A Proxy Cat is Better Than No Cat At All.

We've had a busy couple of days, filled with the kind of shenanigans that are both unavoidable and also not what anyone wants to do.

On Monday we helped BD pack her bags for hospital. Her cat did it's best to come too.

I could totally fit in there.

Unfortunately real cats weren't allowed in hospital, so we had to make do with proxy ones. We accompanied her through the tedious check-in process, resurrected all our bad hospital jokes and black humour, and finally tucked them both in to bed and left for the night.

Not as good as a real cat, but it will have to do.

On Tuesday we got up way too early in the morning, to the confusion of the dogs, who tried to get excited about the possibility of pre-dawn walks but in the end decided we were quite mad and went back to bed instead.

We made it to the hospital in time to wave BD off to la-la land courtesy of some solid pre-surgery medication. We went home and killed time, walked the dogs, went back to hospital, found the ICU and the relatives' lounge, twiddled our thumbs, drank bad hospital coffee.

The surgeon rang. "All done. Plan B accomplished. You can see her as soon as she's all set up."

We found our way to ICU and said hello. It was a very one-sided conversation as her ability to communicate was impeded by small matters like a ventilator and sub-par level of consciousness. We headed home once it became obvious that waking up was going to take a while and night was already well advanced.

Wednesday was brighter on all fronts due to a good night's sleep (us) and the removal of the ventilator (BD). We had conversation and more bad jokes in between fading out to naps, physio, sitting in a chair, and nibbling a very nice lunch under the watchful eyes of the proxy cat.

BD napped. So did Roger. The proxy cat and I kept watch.

The afternoon ticked slowly away. We became aware that BD was a minor celebrity due to being a) young and b) deliciously complicated from a medical point of view ("and because I'm hot" she added). The afternoon may have been tedious but this was fine by us: in Hospital World tedium is infinitely preferable to adrenaline and beeping alarms and not knowing what's going to happen next.

The proxy cat, taking its responsibilities seriously, supervised dinner.

Eat up now.  What?  Dessert first?  All the rules don't apply when you're in hospital.

By 7pm we were all tired and some of us were really hungry so we said our goodbyes and home we went with promises to be back in the morning. 

"I'll stay here," said the proxy cat. "I have to do my best job otherwise when we go home the real cat will use me as a scratching post.  Besides, you have dogs at your house."

With that we left BD in the capable care of the proxy cat (with help from oh, the odd nurse, registrar, intensivist, cardiac surgeon, physiotherapist, and cleaner) and went home to the dogs who were very glad to see us and did not in the least suspect that we had been hanging out with a proxy cat all day.