Having to Bandage a Cat's Leg and Other Life Catastrophies

Mara here:

Life has been...well, life.

You don't realize how smoothly everything is going along until things stop going smoothly.

I should start by saying that nothing catastrophic has happened. I'm being melodramatic because that's how I am.

But in life's predictably unpredictable way, things got wonky last week.

On the same day, we noticed that our cat was limping and that our wi-fi had stopped working.

We inspected our cat's paw and saw it was scratched. But it didn't look that bad. And our cats often heal up if we just leave them alone. So we agreed to keep the cat inside and check back with him later.

The wi-fi needed immediate attention. If your house is anything like our house, everything is done online. All of my daughter's schoolwork, college applications, and entertainment rely on having internet access. Brad and I also use it for work and for streaming television.

So not having it makes everything come to a screeching halt.

The thing is, we live in an area with relatively unreliable internet wiring. For years we struggled with AT&T, so a few years ago, we moved to a third party because our internet access had become so unreliable. The new service, Sonic, has worked pretty well. However, they rent the "phone lines" from AT&T, so ultimately AT&T is still responsible for us having access to the internet.

So when the internet went down, we called AT&T. They came out and said it's not the external lines, it's Sonic's internal wiring. So a day and half later Sonic showed up and said, no everything we are responsible for is working; it's AT&T's fault.

Whaaaaaaat?

Meanwhile our cat's paw had become swollen like a mitt; it clearly was not going to heal on its own. So I took him to the vet. The vet gave him a shot of antibiotics and sent me home with oral antibiotics and a topical cream to apply to the wound, along with instructions for "wrapping up his paw."

I thought, "Okay. I can do that."

An hour later, the cat had scratched the crap out of me, and he wiggled loose from all three of my wrapping attempts.

I finally managed to secure a pad over the paw by mummifying him in a towel while I wrapped up his whole arm with athletic tape.

Fast forward 12 hour laters. I couldn't get the tape off. I had used the small roll the vet had given me in the first failed attempts at a wrapping, so I ended up needing to use an old roll of tape that had clearly aged by becoming ultra sticky.

I had to cut away the tape. If you've ever tried to cut a baby's fingernails, it's similar to the experience of trying to cut a massive amount of tape off of a short-haired cat's leg without stabbing him or myself. 

The icing on the cake was squirting the syringe of liquid antibiotics into his mouth, only to have him turn his head and end up with half the dose on his ear.

All this was happening and we still didn't have internet service.

Three days later, AT&T came out—again—and said, "The lines are working; it's Sonic's fault."

And I took the cat back to the vet who told me I have to continue to give the cat the oral antibiotic, ointment, and wrapping treatment for another whole week.

Nooooooooooo.

So, here we are. We don't have Wi-Fi and the cat is limping pathetically on a mostly-healed paw, yowling at the door to be let out, and looking at me with extreme displeasure.

Did I mention that I just started a new job and we are trying to sell our house?

When it rains, it pours.

So, tomorrow, a full week after the Wi-Fi first broke, Sonic and AT&T are both coming out to the house for a "Vendor Meet" to duke it out over who's the faulty party.

In six days, I take the cat back to the vet for a hopefully clean bill of health.

Finger's crossed that next week, life will have settled back into its regular craziness!

I asked my mom a couple of questions about "life's catastrophes."

I remember when your dog, Scout, broke her front leg in two places and you had to deal with her injury for months. Is there a Buddhist mantra to help remind you that the things that feel overwhelming in the moment will pass?

There are lots of "mantras," Buddhist and otherwise for this, several of which I've made up for myself over the years (and then wrote about online and in my books)! 

Of course, there's the well-known "This too shall pass." I thought it was from the Bible, but I just googled it and it appears to come from an unknown medieval Persian Sufi poet. 

Then, here's a phrase I use that I wrote about in a piece for Psychology Today where I described a rough day I was having. Here is it: "The Secret for Surviving a Rough Day" Among my suggestions (with credit to a Beatles song) was this as a mantra to gently repeat to yourself: "It's just a day in the life. You'll make it."

And, in the new edition of my book, How to Be Sick, I added a section about one of my new sayings: "It's okay if..." [fill in the blank]. I find this incredibly useful. "It's okay if Scout's leg is broken [or your cat's paw is injured]. Animals get injured. I'll just take the best care of her that I can." I hesitate to suggest you try it on the internet, as in "It's okay if the internet isn't working..." because, in today's world, it is a challenge to make that okay!

From a Buddhist perspective, I always think of what I call in the new edition of How to Be Sick, "The Buddha's List." It's found in what's known as the first noble truth. He lists the unpleasant experiences that are an inescapable part of the human condition. I won't list all of them, but here's the one I encounter almost every day (if not every day): "Getting what you don't want." That's what happened to me when Scout broke her leg, and that's what's happened to you with your cat and with the internet.

I've learned that getting upset when I "get what I don't want" only makes life harder. Being able to say to myself "Yup, this is one of those unpleasant experiences that's on the Buddha's list," followed by something like "This too shall pass" or "It's just a day in the life" or "It's okay if..." helps me ride those bumps in the road with calmness and equanimity. It's a lifetime of work...but it's my path and I'm committed to it.

I know you and many other people who can't leave their homes much depend on internet service to maintain contact with the world. Have you ever had the Wi-Fi go out and how did you handle being cut off from the computer?

Now you've touched on one of those major "getting what I don't want" items! This is a challenge. The first time it happened after I'd become chronically ill, I made your Dad drag me to Starbucks so I could access the internet. Now when it happens, I invoke one of the "mantras" like I wrote about above, put my computer down, and do something else until the service comes back. That said, I've never had it go out for more than a day, so I'm not sure I'd be so "equanimous" if that happened!

Mara's cat, leg bandaged at last!