My Homie, Phoenix

Word has reached me that she is not doing very well. Still early in the full diagnostics and testing stages, but indications are she has something going on with liver. She’s been getting hydrated, fed and served a concoction of antibiotics since her admission to the Vet Hospital since Tuesday. She must be feeling like crap, because I know my homie. She is an expert at opening doors, latches, gates, windows and anything else that has a “shut” function. If it opens Phoenix can figure it out. If she had been feeling well, she would have left the vet days ago.

In the office back in Tennessee, the staff had to twice figure out how she opened a hatch to the crawl space under the house. We rolled in dirt and ate spiders for hours until we decided to come out for some real food. No business suit executive was coming in there after us. Goddess was mad. We smelled nice and musty. Two days later, Phoenix figured out how to get us back down the hatch. Kind of like playing Lost before Lost was even on a story board, which I don’t think the writers ever did. Anyway...

Goddess has been pouring over the Internet, researching feline liver diseases and catching up on billiruben, which sounds like the punk kid from the other side of town who barely made Bar Mitzvah. Wish it was. Instead, billiruben is produced when red blood cells are broken down. The liver secretes this stuff in bile and high levels means something ain’t working right. Right now we don’t know what that something is. Phoenix never was one to eat pills off the floor – a possible cause of toxicity and liver damage. The Old Man takes many pills and drops a few occasionally, but like I said, Phoenix would rather eat flies.

Her blood work showed slightly elevated levels of billiruben. The vet, Dr. Karen, she says Phoenix’s X-ray showed a rounded liver. We are hoping this was just an infection and antibiotics will bring her back to her smart self.

She don’t care for taking pills either so the Old Man will have a challenge on his hands when she comes home. Phoenix can read human minds. Think “pill” and Phoenix actually can disappear. Sometimes I wished I had that talent.

That makes me want to tell you a disappearing Phoenix story. Goddess moved us into a little studio apartment in Knoxville when she got back from gallivanting around the world with Peace Corps. It had a refrigerator, a stove and a futon. Nothing else was in the apartment when she carried Phoenix inside. Then she went to get me. I was waiting in the Jeep. When we got back inside, Phoenix was gone. Poof! There was no place to look. A bathroom, an empty closet, an empty kitchen studio. That was it. What the hell? Even I couldn’t find her. Turned out, Phoenix squeezed behind the stove and crawled up into the pan drawer. It took a half a day to get her out of there. Good one Phoenix.

Tonight, on the high sea, I miss my homie something terrible. I’ve pulled a huge stunt leaving home and running off to Hawaii. If I don’t get to see my homie again…boy, my heart will be so broken.