Pets Tag Archive
In my last entry, I discussed feline wisdom. Cats have been on my mind lately and not just because my special feline is clearly in his decline. However, because of my elderly kitty’s problems I have seen a lot more of my veterinarian. I find in many ways that I envy my cat’s health care plan.
My cat does not have a plan, of course. His “plan” is to visit the Animal Medical Center in Herndon, Virginia as needed. I pay out of pocket for services rendered. Nor am I necessarily anxious to give up my wonderful physician. Still, when I contemplate the Rube Goldberg invention that is our current health care system I have to wonder why we let it get so complex, expensive and impersonal. It should work more like a trip to my local vet.
Last week I swung by the vet to pick up more prescription-diet cat food for my beloved and elderly cat Sprite. The vet techs behind the counter nearly know me by name now. “Oh yes, how is Sprite doing? Is the prednisone working?” Yes, I reported. He is drinking a lot more water and seems more his normal self. That day the vet happened to be standing at the front counter working on a chart when I arrived. If I had been a physician’s office, I would not expect to even glimpse a doctor until after I had been ushered into the examination room. So naturally, I assumed that the vet was not listening to my kitty problems. Yet she tuned in the whole conversation about how the medications were working out and my feline’s current bowel habits as she worked the chart, and spoke up. She was glad to hear that the medication was working. She suggested staying with the wet cat food because it was moister.
If this conversation had occurred at all in most doctors’ offices, the informal chat would turn into a consultation. My insurance company would be billed and I would be writing a check for a co-payment. However, at my vet’s office such advice comes at no extra charge.
Formal examinations of course come with fees attached. Nevertheless, calls to the vet to discuss a particular situation or to ask advice on a topic are invariably assessed at no charge. If they think the problem is serious enough then they will tell us to bring Sprite in. An examination usually costs us $35-$50, plus medications. If pills need to be cut, they are glad to cut them for us at no additional charge.
Unlike most doctors’ offices, where you are sent to read dated issues of magazines for an indeterminate time, generally our pet sees the veterinarian in within minutes of the arrival. For our amusement the office comes complete with a few roaming “office” cats. You can often find them sitting on a counter, or perched on top of a computer monitor. They generally do not mind being petted by strangers. If we have to wait, there is usually another friendly pet owner with whom to trade pet stories.
Everyone at our vet’s office is glad to see both our pets and us. The feeling of warmth for the animals is palpable. I do not know how your experience is at your doctor’s office. However, feelings of genuine concern for my malady of the moment are not typically what we experience. The crew behind the counter is, however, quite concerned about whether my insurance has changed since my last visit.
I am sure that there are many veterinarian specialists out there, but for the most part our vet’s office is a one-stop shop. They do pretty much everything, including making sure our cat’s nails are trimmed and that he is on the proper diet. Unlike many physicians’ offices that I have visited over the years, they are not anxious to order an expensive test or even prescribe medication. They stick with treating the most likely conditions first, and then work from there as necessary. If the animal is really sick, they can also keep it under observation. Of course, they can also board the animal if needed. Clearly, you will not get any of these services from your physician. They do not exist. Even if you can hardly move, you are most likely to just get a prescription and be sent home to convalesce.
Most of us probably would not want their doctor to cuddle or stroke us like we do with our pets. Yet wouldn’t it be nice when the situation warranted if your doctor gave you a hug, or gently squeezed your hand, or really empathized when you seemed to need it? Instead, your physician is more likely figuring out how to wrap up the conversation so they can get to the next patient. You may get some empathy from the nurse that takes your vitals. Generally, physicians will divorce your physical problems from your mental ones. A general practitioner will point you to a competent therapist, but most will not going to spend more than a couple minutes listening to your situational problems.
Although our pets might disagree if they could talk, most veterinary clinics feel inviting. This is not usually true of physicians’ offices. Instead, you wait until you are called and maybe listen to some bad Muzak. Then you get to wait for an indeterminate time in a small and lonely examination room, sometimes while partially disrobed. However at our vet, pets are welcomed and sometimes even fussed over during their time with the veterinarian. Vets know this personal attention is a part of what the animal expects and that it may help in their healing. For some reason we human animals do not typically receive bedside manners from our physicians.
