Oh Messy Life #13: The Nibs
Plus, Alyssa on the future of influencers, Daisy on the reported death of merch, Dan-182, and a Proper Chune courtesy Sydney Sprague
Welcome to Oh Messy Life, the column that thinks cats are better than dogs.
I’m lying in bed reading when, suddenly, I hear the Voice.
Stu the cat is going to die. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.
I think about this more than I’d like to admit, usually at random, though not always.
Tonight it’s because of a book; The Goodbye Cat, a collection of stories by Hiro Arikawa. The first story traces the early life of Hiromi and his two cats, Kota and Diana.
Peyton recommended the book to Leah, who recommended it to me.
I need you to read this, she said. I need you to feel the way I do.
That week she had brought the book to Second Beach Pool. I could see tears streaking out from behind her black Ray-Ban sunglasses as she finished the final page in Hiromi’s story,
The pool was crowded, and the August sky was iridescent blue. We could not have been less alone.
But in the moment it had all slipped into the background. For Leah, there was only Kota, Diana, and Stu.
~~~
Stu was already a senior when we adopted him from Vancouver Orphan Rescue Kitten Association (VOKRA).
The first time we saw him, he had been with his foster mom, Natalie, for over a year.
He spent most of our visit scratching on the door to her bedroom. He had been napping when she woke him up and forced him to socialize. He was anxious but also curious.
At one point, he crept towards the couch where we were sitting to sniff us and I absent-mindedly ran my hand across his back.
I whispered to Leah. This is the softest cat I’ve ever felt.
She ran her beautiful fingers across his head.
He is, she said.
Older cats tend to be overlooked and Stu was no exception. 10 pounds of pure gray tabby, he had only had two adoption inquiries since someone found him wandering the parking lot of a nearby movie studio (note: Stu is short for Studio, not Stewart).
One person had promised to take him but ghosted before they signed the papers.
As soon as we heard that, it was over.
He became part of the family on February 1st, 2020.
Like so many of us, he was cute, but in rough shape. His face was covered in thin scratches, and there were sores and lesions inside his mouth.
A week after the adoption, we took him to the vet for a mandatory check-up, only to learn his gums were badly inflamed. He underwent major surgery, receiving anesthesia and having four teeth extracted, all of it, thankfully, covered by VOKRA.
I was surprised to find myself considering the impermanent nature of our relationship, so soon into our lives together.
Unless something went horribly awry, Stu would leave this life before I would. We were practically strangers but the thought was completely devastating.
That was the first time I heard the Voice.
He could die at any time.
I know. But it’s too soon.
Stu returned home from surgery somewhat wary. He would sit near Leah and me, but not on us. For months we existed in each other’s orbit, the transit of our planets limited primarily to the kitchen, where he would spin in a concentric circle to celebrate his upcoming meal, or our bed, where he’d creep toward us looking for pats, before settling at our feet.
We knew next to nothing about him, but it was clear he had gone through something.
He’s microchipped, said Leah. Somebody loved him once.
She wondered if someone had given him up because of his medical issues.
More trips to the vet followed. We suspected allergies were behind his scratching and the sores in his mouth.
Six months in, I realized his recovery would take longer than expected. Timelines shifted from months to years. I hoped by 2021 things would be different.
Because we were living in Unprecedented Times, whatever money Leah and I would have spent on food, travel, or entertainment, was instead put toward Stu’s health.
He had hyperthyroidism, which VOKRA said could be managed with medication.
A month or two in we realized the disease we were managing was actively shortening his life span.
In the evenings, he would play for hours, his body burning energy and calories it didn’t have. He was thin, bony.
I told Leah all I wanted was to make him pleasantly plump.
~~~
B.C. is home to North West Nuclear Medicine – the only vet clinic in Western Canada that can cure cats of hyperthyroidism.
The procedure is simple, albeit slightly drawn out. Cats are injected with a small dose of radioactive iodine, which is absorbed into abnormal thyroid tissue, destroying it. No other tissue is harmed, and the animals do not get sick from the procedure. They do, however, become briefly radioactive, meaning they are legally required to stay on-site for days until their bodies return to a safe level of radiation.
Stu was gone about a week.
When he came home, he was so happy that he leaped into my lap, purring and shedding fur like a motherfucker. He thought we had abandoned him.
We were trying to keep him alive but it felt like the medical appointments were killing his spirit. When North West Nuclear told us the procedure – which boasts a 98% first-time cure rate – had failed to eliminate all of his abnormal tissue, it felt like a personal failure. As if I had let him down.
North West could do the procedure again at no additional charge. But there was an emotional cost.
