Sometimes, travelling with pets is not easy. That is definitely the case with Toby. It usually begins something like this…

The night before the two hour ride to the oncology appointment in Scarborough, Maine – administer the dreaded kitty tranquilizer. Prepare for struggle. No really, a battle. A syringe full of sweet tasting medicine that puts cats like Toby off being calm.

Hold the calm(-ish) cat in your arms, tilted slightly back, while your partner slides the syringe between the gnashing teeth and pushes the plunger. Hissing and vocalizations you’ve never heard emanate from this gentlest of cats as he sits on the floor looking at you in disgust and drool flows to the floor. This will be the last time you see him that night. One hour before you leave the next morning repeat the whole thing again, but this time keep him in a room where you can find him to stuff him in the cat carrier. Traumatized cat and humans leave already exhausted for the long trip to the vet specialist.

This trip last Friday we decided to forgo all that and see if he would do better without it. I was much calmer in the preparation process for the trip and Toby’s moment of anxiety only began at the point of entering the carrier, moments before heading to the car. My wife, however, wasn’t so sure about this. So, it was decided I would ride in the back seat, with Toby, so he could see me.

Now, I will say my wife and I were both right – he was more vocal than when drugged, like in a previous trip. But he was calmer than the first trip we took with him with no calming drugs and me in the front seat. That trip felt a heck of a lot longer than two hours!

I was right in that he didn’t have to go through two doses of medicine he hated, and getting him ready to go was really easy. Having me in the back seat with him meant he could see me all the way and I seemed to act like his human ‘valium’. For the most part, he rode quietly, with only occasional murmuring protestations, calmed quickly by my talking to him.

Of course, the driving arrangement is that I drive home, which means Toby is in the back seat by himself. On this trip home, he was very, very quiet. So much so I had to ask my wife: "Are you sure they gave us back the right cat?" They did. He was just so exhausted from the experience he gave up protesting his treatment.

 

The appointment, his latest 2 month check-up, was uneventful. No change in weight, blood work or size of his lymph node. If you didn’t know it you wouldn’t think he has cancer. But he does, so we’ll take the ‘no change is good news’ result. With cancer, every day is a wait-and-see approach. When you can get to a point of two-month windows between checkups, that’s a good place to be.

So, once again, we are doing our new normal – chemo pills every other day during the week, and quiet periods over the weekends. It’s almost normal routine now. The nice part is Toby flows quickly back into his usual patterns, sleeping on my lap or curled up next to me in bed in the middle of the night. Or, sometimes, hanging out with the boss of the pride, Pyewacket…