When your pet is clearly dying and in pain, the vet will do the humane thing and with your consent put your pet to sleep. Yet in our country only Oregon comes close to offering a way for a physician to help you exit your life in a dignified and humane manner. Why is it that what is considered humane for an animal is frowned upon for us human beings? Are we not also animals? I believe that we humans also deserve a dignified exit from this life. How is it more humane to keep us lingering in a narcotic haze until death finally releases us from our misery? Having recently witnessed my mother die this way, I would never choose this for myself. Nor would have my mother have chosen this final exit, if she had had the choice.
I think that the business model underlying our current regular health care needs to radically change. It needs to treat people as human beings, instead of insurable objects who get fifteen minutes or less with a harried doctor. It also needs to insure everyone. Bill Clinton tried to overhaul our health insurance system early in his presidency and failed. Those living off the fat of the current system had undue influence. Yet if we were to rethink American medicine, perhaps a radical overhaul would be in order. A good place to start would be to examine what works so well in our veterinary clinics.
February 23rd, 2006 at 07:48pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2006 |
no comments
Do you need a philosophy of life? Rather than read Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Sartre perhaps you would do better to observe your cat.
If you do not have a cat, the situation is easily remedied. There are plenty at your local animal shelter, usually for little more than the cost of some shots. Unless your cat has neurotic tendencies such as liking to shred your sofa, they are usually not much bother. Yes, they will hack up a hairball from time to time. In addition, some of them, like our evil ex-cat Squeaky can make your life a living hell. However, most cats are content if you change their litter regularly, give them clean water and half a can of cat food a day and amuse them when it suits them. Generally, they will look out for themselves quite well.
Cat philosophy is not written down anywhere. However, simple observation will allow you to glean their philosophy on life. For cats are ruthlessly selfish creatures. They may be selfish but that does not mean they are unreasonably selfish. Their pecking order is very clear: I will do what gives me the most pleasure right now. After about two decades of observing cats up close, I have to say that it is not necessarily a bad philosophy.
I am not advocating selling your children to the gypsies. Nor in our modern world is it a good idea to give no thought to tomorrow. Still, as we wend our way through daily living we could be much happier and a lot less neurotic if we spent some time every day emulating our house cat.
Yesterday, being very cold here along the Eastern seaboard, our furnace was having trouble keeping the house warm. It was maybe 65 degrees in the house. Our 19-year-old cat Sprite is clearly in his declining years. It has been a tough last couple of months for him. He has had bad constipation and diarrhea and lost nearly half his body weight. We now have him on a couple of pills twice a day. This, a dollop of kitty laxative, a half a spoonful of yogurt, and some prescription-diet cat food allows him to lead a decent life in his very old age. There is virtually no fat left on him, so a cold house is quite a challenge.
Fortunately, he is still reasonably mobile. His solution is simply to find the warmest spot in the house. When the furnace is running, he likes to sit near a vent. Otherwise the back of our master bedroom closet, bundled up next to some shoes works fine. There are no drafts back there and a vent behind the wall adds heat. However, even when the day is cold, if the sun is out, then the sun will at some point stream through our living room window. He anticipates its arrival in the room by sleeping in his kitty bed on the living room chair. As he sleeps, the sun will fall over his body. This is his cue to gently hop down onto the carpet and find the big sunny spot. He will bask in the sun and enter a deep hypnotic state, moving slightly as necessary to keep up with the sun’s traversal across the floor. When the sunbeam goes away, he is usually nice and warm, so he curls up into a ball in his cat bed and goes to sleep. If the room is still cold then he will usually sleep with one paw over his eyes and nose. This keeps the air and his nose a bit warmer. For variety, if a human is available, their lap will suffice as a nice heat source too. Lesson: maximize your own comfort at all times. Get reasonably comfortable, but do not waste too much time over it. Allocate no more than a minute for finding a comfy spot.
