Mia has returned to No. 6. She looks like this. I have to feed her by squirting pureed cat food into her feeding tube six times a day. She seems OK with it. It gives her horrid gas. This, we are not so OK with. We want to comfort her, but she smells like the Port-a-Pot behind a backwoods boonies Southern gas station (don’t ask me how I know this; just trust). But as she purrs, farts, hisses at Linus, and screams at me for no reason, I am reassured by her constant sounds: She’s here, and she’s herself.

Her biobsy results won’t be in for another couple of days, but the two vets who did the biopsy both say the liver looked to them to be one with fatty liver disease. Regarding that part that says “can occur because of nutritional, metabolic or toxic injury to the liver,” I am convinced this is the toxic variety. Fatty liver disease can be treated, and “generally, the damage to the liver is reversible, and the condition rarely recurs.” But Mia is not out of the woods yet:

“Even with intensive care, approximately 35% of cats with hepatic lipidosis die from the disease. Cats who do recover generally do so in 3-6 weeks, however, some may need continued nutritional support for months.”

So we will pump her full of gas-inducing puree, take her in for a weight check next week, and the week after, the vets will run another blood panel. Meanwhile, I’m relieved that she’s home, and the vets assure me that while she may have some minor discomfort with the feeding tube and incision from the biopsy, she’s not in any pain. I take her intense and uninterrupted purring as confirmation of this.

Meanwhile, Linus is certainly curious about this little cat who smells like the vets’ and has this plastic tube sticking out of her. I can’t help thinking of the Simpson’s episode in which Homer hides out in a nursing home and complains to the nurse about his roommate’s “amenities”:

Nurse: Another bag of potato chips, Mr. Talmidge? [Homer's fake name in the nursing home]

Homer: Also I think I’m getting a bed sore. What do you have to do to get turned round here [she begins turning him]. Hey, what’s Lucky joined up to?

Nurse: It’s a machine that breathes for him.

Homer: And here I am using my own lungs like a sucker. And how come everyone has a bed pan and I have to walk all the way other there!

Nurse: Over there? [The toilet is right next to him.]