Charlie Goes to the Vet

In Albuquerque, as soon as I got up every morning, I went to the kitchen and let Charlie out the back door. He jumped up on the block wall that surrounded the backyard and wandered all over the neighborhood. When we moved to Texas, I was afraid if I let him out of the house he would try to go back to New Mexico. Charlie became a house cat.

Soon after we moved into the house, I took him to the cat hospital. The vet gave Charlie shots. He also insisted on lots of expensive tests. After the tests came back, the vet said, “There is nothing wrong with Charlie. He’s a very healthy cat.”

I paid the bill, but thought, “Why does he need to go to the vet if he’s so healthy?”

Charlie did not see a vet for six years.

Then he started pooping on the carpet. Not all the time, but a couple of times a week I would come home from dialysis and be greeted by Charlie at the door and that noxious odor coming from the room I use as an office. I’d find a little moist heap on the carpet in front of the litter box. I thought, “Does he do that to punish me for leaving him alone so much?”

But if he wasn’t mad at me – he always came running as soon as he heard my key in the lock and begged me to sit down so he could climb on my lap – I jumped to the conclusion that he might have colon cancer. I called my brother Don and asked, “Do they give a colonoscopy to a cat?”

Don said, “I’ll come take Charlie to our vet. Go close the bedroom door.”

Mary comes to clip Charlie’s nails. As soon as Charlie sees Don and Mary walking in the door, Charlie runs and hides under the bed. It takes the two of them to coax and drag him out.

Sure enough, I opened the front door and Charlie saw Don, he retreated under the coffee table. Then he made a run for the bedroom. Finding the door closed, he ran into the office. Seeing it was hopeless to stay under the computer desk, he dashed back to the front of the apartment and hid on a chair under the dining table As Don knelt on the floor and reached under the table, the cat moved over onto the next chair. But I was there, waiting on the other side of the table.

Charlie gave up and moved back to Don’s chair. He liked the way Don held him and stroked his ears. He balked a little when Don pushed him toward the carrier. Then Don gave him a pat on the rear, and he went right in.

At the veterinary clinic, the doctor ran practiced hands all over the cat’s anatomy. She said, “How high is the door to his litter box?” Charlie is a big cat. He has a big, deep litter box. He has to climb up about eight inches to get inside.

“He has painful arthritis in his hips,” the vet said. “It hurts for him to get in there. Try getting a lower litter box.”

How often this happens. I look at a situation and think, “This must be the solution.” And if that doesn’t work, then I know the problem can be solved in the only other way I can think of. Then it turns out that I misinterpreted the problem in the first place. And the answer lies in something I never imagined!