Sprite never stresses about tomorrow. He accepts what is presented to him and makes the best of it. In his old age, he is not as playful as he was. His inability to relive his younger days does not bother him. I suspect when he dreams his pleasant memories of those playful days of his youth occupy his thought. Lesson: take one day at a time and simply accept its experience.
Sprite knows he is a cat. He thinks he is neither the best nor the worst cat in the world, although I would disagree. In my eyes, he is the best cat in the world. Best and worst are human concepts that have no meaning to him. He has no pretensions. He is simply a cat. He is what he is and doesn’t stress over the fact that he hasn’t done much more in his life than eat, sleep, poop, sits on the occasional lap and play a bit. He has found peace by accepting himself. Lesson: to find happiness be who you are, not what you want to be.
Sprite is a loyal cat. Unlike most dogs, his loyalty is reserved. He is choosy about who he bonds with. Once you have invested enough time in him doing things that make him happy then he will stick by you. He will return the favor by purring, snuggling with you or seeking you out. As long as you treat him right and with respect, he will do the same. If you do not treat him right, he reserves the right to change his mind. Lesson: give affection only to those who return affection in kind.
Sprite is a homebody. We do not let him outside, except on our screened in desk in warmer weather. There he will bask in the sun, or enjoy a gentle breeze blowing through his fur, while he watches birds fly by and squirrels run across our railings. Mostly he prefers to stay inside because it is comfortable and familiar to him. Lesson: home is the best place to be.
I could probably write many more pages of cat philosophy. Since Sprite does not spend that much time philosophizing, neither will I. Rather he spends his days living simply and with complete earnestness. I am your typical restless Aquarian. Nevertheless, through my cat Sprite I have learned to chill out and take pleasure what is in front of me.
Yes, home is where my family is. But more than anything else, home is where my cat lives. For a cat sanctifies a house. He makes it real. For once a cat has made your house a home, it is no longer just a structure. It takes on meaning; it is truly a home. Perhaps that is why, when Sprite passes away, I will want another cat. I will be unlikely to get one. In the 19 years Sprite has lived with us my wife has discovered that she is allergic to cats. For now, she pops antihistamines in order to keep symptoms in check.
I will miss having a cat in my house after he dies. Yet I will know that in some sense the cat will still be there. Because he made my house a home, it will always be blessed. Moreover, we are blessed to have such a spirit among us, teaching us so many useful life lessons, free for the observation.
February 21st, 2006 at 09:23pm
Posted by
Mark |
Philosophy |
one comment
Maybe this will sound a little pathetic but my best friend is a cat.
Okay, I’m not the most sociable critter in the world but I am not entirely friendless. Nonetheless I think I can say without hesitation that the best friend I will have in this life is 11 pounds or so and is currently curled up on my lap. His head is partially buried in one paw. He lies where he always lies on my lap, with his head on my left thigh and his paws nestled up toward my belly.
His name is Sprite and he’s been my best friend for at least 16 of the 18 years he’s been alive. We bonded shortly after he and his sister Squeaky came home from the Doktor’s Pet Center in Tysons Corner, Virginia in January 1987. In the beginning our relationship was a bit challenging. He had claws and he used them instinctively. This frequently meant his jumping onto my lap and embedding them in my thigh. For about a year I would not let him on my lap until I had first a blanket on my lap.
So Sprite required a little training but he was as good a pupil as a young cat could be. I wanted a lap kitty but at first he was a bit skittish around people in general. So I petted and praised him all the time, and made sure I gave him extra affection when he was on my lap and not sticking his pincers into me. He still gets it wrong sometimes. Fortunately I am now better at keeping his nails trimmed so it is less of a problem. As a kitten he could not sit still for nail clippings.
