Yesterday morning, I called the vet to check on him and to let her know that I was going to be away from a phone for the afternoon and to give ana's contact information.

"Well, he's doing about the same. He's still vomiting. And we found out he is FIV positive."

"Oh, no," I said. My voice cracked.

"If you do research like I know you'll do," said Dr. Kasow, "you won't necessarily hear this, but cats with FIV that we see live a normal, long life, and they die from the same things and at the same age that other cats die. Do not worry; it's just something we need to be aware of."

Of course, that means Silas, my younger cat, likely is positive for FIV as well, and that also means that I really can't bring another cat into my house, unless the cat is already positive - I would not want to be responsible for making another kitten positive. Knowing that makes me a bit sad.

Back to yesterday, I spent the afternoon at an "Office Outing." We went out to one of the Boston Harbor Islands, had a picnic, and played games (water balloon toss, three-legged race, etc.). It was fun, the office bonded or something, and I spent the day worried. I was not very good company, and I couldn't wait to get back to the mainland, get home, and get to the vet's office.

While I was out with my coworkers, Simon was getting an implanted feeding tube, and I really needed to know how he was doing. When I finally got back to the T station, I called.

"He's doing about the same," said the front-desk person. "Dr. Kasow wants to talk to you when you get here, though."

I kind of freaked. I thought something had perhaps gone wrong and she wanted to wait to tell me in person. I finally got to the vet's office a little before 7 last night, and all was mostly well, though. Simon still seemed a bit groggy, and he was wearing a little t-shirt over his new feeding tube, but he was much the same. There were even teeth marks in his bandage where he was trying to rip out his IV. The tech told me that he growled as they were giving him the anaesthesia for the surgery, and even when he should've been out, he was still growling. That's my boy.

ana and I hung out with Simon for about an hour. He dozed in my lap and growled at me when I tried to shift his weight around. Finally someone brought ana a stool as well, and Simon tried to jump into his dad's lap. Oh, no, boy, we're not going to try that. Not with a new feeding tube and an IV and everything. So ana slid closer, and Simon climbed mostly into ana's lap, with his back feet still on mine. The three of us sat there, cuddled together, until the office was ready to close.