Cared for by a Faithful Feline

No cat lover, he was surprised when Tootsie saw him through a painful rehab.

By Lori Durham, Brunswick, Georgia

As appeared in

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I gripped the handles of my husband John’s wheelchair tight and maneuvered him through our front door. “Careful, watch the leg,” John murmured hazily, still out of it from the pain meds he’d been prescribed at the hospital.

“We’ll be careful, Daddy,” our seven-year-old daughter, Allison, said.

“Don’t worry,” I added. As if I’d done anything but worry since the car accident two weeks earlier that had shattered John’s left ankle. Frankly, I was worried sick.

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He’d finally been cleared to go home, but the doctor ordered him to keep all weight off his leg for two months. He could only get around with a wheelchair and a walker.

I’m a high school teacher and I couldn’t be home during the day to help care for him. We couldn’t afford full-time nursing help. John’s mom was glad to come over to fix his lunch and make sure he did his grueling physical therapy exercises.

But I knew that she would need some help to cheer him up and distract him from the pain. I sent up a quick, silent prayer. Lord, I need some backup here. Allison and I wheeled John into the living room.

Sprawled out on our sectional sofa, taking up a whole cushion, was the oldest—and by far the largest—of our three cats, Tootsie, a black and white 12-year-old. Tootsie raised her head and yawned, barely deigning to glance at John in his wheelchair.

“Now, Tootsie, make room for Daddy,” I said. “He’s hurting and he’s going to be living out here while he gets better.” Tootsie put her head back down and closed her eyes. She didn’t budge.

I helped John out of the wheelchair. He hopped to the other end of the sectional, as far from Tootsie as possible.

Oh, boy, I thought. With John’s range limited to our living room and the guest room, he would have no way to avoid the bane of his existence—Queen Tootsie and her two subjects, Jade and Blue.

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John knew what he was getting into when he married a “cat lady,” but just because he had to live with my felines didn’t mean that he had to like them.

Every time friends came over, he would say, only half-joking, “Are you sure I can’t talk you into taking Lori’s three sorry cats home with you? I’ll give you a good price for them—free!”

As far as John was concerned, Tootsie was the worst of our cat crew. Her robust figure (she outweighed the other two cats combined) and imperious attitude reminded me of a feline Mae West.

She sashayed around the house like she owned it. If Jade and Blue got in her way she’d knock them upside the head. She was cagey and fearless.

Once, a neighbor’s dog ventured too close to the screened-in porch where she was taking her ease, and Tootsie charged it, hissing until the poor dog turned tail and skedaddled. Maybe because she was so domineering, John complained about her the most.

Tootsie, of course, never took the slightest interest in him.

Not even now, with his left ankle in its walking boot encroaching on her territory. I rubbed Tootsie between her shoulder blades and whispered, “You be nice to John, okay?” And I sent up another SOS: Lord, you have got to make sure Tootsie behaves!

The rehabilitation therapist visited John the next day while I was away at school. I rushed home to find John slumped on the couch, the elastic bands for his ankle stretches lying on the floor. “How did the exercises go?” I asked.

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“They hurt,” John grumbled. “And I could hardly concentrate with that cat just staring at me the whole time like I’m a goldfish swimming around in a bowl. What’s up with that?”

Tootsie looked at me innocently from her end of the sectional.