In fact Sprite and I are now perfectly bonded. We understand each other intuitively. I know exactly where to stroke him to make him happiest. He knows instinctively when to sit on my lap and when to leave me alone. When he wants to sit on my lap he only rarely demands to be on my lap. Rather he petitions very politely. He comes next to me and I hear the roar of his purr motor. I look down and see his wide glass-like eyes petitioning me. I can hear him in my brain: “Can I please sit on your lap, Daddy?”
When he was younger and more agile I would slap my hand on my thighs a few times and he would normally understand the signal, jump on my lap and move into the lap position. At 18 though he has cataracts. Only occasionally can work up the courage to jump on my lap. Sometimes he succeeds and sometimes he doesn’t. When he misjudges he falls awkwardly back and I have to catch his fall. Fortunately he has me well trained. I look down and coo, “What’s the matter sweetheart?” and he gives me a silent meow. And I pick up his 11 pounds and awkwardly put him on my lap. He of course has to move into his special snuggle lap position. And there he settles in for a long couple hours of purring, sometimes sounding like a motorboat engine. At other times his purr is barely perceptible. His eyes open half wide most of the time. He gives me a look of complete and utter adoration. But after a while he seems content just to bask in my warmth and love and enters a dreamy sort of trance-like state, not quite asleep but not quite awake either. He seems hypnotized. The longer I stay on my chair (I am usually in front of the computer) the more he likes it. It breaks my heart (and his) sometimes to have to get up to attend to other things.
Sprite knows to trust me completely. I will never deliberately hurt him and when I stroke him I always stroke ever so gently. I stroke over his bat ears and they twitch with an autonomic response. He likes a scratch under his chin or along the side of his face. I can play with his paws and pull on his nails and he doesn’t mind. He just purrs louder.
On rare occasions he will let me give him a belly rub. He likes any form of affection but it is still difficult for him to be that vulnerable in that way. He doesn’t usually mind being picked up and dragged around. And he’s quite unusual in that he doesn’t mind being cuddled. I can pick him up like a baby and cradle him in my arms. It’s a bit uncomfortable for him but he does enjoy it, and his little purr motor cranks up to high volume.
We should let him sleep on the bed with us now that his sister is gone but we maintain the habit of having a cat free bedroom during our night hours. Nonetheless I often find him on the bed when I retire, waiting for some last minute petting and stroking. If I read in bed he will come right up in my face. Sometimes I have to push his rear down to tell him “That’s close enough, son”. And I do call him “son” all the time. I don’t have a son of my own. I have a daughter I love very much, but it’s too late to have a son. He will have to do.
And what a great son he is! He likes whatever I am into. But he also knows when I’ve OD’ed on his presence and will find a nice corner to go to sleep in.
Sprite has always been an indoor cat. He gets out on the screened in deck when the weather is nice, but is never let out to the wild. He was neutered young so he never lost his childhood voice. But he doesn’t speak much. He believes in the silent meow and the use of Bambi eyes to get his needs met.
He loves us all dearly but without a doubt I am his favorite. He misses me when I am gone. He waits for me to arise on the landing outside our bedroom in the morning, and lately has been greeting me with an almost anguished “Yeolp!” It’s a sort of “I missed you! You’ve been gone so long!” along with some confusion from being a senile 18-year-old cat.
And he may be 18 but he is doing wonderfully. You’d be hard pressed to find a cat his age in better health. His coat droops a bit but he is amazingly youthful. He is as soft as he was as a kitten. He has become a very mellow cat. He is not a complex creature. He does four things. He eats. (He doesn’t mind dry food, but likes wet food a couple times a week for variety.) He sleeps. He poops. And he sits on our laps. That’s it. Mostly these days he just sleeps. He’s an old but beloved kitty.
Still, he seems so completely bonded to me that he often feels like an extension of me, and I of him. It’s like we’re one unit, not two. I have read some books that suggest we don’t bring all of our soul energy with us into a life, and that some remains behind. I have heard that some souls actually spread their energy out into two or more lives at the same time. I don’t know if I take any of this seriously, but I am so completely bonded with Sprite that I have to wonder if there is something to this. Perhaps part of me came into this world as a cat simply to keep me company. Yes, it sounds nuts but at the moment this seems wholly plausible. It fits my Occam’s Razor test: it seems the simplest and most plausible explanation because, yes, we truly are that well integrated. It is sort of supernatural.
