Nightmares

I got home from seeing Sean last night and stepped in cat vomit. When I turned on the lights I saw that it had blood in it and ran into the living room looking for Murphy. He was laying underneath the coffee table surrounded by vomit. I scooped him up in an old towel and called Zoey in a blind panic.

“I need you to drive me somewhere right now.”

“Okay….is everything-“ Zoey sounded tired and thrown off guard but I was too panicked to think of politeness.

“I’ll explain when we’re in the car. I’m going to start walking towards Halston Street. Pick me up when you see me.” I hung up the phone and looked up the closest vet’s office with an emergency room (on Halston Street about 20 minutes away, 45 if I walked or took public transportation).

Zoey picked me up about ten minutes after I started walking and threw the passenger door open. She looked at the bundle in my arms and tears streaming down my face and punched the gas. No explanation necessary. She grabbed her cell phone and called the phone number of the emergency clinic I had written down to let them know we were coming.

We exploded into the emergency room and Zoey grabbed a clipboard of paperwork while I handed Murphy to a nurse and then subsequently broke down into a blubbering mess. Zoey asked me questions about Murphy’s health and turned in the clipboard. After about an hour, I finally calmed down and the doctor walked in to the lobby. He squatted in front of me and looked sympathetic.

“Murphy is very sick. We were able to stop him from vomiting but we don’t know why he’s bleeding or why his illnesses has regressed. I need you to sign some paperwork to let us keep him for awhile. He needs medical attention around the clock in order to get better and even then, I don’t really know if he will.”

I nodded and signed the paperwork.

“Do you think I could go in and see him?” I asked the nurse. She looked at Zoey gravely and nodded.

“I’ll take you back in a minute, let me go get him ready for you.”

We watched the nurse leave and I collapsed into Zoey’s arms like a crying child. My heart was absolutely broken. I knew there was a chance Murphy wouldn’t make it but he was getting better and I my hopes were high. When the nurse came back she walked us into a sterile room. Murphy was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor and lying on the towel I had wrapped him in. He looked so small. I reached my hand out and stroked his face; he started purring and looked at me with appreciative eyes. After a few minutes Zoey took my shoulders and guided me out of the back room. On the way back to my place we were silent.

“Do you think it would make him feel better if I brought him a toy?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“Maybe, you could try bringing him his bed, too. I’ll take you over there tomorrow, okay?”

I nodded and thanked her for the help as I left the car. When I entered my apartment I felt exponentially lonely. I put Murphy’s bed inside a pillow case that smelled like me (so he can remember me and hopefully be motivated to fight his illness) and picked out a few toys before cleaning up the piles of cat vomit around my apartment.

I took a shower and got into bed when my phone buzzed:

Sean: Did you get back to your apartment okay? You never sent me a text and I was worried.

I sighed and wrote a reply:

Yeah. I had to take my cat to the emergency room when I got back and just got home from there.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, to say the least.