it’s been an exciting past two days. simon, never one for boredom, dropped a bombshell on us thursday morning. he’d been breathing funny wednesday night and by thursday morning wasn’t doing any better.

i’m sure tony was saying, “damn cat,” under his breath, but he dutifully took him to the vet before he went to work. when i called to check up on him, tony was all snar and said simon was sick.

he has an enlarged heart and had fluid in his lungs, hence the breathing problems. the vet said he had a bad heart and they would have to put him in an oxygen tank to help him breathe. it didn’t look good for little simon. the diagnosis was pretty grim and we were both bracing ourselves to put him down that night.

we were allowed to go and visit around nine at night. i felt bad for the other pet owners who had to sit with me in the waiting room. my red eyes and splotchyness and tears were probably making them thankful they were just there to get a checkup.

this morning we had resigned ourselves to putting simon down. and then we came to the vet clinic and talked to the vet.

miracle of miracles, simon had clawed his way back to the land of the living. the oxygen therapy and medications he was on was helping immensely, he could live to see another day! the downside is that he still has a pretty serious heart condition. with an enlarged heart, there’s not much you can do about it except keep it regulated with meds and thin his blood with 1/16 of an aspirin every 72 hours.

so all of our crying aside (yes, OUR crying. deep, deep, deep, deep down, tony does love simon), we have our boy for maybe another year and then we’ll have to face the inevitable.

but i’m not going to think about that. instead, i’ve decided to embrace the rest of my time with the little devil and make it the year of simon*. more snuggling, more fancy feast, more cat toys. yessiree, skies the limit.

so go hug your cat or dog or bird or fish; okay, maybe not the fish and bird, but you get the idea. enjoy them and love them while you have them because regardless of species, they truly are man’s best friend.

*props to jim for my year of jim redux.