The chain of events

Here's the play by play:

Prologue, late 2005: Bitey begins to hesitate before jumping up onto the kitchen counter, where he is fed twice a day. At 16 lbs, Bitey is a bit of a porker, so this hesitation seems natural. Sometimes he tries and fails, which is humiliating for him, but at the time, amusing to us. Little do we know. Proving that he is indeed a true member of my family, his desire to eat eventually overcomes any hesitation.

Thursday, February 9th, 2006:
During one of his outdoor field trips, Bitey falls out of the passion fruit tree. It's only about a four foot drop, but he doesn't twist, and lands on the brick pathway, squarely on his spine. He shakes it off, and seems fine.

Saturday, February 11th, 2006:
Bitey is hiding under the bed, in his sick place. The sick place is a rolling suitcase under our bed. He curls up on top, and if you need to see him, you roll him out like a drawer in a filing cabinet.

He howls when I pick him up. We take him to the vet, who thinks it could be bruising from the fall. He gives Bitey kitty aspirin, and a shot of cortisone.

Week of February 13th:
Bitey improves dramatically, so much so that by Wednesday he is jumping up on the bed and the kitchen counter.

Thursday, February 16th:
The cortisone begins to wear off. Bitey regains stiffness. This gets worse each day.

Saturday, February 18th:
When I wake up to feed Bitey, he is dragging one leg behind him. But he eats. I run an errand. When I come back, he is in the sick place again. When I pull him out, he tries to walk. Now both legs are paralyzed and he is dragging his whole lower body around using only his front paws. It is the most pathetic thing I have seen in a long time.

I call our vet, but he is booked solid. We are referred to an animal emergenecy hospital down Santa Monica Blvd.

I have never before advanced to this level of cat care. At our vet you make an appointment, you wait for a while when you arrive, then you go in with the cat, get the shots and get out.

In kitty hospitals, you walk in the door, hand over your cat, still in the travel bag, and they whisk him away. Then later, the doctor calls you in to a "family room", tells you the bad news and charges you $75 dollars for the expedited consult.

In our case, the doctor says: "I squeezed Bitey's paw hard, but there is no indication that he felt any pain." Then he says "I'm not even going to waste your time here" and sends us further west down Santa Monica to a veterinary surgical center. More disturbingly, the doctor waives his fee. I guess he knew what was coming.

We arrive at the Surgical Center and Bitey is again whisked away. We are invited into another "family room." A veterinary surgeon speaks with us. She explains the possible diagnoses (more on that later), gauges our willingness to pay for expensive tests, then admits our cat.

Tuesday, February 21st:
We have visted Bitey every day since his admittance. The wonderful surgeons have run every test they can think of. A battery of tests has show that Bitey has a blockage in or around his spine that is pressing on his nerves and causing the paralysis. But no one can pin down a cause.

They make us an appointment to see a kitty neurologist. In Orange County. Southern Orange County. Far from Hollywood. Bitey seems to have improved. He now has some use of his back legs, and can walk, tentatively, around the family room. I pay $2700 dollars and take Bitey home to his new cage. Which he hates. I find this encouraging.

Wednesday February 22nd:
Bitey wakes up paralyzed again. I put him in his case and take him to the O.C. for his appointment. It's an hour drive. He is disturbingly quiet along the way. Walking into the kitty neurologist's office, I cannot resist the temptation to say, "Welcome to the O.C., bitch." A woman I did not know was behind me says, "hmph."

The lovely kitty neurologist does some visual tests, but cannot find the problem. She suggests an MRI. That costs $1200 dollars. I wince, and schedule the MRI.

I take Bitey home. He is sluggish and prefers to lie in the cage he so desperately tried to head butt his way out of the night before.

I apply for a no-interest platinum card.

Thursday February 23rd (TMI ALERT)
230am. I awake to a gross noise and a bad smell. I find Bitey sacked out on the bathroom mat. He is covered in shit. But I am awed by the fact that he has dragged his (literally) paralyzed ass from his cage into the bathroom and made it to the litter in time. That's class. I spend an hour cleaning him up, thinking grim thoughts about his quality of life.

Later that morning, he is in so much pain that I take another day off from work and take him to our regular vet. The vet finds that Bitey's bladder is dangerously full. He admits Bitey into his care and give him another shot of cortisone. And that's where I visited him tonight.

Friday, February 24th
While he still cannot walk on his hind legs, Bitey is more alert, and clearly in less pain. The vet and his staff are emptying his bladder for him. If he can manage to do this on his own, he can come home. Otherwise he will be a guest at the vet's for an undetermined amount of time, at least until the MRI, possibly longer.