I trap the skinny black cat under my left arm on the kitchen counter. He is not thrilled, but he’s a lover, not a fighter. He knows the drill. I rub a squirt of steroid cream into his ear and release him to a day of wrestling with his tuxedo brother and drowning tiny catnip-stuffed fish toys in Messi’s water bowl.

His Darth Vader breathing, combined with wheezing, sneezing, and ropes of mucous whipped onto walls and furniture, had stumped our vet.

Our cat needed a CAT scan, she told us. At a fancy vet office.

“Our vet thinks he needs a CAT scan,” I tell Mihailo. “A CAT SCAN, HA.”

Mihailo loves this cat, but our household is also a revolving door when it comes to money. Six children, five animals, one mother in memory care, one ex-wife. There is a fresh stack of bills on the kitchen island, with shocking sums that would have stopped my heart back in my Massachusetts single-mom days.

“How much did our vet think it would be?” he asks.

“A couple thousand.”

“Agghhherrrr” is the closest representation of what comes out of his mouth. When it comes to vet decisions, I make the dog calls, he makes the cat calls. Skinny Cat is only 7. He is a supremely good-tempered and snuggly guy, everybody’s favorite kitty.

“Okay,” Mihailo sighs. “Let’s do it.”

So our cat got a CAT scan and a biopsy. His day at the specialty vet with the fancy equipment cost more than our 2008 Toyota Rav is worth online.

The findings: An unidentifiable something, possibly a fungus, possibly an infection, has ravaged and “remodeled” poor Skinny Cat’s sinuses permanently.

“So, could this shorten his lifespan?” I asked.

“It could,” the vet said.

Administering oral antibiotics and antihistamines to a frantically clawing Skinny Cat was definitely shortening my lifespan, so the steroid cream in his ear flap is how we’re rolling now.

I am the James Herriot of Stillwater, Minnesota. The tending suits me. After Skinny Cat’s ear steroid, Bella gets her thyroid med, pressed into a square of cheese. Then Messi gets his liver support chewable and his Cosequin pills, at least one of which he will spit out onto the floor. Take two is usually successful. After that, it’s onto the left ear flush (constantly infected). Next up is the excavation of the dried mucous and slimy, macerated skin cells in his nose with a wet paper towel. This is, it goes without saying, not pleasant for either of us. Finally, it’s back to the left ear with antibiotic drops, then one more tango with his nose — his own special steroid cream, to keep the lupus at bay.

I’m supposed to administer cat steroid and dog steroid creams with rubber gloves, like Meredith Grey. If I die of steroid poisoning, this is because I am too cheap and too lazy to add surgical gloves to my daily routine.

I don’t know how to help the big things, how to fix the terribleness happening all around in this heartbreaker of a world. But I know how to help Skinny Cat and Lupus Dog, and occasionally, a human or two.

Not much (and almost everything) has changed in Breed ‘Em and Weep land, though my breeding is done and regular weeping has mostly concluded. There are still animals to tend to, kids to tend to, bills to tend to, an old house to tend to. Not enough paid work, too much laundry, a smattering of slow-moving creative projects, a few plants unlucky enough to live here.

I remember the days of a collapsed front porch, oil tank running dry, pipes bursting in the cold, and sewage explosions in the haunted basement. I remember my far-off dreams of a cranberry screen door or a wood stove, and wishing for somebody to weather the day-to-day with. I remember you lovely folks who got me through those days. Here’s to all of you tending sorts. I hope I can find you again and offer you a virtual cup of tea and an overdue thanks for all you offered me back then.

Jennifer Mattern