From our short time together, it was clear Stu hated the vet. He hated being poked and prodded, hated undergoing such intense procedures. During routine checkups, he would hiss and spit at the technicians. They made notes in his chart saying he was uncooperative. When he came back from North West Nuclear the second time, he was despondent.
I wish we could explain it to him, said Leah.
That first year, Stu went to the vet eight or nine times, not including his stays at the radioactive hotel. We had him for less than a year and he had been to the vet more than any animal I’d ever met. I wondered whether we were doing more harm than good. Each successive visit, it seemed, revealed a new challenge: asthma, allergies, a brief but terrifying moment of suspected cardiac arrest that I’m now chalking up to stress.
At home, though, we were making progress. Some nights, Stu would curl up under my armpit, his tail covering his nose. One morning Leah took a photo of the two of us sleeping, both of us with one arm stretched off the bed.
The more he revealed himself, the more I saw myself within him. I jokingly referred to him as my son. I seriously considered him family. We started calling him The Nibs.
I wanted him to be happy. I wanted him not to die.
For most of that year, the two desires felt painfully at odds.
~~~
Through elimination, we learned Stu is allergic to almost everything. We started feeding him a raw diet of duck and rabbit. His scratches and lesions slowly faded.
Cured of his hyperthyroidism, he started putting on weight. He looked better than ever. His fur was softer. He was pleasantly plump.
It had taken two years but his mortality was beginning to seem slightly less than tenuous. In the mornings, he would stare out our window, watching the birds. Sometimes, if we were lucky, he would sit on our laps.
Months went by with no visit to the vet.
Then he got constipated.
It was the hottest August on record, and the fucking Nibs refused to drink his fucking water. He went nearly a week without shitting, retreating to our second bedroom, unwilling to move, and probably in a lot of pain. Our orbits crossed into aphelion; he had never felt so far away.
We hoped the problem would reach a natural solution, but it didn’t. I called the emergency vet, who told us to bring him in the next morning. We could’ve brought him sooner, but it would’ve cost more. We had already spent thousands trying to keep him alive.
That night Leah and I slept on the floor beside him in the heat.
If this cat dies because of a dry shit, I might kill myself, I thought.
Who the fuck dies from not pooping what the fuck.
He was motionless as I fell asleep. Later, Leah and I admitted we weren’t sure whether we would ever see him again.
The next day, the doctor administered two enemas and an IV drip. The shit was still stuck inside his intestines, so he had to break it up with his hands, by squeezing on Stu’s stomach.
I would have paid good money to watch him do that. Instead, we paid him for an overnight stay and round-the-clock care.
~~~
Leah’s lying on her side-scrolling TikTok, so she doesn’t know I’m crying because of The Goodbye Cat. I pull my T-shirt over my nose and sob silently until I can’t hold it any longer.
Fuck babs, why did you make me read this?
She turns over.
I told you, she says. I can feel her blue eyes smiling in the dark.
I roll out of bed and walk to the bathroom. In the mirror, my face is almost unrecognizable; everything is puffy and wet.
I grab some toilet paper from the roll and blow my nose three times. Until the white is stained with clear mucus. Until my ears pop.
I crawl back to bed.
Stu the cat is going to die. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.
It is a great tragedy, but also an immense privilege to love anything so much that it eventually leaves you in ruins.
Leah turns over and I flick off my reading light.
I listen in the dark for signs of the Nibs, but the house is silent.
I descend into oblivion knowing he is fast asleep on the couch downstairs.
Oh Messy Life
Earlier this month Leah, Kristyn, and I attended VOKRA’s Walk For the Kitties fundraiser. It was a great reminder of how this organization has enriched our lives, but also of the difficult work that their volunteers do every single day. They’re raising donations until the end of the month. CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE.
I really liked ’s interview with Josh Zoerner and the idea of being addicted to the shindig. Long live merch.
’s podcast with gave me much to ponder. Like, is Paige DeSorbo making more from affiliate links or this upcoming season of Summer House?
I guess this is growing up: helped Mark Hoppus write his new memoir, FAHRENHEIT-182. PRE-ORDER HERE.
Speaking of “selling out”: if you think Charly Bliss making memes or having fun online to promote their new album, Forever, detracts from the music in any way then I feel sorry for you (and your rizz-less timeline). Grow up!!!
Proper Chune
just released the deluxe version of her *terrific* second record, somebody in hell loves you. I included “terrible places” in last year’s best songs round up, but it’s basically Chunes all the way down. “god damn it jane” is a masterclass in economic songwriting (and it’s also funny).