#42 of 92: Caregiving in the Animal World and Elsewhere

Every night we give the cat his pill. It is a steroid pill.

I asked the vet how long the cat can take steroids, thinking that it could give him a giant neck or push him into hysterical episodes of cat rage, and she said, “As long as he lives.”

This seemed like an odd answer since the whole point of the steroids is to keep him alive.

We give the dog a pill twice a day. I crush it with a spoon and mash it with some cat food before adding a cup of kibble and stirring it all up. The purpose of the pill is to stop the dog’s leaking. She’s not incontinent exactly, she just leaks when she gets up or sneezes or hears a funny joke. You know.

We are geriatric people with geriatric pets, and I’ve not even started with the pills we give each other. It’s all good, though. We all need things and creatures and people to take care of. Otherwise, we’d be utterly self-absorbed and insufferable.

We’re not like that.