Thursday, June 3, 2010

Jr. Bunk

Jr. Bunk is currently the second in command in our house. He was the first cat we found after we moved to DE. We were at a junk shop in south DE and we saw him when we were leaving. We thought he looked a lot like Bruiser, but he was in a lot worse shape. He had obviously been fighting, I suppose to get whatever food he could (there were quite a few other stray cats lurking around), and he had a flea problem. We left the junk shop and didn't discuss him for a few days, but both of us were thinking about him. I had named him in my head. We called Bruiser Bruiser Bunk sometimes, which was based on a character from Homicide: Life On The Street. So it seemed fitting that he be called Jr. Bunk (the actual character's name) on a few levels. We decided to go and get him.

We went back to the junk shop and asked the man if we could have one of the cats, and he said we could take all of them if we wanted. But we just took Bunky. I don't remember him giving us any trouble when we put him in the carrier, but he may have. We made a vet appointment for him that day, because we didn't want to bring him into the house with all those fleas. We had to kill some time, so we went to eat lunch at Burger King, and Bunk was kicking up a fuss in the back seat. We took him to the vet, and he had shots and tests and a flea bath. We took him home to our apartment, and put him in the half bath in our bedroom, again so he wouldn't mix with the other two cats until we heard from the vet.

This is when we learned about FIV, which is called feline AIDS. Neither of us had ever heard about it, and apparently it was pretty new to the vets as well, because his doctor told us that he would be dead within a year. That was 11 years ago. (My tired joke for this is that we should have gotten it in writing.) He could NOT be let out with the other cats, because he would make them sick and they would all soon be dead. We now know that this isn't the case, that some cats are immune and cats who have it can live full, healthy lives. But back then it scared us to death. We decided that we would leave him in our bedroom once he got healthier.

That also was a trial. The bathroom floor was thick with dead fleas and ticks, and he had horrfic smelling diarrhea for a week. But he did get better, so we let him into the bedroom, where he became a feline nightmare. He would attack our toes in the night, and he would jump up on the bed with a crazed look in his eyes. Eventually, Sarah couldn't take anymore and started sleeping in the extra bedroom. I stuck it out for a bit longer, but I had to join her. The worst part of this setup was: we were only planning on being in the apartment for a year or less, until we found a house. So we only unpacked what we needed and used the extra bedroom as a storage facility. So we had to make room on the floor for our mattress, and we slept like that for almost an entire year. I was counting down the days until Bunk's demise so we could have our bedroom back.

We moved into our house, and Bunky took up residence in the master bedroom (again), only this time he shared it with all of the unpacked boxes! Hah! We had a hard time keeping him in there, which was exacerbated by the fact that we would let him out periodically and keep an eye on him; if he got too close to the other cats, we put him back. It was in this era, one night at 2 am on our way to bed, that we opened the bedroom door, and there was Bunky just sitting on the floor, meowing at us. He was not trying to get out, so we suspected something was wrong. We tried to pick him up and he let out a screech, so we had to take him to the vet. At 3 in the morning on a Sunday. That was a bit pricey. It turned out that he had crystals in his bladder, which was blocking his urethra. This was caused by stress, which of course was caused by keeping him locked up.

So we let him out. Sunny either got FIV from him then, or he already had it from the brief forays that Bunk made into the house (sorry Sunny). Bruiser was sick in other ways and he never got FIV. Bunky immediately made up for being locked up for 4 years by walking everywhere that I walked, especially on the stairs, which I almost fell down twice because of that. He has calmed down a lot with that, but he still needs to be wherever we are. If we call any of the cats or the dog, Bunk will come running first. He likes to cuddle, which is fine, except he never learned to cuddle without his claws, which really hurt. And you can't really pick him up comfortably; he is extremely taut and only goes one way. If you pick him up the wrong way you get a chest full of claws. The vet actually called him a "bowling ball with fur."

Bunk is still plugging away, he's right here next to me on the floor. When we watch TV he will be on the couch, and he is so stealthy sometime that I won't realize that he is on my lap. And he has a weird sensitivity to sounds, he could be bored to tears during a thunderstorm, but a sharp intake of breath makes him jump and shred my skin. But he's a good dude.


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