Spitball Army

Today was going to be a day for results.

That was the thought running through my head as I prepared for sleep last night. The result I was looking forward to the most seemed to be completely out of my control. Thus, when I reminded myself of it, halfway to dreamland, I visualized a pair of crossed fingers, my body being too tired to cross my own by that time.

My male cat has been on a couple month-long barrage of late-night vomiting episodes. Every. Single. Night. For two months. At least. Thinking it was caused by a hairball, I tried kitty laxative first. It always seems to work when his sister throws up. For him, though, it had no effect, other than making him think he was being fed a treat (he loves the molasses flavoring of that goo). Next, I altered his feeding schedule so that all of his food would be consumed before sundown. That way, I hypothesized, he would have next to nothing left in his system to throw up at 3:00 in the morning. All this proved to do was to extract the solid portions of his vomit out; he’d still spit up, without fail, a frothy white puddle of sputum, right in the spot where he sleeps every night.

Though I have been consulting with my vet for weeks now, I made an appearance at his office again on Saturday, looking and sounding desperate and thinking that, barring a whopping surgical bill or a miracle, my viable options were limited and severe. When I mentioned to the doctor that I was beginning to believe that Ziggy (the male cat) might be suffering from some type of reflux disorder, she recommended that I try giving him a quarter of a Pepcid AC pill at night. I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home and, last night, I gave it to him. Ziggy just thought he was getting some candy. He’ll eat anything.

This morning, there was no visible spot of an overnight mishap anywhere. Ziggy was running in circles, begging for food, as always, and the floor and towels on the chairs were clean. So far, so good.

I had awakened in a panic in the middle of the night, remembering that yesterday was the first day I had turned the heat on, then remembering that Ziggy always sleeps on the floor heating grate. If I was to find evidence of his throwing up, it would have disappeared down the vent. Not a cleaning job to look forward to, I reminded myself. I listened, lying in bed, for the whirr of the heating system and, not hearing it, dozed back to sleep, assured that he wasn’t sacked out on the vent. When I awakened, the house was cold. I checked the thermostat and the switch was turned on to “Heat,” yet none was being produced. Down to the basement, I checked the breaker, checked the power switch to the furnace: all okay. Befuddled, I took stock.

One non-vomiting cat. One non-functioning furnace. That’s moderate success, in the balance, I thought. I can always get the furnace fixed; it’s either broken or working. The cat not throwing up is a big deal that I chalked up to luck. I’ll take it. The cost of a monthly box of Pepcid AC would be a small price to pay to get “Vomit Clean-up” off my morning schedule.

Now, onward.  The next result I was looking forward to was a personal physical achievement.

In mid-June, I was confronted with the doubly damaging effects of aging and neglectful abuse on my body. At a doctor’s visit, we found that not only was my weight high (not a surprise), but my blood pressure was topping the charts and about three different values in my blood analyses were askew. In a moment of frankness, my doctor gave me the option of starting medication to lower the blood pressure or, because I am outspoken about my disdain of taking any medications unnecessarily, allowing me to try to control it with exercise and diet. I chose the latter. And, on June 15th, I started a self-styled exercise program of swimming and weight training. The pool that I frequent has a giant chart tacked onto a bulletin board, where swimmers can mark their progress. On that mid-month date, I started my own chart entries, listing my daily distance in the water. I think I swam twelve laps that first day back in the pool.

I’ve stayed with it religiously, losing decades of weight and beating the odds against high blood pressure. At my most recent doctor’s visit, he pronounced that, though it was still higher than average, my b.p. was significantly lower than at my last visit, and we needn’t consider medication at this time. Following my normal pattern of behavior, I would have stopped the exercise program, thinking I’d accomplished something with it, and thinking that I’d just move on to the next goal. But I’ve become excited about swimming again, and even about the land training in the gym. If anything, I was encouraged enough by the doctor’s report to continue with even greater enthusiasm.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were an awful lot of black hash marks on my swimming chart. Counting them, I found that I was closing in on one hundred miles. The hundredth mile, if I didn’t miss a day, would be sometime this week. In fact, it turned out to be this morning.

Faced with a possible success with the vomitrocious cat, and a failure of my home’s heating system, I gathered my swim gear and drove to the Y. This would definitely work, dammit.

I was there at 8 a.m., waiting outside the locked door with a handful of other die-hards. Once in, I did my standard mile: one-half mile of unbroken crawl; one-sixth kicking with the Zoomers (short fins); one-sixth using arms and Zoomers; and one-sixth of a mile alternating easy laps with being-chased-by-a-shark laps. One full mile.

When I stopped, I let out a little victory whoop. Martha, the woman who is almost always in the lane next to mine on Sunday mornings, was stopped at the side for a rest. I told her that I’d just hit this personal milestone.

“Congratulations,” she said to me, floating on her back. “That’s almost from here to Atlanta!”

I nodded, still slightly out of breath.

Martha paddled over to the string of floats separating our lanes and placed her hands on it, in a gesture of purpose. She looked square at me with a look of gravity and a knowing half-smile, goggles sprouting from her forehead.

“Now you have to swim back.”