See through kitty

We arrived in Annecy, France, in the late spring of 2004 after having spent eight years in Asia. Shakespeare had so far lived in our Singaporean condo on the mountain where he was born, our picturesque house in Den-en-chofu, Tokyo, our apartment with the magnificent view over Lamma Island and our vast government-owned apartment – both in Hong Kong. We went from 300 m2 to a 100m2 loft apartment on Avenue de Genève.

All went well, initially; he only escaped down the elevator that went straight up to our apartment once, and he only jumped down to our neighbor’s balcony once as well. Winter arrived and his strolls around our 50m2 large patio came to an end. He has never been much of a winter guy; instead he curled up like a cinnamon roll under a blanket or under the duvet in our bed, surrounded by pillows.

All of a sudden he started coughing, not like a normal cat-cold kind of cough but more wheezing and dry cough, as if he couldn’t exhale properly – like asthma. And sure enough, the vet soon confirmed that asthma it was and that he needed regular cortisone injections throughout winter. Needless to say; cortisone plus inactivity made him put on a lot of weight and by summer we had one fat kitty.

When Shakespeare arrived after more than two months of boarding in Scottsdale, a three day journey across the globe and six days of quarantine he resembled Garfield, only grey and black instead of orange. Never before has he been so….solid…. (I’m way to nice here…I don’t want to hurt the poor deaf cats’ feelings…).

After a very short stroll around the service apartment he settled in quickly and has since escaped only once when housekeeping by accident let him out. He prefers to spend his days sleeping or looking out the window.

Beijing is extremely dry and of course the cough came back, with a vengeance. I took him to the vet the other day to make sure his lungs and heart where working well and confirm, yet again, what I know is wrong with him. Before I knew it, four people were involved and he was whisked off to the x-ray room where they proceeded to hold him down during the procedure (thank god they were wearing protective vests!). Afterwards, the sanitized instruments went back in to their plastic bags (without being sanitized again…) and the doctor began to rinse the negatives in the examination room.

The result? Sure enough, he is overweight but he also has a mysterious syndrome which causes his airways to tighten and contract, something related to old age presumably.

There’s always an excuse, isn’t there? Will look into a cat treadmill for sure…