Sprite just got a checkup. I now worry at every checkup that they will find something dreadful that means his days as my soulmate and best friend are soon to be over. But the vet says he is doing fine. He can’t see too well but he sees better than most cats his age. I can’t think of anything, even the loss of a parent or sibling, that is likely to leave me more emotionally traumatized than when Sprite dies. Some part of myself will be gone.
But if there is an afterlife he will be waiting for me patiently and he will be back on my lap again. Something like death cannot keep us apart forever. I think on some level we have always been together and always will be together. All I know is I love him dearly and I am so grateful for the 18 years we’ve had together. Every day I have left with him is precious.
January 30th, 2005 at 09:00pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2005 |
one comment
I understand that some people who grow up in abusive households miss its chaos and fear once they are away from it. It may have been traumatic, it may have been horrifying but it was also familiar. Something like that must be going on with me. Because I find 48 hours later I am grieving over the loss of our cat Squeaky.
Make no mistake. Squeaky was a difficult, if not impossible cat to love. She was fortunate to live with us because, well, we let her live. We’re old softies. I doubt she would have lived to an old age in almost any other house. She would have been taken to the animal shelter after a couple months, or abandoned by the side of the road, or simply shot by some exacerbated pet owner with a handy firearm. She was a test to my bleeding heart instincts and my ability to endure sustained periods of high blood pressure. If I passed the humanitarian test I passed only with a gentleman’s C. I let her live. I petted her on occasion. Sometimes I let her sit on my lap. Of course she would not really sit, but she would sit for five or ten seconds then nervously switch position, all the while howling, purring like a motor boat at high speed and making motions she really wanted to climb up my shirt with her sharpened, pincer-like claws. Most of the time I had to turn her away for my own self-protection and sanity. But she was one of these cats who were either unusually persistent or really stupid. Because I’d throw her off my lap and she’d immediately jump back again. Sometimes she did this twenty or more times before I bodily picked her up and carried her to another room. And even that wouldn’t stop her. She did not know the meaning (or simply refused to agree to the notion) of the word “No.”
But it was far more that this. This was a cat that had to be in our faces whenever she was awake. She had a knack for finding the most disgusting thing and doing it, like dumpster diving the trashcans on a daily basis or finding our most precious possession and gorping directly on it. The last few years have been especially difficult. She was parked with her nose at the door frame when I arrived home from work and immediately started howling at me. There was usually no rest until I created a cat free zone in the privacy of my room with the doors closed. In the morning I often got an unwelcome serenade outside our door an hour or two before we rose.
I am sure there are louder cats out there but she had a positive talent for waking me up, even with my earplugs in and a door between us. If I went pretty much anywhere in the house she followed at my feet. I am sure despite my best intentions I stepped on her paw at least a few hundred times. She had a (probably normal for a cat) fixation with the kitchen. Despite never giving her a handout more than once or twice a year she would be there howling while looking up at us demanding people food. The last few months were extremely vexing. I couldn’t even get out of my chair before she was on it and sniffing the spot where I ate. I had to remove my chair to keep her off the table just so I could clear it. I’d leave the kitchen and within seconds she was on the countertops or in the sink hunting for something other than cat food. Needless to say the kitchen had to be scrupulously clean before I left it.
Pretty much whatever I didn’t want her to do she did it. Whenever I didn’t want her to appear there she was.
I tried every kitty psychology tactic I could imagine. I repeatedly tried rewarding good behavior. It never worked. I tried punishing bad behavior. That didn’t work. There was no reasoning with her. No lesson got absorbed.
We found her almost impossible to groom and after a while I just gave up. No medicine would go down her throat: she would cough it all up. Clip her nails? Gimme a break: it was only possible at the vets. She had to be wrapped in a towel and it took two or more assistants. Even our vet was a bit plussed by her. Needless to say any trip to the vet sent her into ultra freak mode. She actually started sweating and yowled at eardrum piercing (never receding) volumes there and back.
