I knew he wasn’t well.  In the winter of 2001, all of my pets had ear mites.  Ever since then, the animals I had that year have had ear problems.  Richard’s were worse than the average.  The old man gets growths in his ears.  They look like little purple warts at first, but they grow and grow, eventually blocking the ear canal and keeping the ear from cleansing itself naturally.

He has had surgery twice for this condition.  The first was fairly successful, and it was possible to keep it somewhat in check with periodic hydro-cortisone shots.  As has been noted elsewhere, I live on a narrow budget; those shots are expensive.

Not having my contract renewed in 2007, finding a new job, finding a house near the job, paying for the house, subsequent myriad unexpected events, my big marmalade tabby got shuffled down the ladder of priority.  I wasn’t unmindful of his plight; but I house 2 dogs, 17 cats (including himself), and a renter/friend/roommate.  Keeping up the mortgage, the utilities…well, all of you who are householders know this story. 

I had planned to take Richard to the vet when school was out; but as I looked at him this last week I realized that those ears were not going to wait.  The right one—the one that had had surgery twice—had grown completely closed, and a large knot was forming behind it.  His throat glands were also swollen, and he was drinking a lot of water.  The left ear was also beginning to be involved.  I looked at him, and my heart hurt.  I had let it go so long.  He is such a beautiful kitty; gentle with kittens, tolerant of dogs, loving and cuddly with humans.  He is so very patient of all our foibles.

He came to us in the summer of 1985.  We had other cats, and had recently acquired two kittens from a friend who hadn’t been fast enough with that trip to the vet.  At the time, I was still in the back-to-the-land phase, so we were living out in the country.  We heard a kitten crying, and found him in a storage building.  Someone had tried to do a home neutering job, and had botched it badly.  We took him to the vet, who cleaned up the mess and got him on the road to recovery.  My youngest named him Richard the Lion-Hearted because tiny as he was, he let out a fearsome squall when the vet investigated his insulted nethers.