Cassie, the plugger

(Don Dale 2011 photo)

Cats have a refined, civilized sense of where they look good. Cassie, my six-year-old calico, apparently thinks she's related to Chessie, the C&O Railway cat from a few decades back.

Cassie looks good on the bed with the white spread in the guest room.

She knows it.

She also looks good in the wing chair in the dining room, and sprawled on her back with all four paws in the air on the wool rug next to the radiator in the living room.

Cats know these things. If you have a cat, you know they know these things.

Cassie is doing well. We're headed down the final stretch as we fine-tune her medication. She's had a tough time since a year ago when she was picked up as a stray in Chesterfield, taken in by the Richmond SPCA, then adopted by me last March.

Cassie has a chronic upper-respiratory infection. We don't know how long she's been fighting this problem, but it surfaced quickly at the SPCA. She's been off and on antibiotics since then.

Once I adopted her, my vet continued antibiotics for three weeks. When the infection returned, the vet suggested I take her to a specialist. Cassie spent three days being poked and prodded, having cultures taken, and having a fiber-optic probe inserted up her nose and into her sinuses to see if there were polyps, a foreign body, or perhaps cancer. (She was anesthetized for the exploration of her sinuses.)

There were no polyps, no foreign body, and no cancer. But the specialist narrowed down the bug that's bugging her, and started her on antibiotics known specifically to kill it. She also prescribed a steroid. The antibiotics worked. The steroid didn't.

Cassie had about 2 1/2 weeks of relief, and then the violent sneezing returned. So she was back on the antibiotics for 21 days. She has a week more to go today. (The steroid made no difference in the length of time she could go between bouts of symptoms.)

Cassie and I will see the vet this week. I hope to stop the steroid (which has to be done gradually to avoid uncomfortable side effects). I plan to suggest we try "pulsing" the antibiotic, which will mean putting her on it when she shows any symptoms and taking her off of it when the symptoms go away. It'll take some time to figure out the best on-and-off schedule that will keep her feeling up to par.

Cassie is a fighter. Through all of this turmoil, she just keeps plugging away. She loves a warm lap. She purrs whenever anybody pets her or cuddles her. She doesn't resist taking her medications -- not too much, anyway. And her appetite has remained strong throughout. She's lucky. Some cats just give up and shut down when they feel bad.

Not Cassie.

Sometimes she wants to be alone and sleep, but she always has time for a stretch and a purr if you rub her head in passing.

And when she's looking for a place to spend a little down time by herself, she picks a spot where she looks her best.

Just in case somebody should notice.