The Science Diet cat food wasn’t good enough even though our vet said that’s what she had to have or she would develop more urinary tract infections. I read a pet doctor’s column in the paper. He suggested supplementing the dry food with wet food on occasion to perk up a cat’s coat. I tried that except she loved the wet food so much she practically inhaled it. Fifty percent or more of the time she vomited it up within half an hour. I was living with a neurotic and bulimic cat!
I spent nearly eighteen years with this cat. For about sixteen of them I fantasized that she would die a premature death. I also regularly wondered if my Mr. Hyde would come out and I would ruthlessly dismember her in a fit of rage. Fortunately for her these remained in the realm of fantasies. But my defense was prepared. I had lots of witnesses to my kindness. And I had lots of others who had witnessed her first hand. I was confident even the ASPCA would say “Well, we’d make an exception in your case: Justifiable kitty-cide.”
And you know it might just have happened. As she aged, her mind seemed to go. “Mistakes” on the carpet multiplied exponentially. They seemed to mostly happen at key moments when my attention was required elsewhere. I might have done the evil deed. I figure Squeaky was sent as a karmic test for me. God wasn’t done testing my mettle. “As if the stress levels in his life weren’t high enough let’s throw an evil cat at him”, is what I figured God was thinking.
And now she is gone. The house, once continually and dramatically alive whenever she was awake now does not merit even a slumber. The house feels dead. It feels like the life was sucked right out of it. Squeaky’s contribution to our house was simply to shake up every creature in it and to ensure we never had a mundane moment. Peace and quiet were not concepts she understood. Now the house is almost always quiet. Our house now resembles a mortuary.
Her sibling cat Sprite wanders around the house looking puzzled. I think he is wondering where she went. We figure Sprite didn’t like her much too since mostly they ignored each other. But he too was affected by her presence. So we are all giving Sprite extra attention. But being the polar opposite from Squeaky, Sprite was never the problem. Sprite is Chubby Hugs. Sprite is a Gumby cat. Sprite is Dr. Jekyll. Squeaky was Mr. Hyde.
So our domestic universe is now deeply out of balance. It is like Yang has left Yin. I know I should enjoy this phase of pet ownership: all the benefits and none of the drawbacks. Sprite is still as cuddly and affectionate as always. But his cuddliness and affection were always somehow sweeter because it could be contrasted with the obvious deficiencies of his sister.
I got used to the abuse I guess. Today we received a sweet note from the clinic that put her down Wednesday night. Inside on a piece of paper were two of her paw prints and a short handwritten letter of condolence.
And I cried and I didn’t know why.
June 4th, 2004 at 08:23pm
Posted by
Mark |
Best of Occam's Razor, Life 2004 |
one comment
We had to put our girl cat Squeaky down this evening. We came home and she was throwing up. That’s not that unusual. But she was also doing little diarrhea poops on the floor and all over the house. And she just wasn’t acting herself.
We called the vet. They couldn’t see her but recommended taking her to an emergency place in Leesburg. My daughter Rosie and my wife Terri took her there. They did lab work and X-rays and it wasn’t good. Her liver was enlarged and her bowels were badly inflamed. The lab tests suggested cancer. She wouldn’t get any better and was in pain. So we reluctantly had her put down.
Squeaky wasn’t the same either. She didn’t protest being put in the pet container. I guess she knew something was terribly wrong. I didn’t expect it to be so quick though. I figured she’d come home. This is a cat that was still jumping up on counters, overturning trash cans regularly, watching every morsel of food we consumed and continually howling in our face. She seemed a bit deaf and perhaps had a case of kitty Alzheimers. But I didn’t think she was dying.
We all often felt like bad pet owners to Squeaky. She was a bottomless well of need. Only rarely could she seem content. In her final weeks she got to spend plenty of time on the screened in deck and there she found some peace from hearing the screaming cicadas.
