used to be the undisputed king of the castle, and from the minute Snickers showed up, poor Bad has been on the run. At least this way he'll have a level playing field!

Needless to say, I'm worried about my little guy. I'll be plaguing the poor vet's office starting at 2:00, on the dot, when they said he should be out of surgery and coming up from the anesthetic. I'm a wreck. He obviously knew something was up, as early as last night; where he normally would have been cuddly around midnight, instead he roamed the house, tail lashing, looking for the food bowl (which I'd put away, since he wasn't allowed to eat after 10:00.) He was actually pretty docile about going into the carrier, and didn't raise too much fuss on the ride there; but then when we got to the office I noticed he was trembling a little. I felt awful, like a mother taking a toddler in for a shot. Mom knows the shot is good for him; the kid just knows it's scary and it'll probably hurt.

Then too, and I'm not terribly proud of this, I have some low-grade feelings of victimhood here; I'm scared because I love this cat so much, and I don't feel like it's safe to love anything because everything I love goes away. Which isn't true, but it SEEMS true, which--with irrational fears--is enough to make them seem real. Common sense tells me: I know this vet; every cat I've ever had but one has been cared for by this vet; all my cats but two were neutered at this vet, and declawed; and every one of them has come through with flying colors. There is no reason that Snick should be any different, and yet there's a little voice inside me that tries to tell me that because I love him more, he's in more danger. Now THAT is taking negativity and superstition to an entirely unecessary level.

The worst of it is, because of where the vet is (north suburbs) and where I work (southwest 'burbs), I won't be able to make it there on Friday to pick him up after work. So I'm going to be without my little guy til Saturday morning, when I can go and pick him up from the vet's office. I'm going to miss him so much!

It's official: I've become That Person--the one who makes oojy-boojy noises and describes her pets as "fur children". (Okay, so I exaggerate; I've never used that phrase, and if I do I hope someone slaps me silly for it...but I -do- use baby-talk from time to time. :::sigh::: Baby-talking cats is definitely a setback to the way I'd like to see myself!!!)

Only two more hours til I can call them....

UPDATE, 2:05 PM: Snick is doing fine. (The vet said he "looks a little dopey", to which I replied "no, he always looks that way.") Apparently he's just waking up from the anesthetic, but he was alert enough to hiss at the vet when she went to check on him. I am incredibly relieved. And more good news: he won't have to wear the lampshade on his head, since he has no sutures. Lasers, man. That's some cool stuff right there.

Between Snick being okay, and something that happened this morning which thoroughly amazed me (It's hard to be completely cynical when people who are nearly total strangers can be SO FREAKIN' NICE!), I'm having a very good day. A very very good day. It would be a perfect day, in fact, except for stoopid Bravo, which in its infinite crumminess is making us wait another whole week for a new episode of Project Runway. Other than that, though? A thoroughly excellent day.