Wally hates the hospital. This will be a quick update and only because so many people have asked how he has been doing. For this, Cindy and I deeply appreciate your concern and your kind words. The short version is that for the last full week Wally was at home and had a terrific and wonderful week. He had no labored breathing, no coughing, no issues at all. He was back to the family member that contributes in so many ways. Then came Sunday night. After coming home from the marathon, we noticed he was starting to breathe a little bit harder but even then he looked nowhere near as challenged as he has in the past weeks.

I was pretty knocked out from the marathon and I fell asleep - more like passed out - only to be woken up by Cindy rushing out of the house around 11:00pm with Wally in his carrier. I wasn’t even awake enough to fully realize what was going on. I stayed awake until Cindy came back around 3:30am. Wally was back in ICU. Cindy said that he attacked everyone there, including her. He clearly hates being there and just wants to be home. I thought the fact that he was fighting was a good sign.
Yesterday Cindy and I went in to see him and Dr. Fox told us that he was still eating but really ornery and they had to sedate him because he wanted to attack anyone that came near to him. Being the cat whisperer (Cindy’s name for me, not mine), I went into ICU to see him and spent about 30 minutes just letting him rest on me. He’s so drugged out, even if he wanted to get snarky he couldn’t have. You can see from the picture above, he couldn’t even raise his head to grab some of the food out of his dish. I spent the afternoon working and taking my calls from the waiting room in the hope that I could spend more time with him throughout the afternoon and evening. We went back again late last night without much else to report.

We go back today and I have to tell you that it is so incredibly frustrating because he seemed to be doing so well. The longest he had gone before needing to be tapped was three days and this time he went seven. He is still fighting and when he isn’t having his episodes, he’s walking around the house, wandering around outside, eating as much as he normally would. This is not an animal that is downed or can’t move or simply is hanging on. That’s what makes this so unbelievably frustrating. He purrs and snuggles and genuinely is enjoying every minute he is here, well except when he’s at the hospital. Cindy and I keep having to tell ourselves that we need to do what’s in his best interest, not in our’s. Neither one of us is prepared to play God. In short, I’m just pissed and in some masochistic way, I’d like to be able to be experiencing what he is going through so I can fully appreciate his condition.

I ran on Sunday thinking about him and thinking about CJ, Dave Edwards dog that has cancer and is in a similar situation. Dave and I ran together and I know when Dave was having his trouble on 1st Avenue, he and I were both thinking the same thing. No matter how badly his legs had legs seized up, he found a way to stumble, then walk, then shuffle and then run the final 8 miles of that marathon. That’s what we’re hoping Wally will do as well. So, for now we wait, we support, and we hope that the meds will kick in, that his lobe in the left lung will re-inflate again and that there isn’t so much damage done to the heart and lungs that they can no longer repair and that the inflammation will stop. We wait and we talk to ourselves and we hope that we can all soon breathe easier.