This was a cat constantly underfoot and when not sleeping always into trouble or throwing up. She probably needed Kitty Prozac for the last five years of her life. Only problem was there was no way we could get it into her. She was unique, independent and a totally in your face kind of cat.
She almost made it to 18. They were 10 weeks when we got them, so we celebrated their birthday on Halloween which was about right. I thought for sure Sprite would go first. He is pretty deaf, fat and has a hard time jumping on my lap these days. But he has one thing Squeaky always lacked: the ability to feel love and contentment.
Life will be different around here. It will probably seem a lot more pleasant, but it will also lack that certain nervous energy that kept this place from feeling like a spot in the doldrums. I loved Squeaky, sort of, and I am glad to see her out of pain. I hope she is in kitty heaven and I hope if she has nine lives the next one is a happy one.
Her sibling cat Sprite seems to be blissfully mindless. I’m not sure it will sink in. We may see changed in behavior in time. As you know Sprite is the cuddly cat. I will miss and certainly always remember Squeaky. But it is far more likely that when Sprite passes I will be grieving a whole lot more.
June 2nd, 2004 at 09:55pm
Posted by
Mark |
Life 2004 |
one comment
I’ve been getting a lot less sleep than normal over the last two weeks. Our daughter Rosie has a substantial part in a local production of the musical Scrooge. This has meant lots of weeknight rehearsals for her ending late. Unfortunately I still had to work, which meant getting her home between 10 and 11 p.m., making sure she took a bath and got all her medicine, putting myself to bed, then getting up at 5 a.m. the following morning. For some people five hours of so of a restless sleep a night is plenty. It’s not enough for me apparently. I’ve felt like a dead man walking a lot recently.
Yesterday though was one of my earned days off. (I get one every two weeks by working an extra hour a day.) I looked forward to having some downtime. Instead of getting up at 5 a.m. though I got up at 6 a.m. Someone had to insure that my indefatigable daughter also got up and shuffled off to school. Terri usually does this but since I was home I felt it was my turn. Once I’m up I can’t usually go back to sleep, but yesterday morning was different. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So after Rosie was off for her bus and after my wife left for work I slipped under the covers again hoping for sleep but not expecting to get any. To improve the odds (I am very light and sound sensitive) I tightly closed the curtains, put on a pair of night blinders and pulled the covers up over me.
I reached a certain point where I was nearly asleep when I realized I still needed to get up in a couple hours to meet a friend for lunch, and I hadn’t set the alarm. Unable to summon the will to set it I put in a mental wakeup call to myself. And then amazingly I did drift off.
I wasn’t sure how long I was slept. I don’t remember dreaming a thing but my little mental alarm clock went off. It was time to get up, or at least check the clock. I issued instructions to my body to get myself up. I thought I pushed myself up in bed and grabbed my night blinders … but I was not up and I couldn’t see a thing!
What the hell was going on? This was very bizarre and had never happened to me before. I tried again. I told my body “I got to get up RIGHT NOW! Muscles, swing into action!” But nothing happened.
I felt very creeped out at this point. I went through this scenario several times. I felt myself getting up. I felt myself removing my night blinders. But nothing was happening. I was not up at all. I could see nothing.
Now I was not just feeling creepy, I was getting more than a little scared. Just what kind of state was I in? Was I dead? I could see nothing. I could feel nothing. I couldn’t move a muscle. All I knew was I wanted to do something and I couldn’t get my body to respond. I couldn’t even feel my body.
I kept trying over and over again: get up and remove the blinders! After a half dozen attempts or so finally something happened and I was sitting up in bed and really pulling my blinders off. My heart was racing. About ninety minutes had passed. I stumbled into the bathroom.
What the hell had just happened? I still have no idea. My wife says it was just a dream. But it was more than that. At least it felt like it was more than that. I really felt like I was in some sort of altered state.
If this has ever happened to you, please let me know!
December 13th, 2003 at 06:37pm
Posted by
Mark |
Metaphysics |
3 comments
