Munchausen by Kitty?

Munchausen by Proxy syndrome is basically when parents make their kids sick so that they can get some sort of attention. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with CF. Except in this one blog posting. And barring any bizarro grad student papers or medical studies I may not have read!

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While I was on my Road Trip 2009, my pet nanny C-oockie^, came down with a case of Munchausen by Kitty Syndrome for my cat, S-Purry^. It all started in March, when Cystic Lady and I left on a cruise. At that time, Spurry was so distraught over my departure that apparently, he refused to pee or drink water while I was away. He got a really bad bladder infection and lost a bunch of weight during the kitty protest to modern veterinary medicine that followed. I admired his tenacity in refusing to eat his new vet-approved food, but poor Spurry, he lost 6 kitty cat pounds! Coockie, my pet nanny, has been concerned about poor Sprurry ever since. She emailed him twice.

When she arrived here last week, ready to cat nanny away, she was alarmed about poor Spurry's weight loss. She called me and left me a frantic message. I called her back and reminded her about Spurry's bladder infections, and told her to read my instructions, that he is under the care of his vet, and that he is on a special wet food diet to assure that he will get enough water while he gains his weight back.

This, apparently, was not enough for Coockie. She made a horrible cat nanny error. That night, she left out a huge bowl of dry food for Spurry. And you know what? He ate all of it. And then what? He got the poops.

She told me later, "I just couldn't understand why an underweight cat wouldn't have food available to him, all the time." Spurry, you see, is not a normal cat. He eats anything available to him, like a dog. Spurry is more of a dog than a cat. Spurry, in this house, is often called "pup pup" for this very reason. So, directions aside, Coockie gave my cat the terrible horrible no good very bad poops. And then what? She had to clean it and it and it and it and it up. Because she is the cat nanny, and I was on vacay.

Coockie could not then stop her pet nanny madness. She called me in a poop frantic state and declared that there simply must be SOMETHING WRONG with Spurry. It was not just the over-eating. He must be gravely ill. He must have the poops for a reason. The poops must always have a reason. Now, you CF readers know that of course the poops always have not one, but TWO REASONS. One of those is something complicated you must talk to a doctor about. The other reason is the food you ate.

I doubt that any of you that had the poops recently thought to yourself, "You know what I should do while my stomach's all fucked up? Go eat and eat and eat!" Poor stupid cat Spurry. Coockie put another bowl of dry food out for him, and made a vet appointment for the next day.

The vet told her that she had overfed him, and the vet ran a bunch of bloodwork to double-check if "SOMETHING WAS WRONG!!!" with Spurry, and the vet hydrated poor Spurry who now has a bald spot on his neck that looks funny.

What was Coockie's problem? Simple: she is a vet tech at a local cat emergency hospital. She usually sees cats when they are gravely ill and it is off-hours. She usually sees cat owners when they are in a state of panic/grief. And she put all this on my poor Spurry and created a situation where he was sick because of what she did, and she was the only one that could "save him" by taking him to the vet. She even sent me an email today saying, "I'm so glad our 'Spurry' is doing well. Where do we go from here?"

NOW-what does this have to do with CF?

One of the things that I struggle with in CF is the fact that like Coockie, I am usually at the hospital only in extreme circumstances. I had avoided it altogether for about three years until this past one. So when I'm there, I literally make myself a little sick by getting too "in my head" about the experience. I think things are wrong with me that aren't, and I have trouble accepting the things that ARE wrong with me. I get mad at people who are talking to me reasonably. I get a little Coockie.

Which is only one o away from Cockie, and only an "ie" away from being a total Coock.

The other similarity is that Coockie has experienced an endless cycle of kitties getting really sick and some of them getting mostly better, while others never did. In CF, we have personally experienced so many cycles of getting sick and getting better, or getting sick and NOT getting better, that it can be difficult on a given day to really gauge what is going on, in reality, not in our coockie future planning, or our coockie pasts.

If any of this sounds familiar, please email me at cysticgal@gmail.com or post a comment below. I would love to know, do you ever over-do it because you can't remember that you're sick? Or do you ever lay around all day even though you feel fine? Do you ever go to the doctor thinking they'll definitely put you in the hospital, and then your PFTs are good? Or go in thinking you are great, and it turns out, you're totally sick? What's your story, Cystic Peeps?

Tomorrow's Topic: One Coockie Day For CG

Goodnight from home,
CG