Last Saturday morning I updated that Odessa was very much improved. Not ten
minutes after I spoke with the tech at Orchard Park, I got a call from the
vet on call that things were not as rosy as first thought.

Our Odessa-Doll is still in hospital, in a little hutch-like thing where
they’re pumping in oxygen and nebulised antibiotics and something that will
supposedly thin out the ick in her chest. That’s the good news; the other
good news is that last night is the first time since Saturday morning that we
were not called out to the office with the possibility of something really
dire; I feel like a parent whose baby has slept through the night for the
first time.

I entered an update (“I just talked with the clinic and…”) Saturday early.
The most recent info the young lady had was that Odessa had been sleeping
well with the oxygen and was breathing clearly. Then she got such a coughing
fit that her gums were starting to get blue. If you think Louie broke every
known traffic law taking her to the Southtowns, it was nothing compared to
that long drive. I was on my cell with the vet and we were momentarily cut
off. Both the phone and the traffic. I rolled down the window and screamed,
“Watch your goddamned SUV you bag of sh*t!—oy, Doctor, I think we had a
dropped call!” Yeah, the phone came back on when I said THAT magic word.
Remarkably understanding lady, this vet; but then, she has to be. This
particular hospital is the best in the area but it is, sadly, the last stop
for many poor creatures; and the doctors must hear things that make my
outburst sound like Mother Goose.

The word as of this morning is that Odessa’s respiration has slowly been
returning to cat-normal and she has her periods of coughing but nothing wild
since late Saturday night. She has been having trouble eating because it
seems to trigger congestion coming to the surface that she has a problem
bringing up, but they’ve managed to get the ick out of her, suctioning and
such. The cultures and such are not back yet, the symptoms and xrays point to
pneumonia.

Louie is prepared to chuck his classes until the start of next year to take
care of our little Dolly, and to pay these good people (because believe me,
this’ll be even more enormous than Brandy’s tooth trouble a few years back!)
And this is why I married him. I cannot comprehend the enormity of that
sacrifice, that he loves his babies this much that he’ll push back his
retraining. UB has been making it impossible for him, anyway: he has had
three rounds of measles shots, the last one in 1978 before going to India,
yet they will not accept his vaccine records. After going to temple yesterday,
he has decided this is God’s way of telling him there are more important
things at work. Odessa will need care upon return, and will have to be
sequestered a good while and medicated. But she’s not out of the woods yet,
so they say. Despite that, I am hopeful.

Thanks and blessings to you all, who are pulling and purring for my delicate
baby.

Blessed be,
Baha