Good advice from friend to friend: ‘Don’t cry — Try’

Best friends Lindsey Harrison and Gracie Marie

By Patti Danner

Gracie Marie Harrison is unlike any six-year old in Linton. She and her best friend Lindsey have overcome, together, obstacles and complications that would strain any friendship to its limits, and today they are inseperable.

Lindsey Harrison is an energetic, optimistic and creative young twenty-something who believes that friendship is forever.

By Patti Danner Gracie Marie visits Francisco de Borja in Linton Monday

Harrison’s best friend, Gracie Marie, is a six year old American shorthair cat, who is paralyzed from about half her spine down to her toes, and to say she had a rough start in life would be an understatement.

“It was the fourth of October 2011,” said Harrison. “I lived in Jasonville, and was coming home from choir practice. My boyfriend-at-the-time’s dad, Keith Robertson, called me about a kitten that his dogs had pulled into their enclosure through the wire fence, and were shaking it, tossing it and playing with it. He knew that I had a thing for saving animals, so he thought of me.”

The kitten was about three weeks old, and barely alive.

“I had to try,” said Harrison. “There was just something special about her.”

Harrison called every vet in the phone book, in her area and beyond. Every source she found told her the same thing.

“They all said due to her age and possible internal injuries, it was best if she was euthanized,” said Harrison. “Of course, I didn’t listen. I just got to work, cleaning her up, her left eye was matted shut with pus and blood, she was so tiny and she needed me.”

Harrison scoured the internet, her local library and any place she could find helpful information on how to care for a cat so small and so battered.

“I had no way of knowing the full extent of her internal injuries,” Harrison said. “So I researched ways to diagnose and treat possibilities.”

For the meantime, the kitten stayed at Harrison’s boyfriend’s house, where she was most of the time, unless working.

“After three days, he called me and said, ’The cat exploded,’ and I had this horrible vision her going off like a bomb,” said Harrison.

She raced to the house on Main Street, determined to help her new furry friend.

“When I got there, instead of pieces of kitten everywhere, the room was splattered with her feces. That’s when I realized at least some of the extent of her internal injuries.”

For days, the kitten’s waste products had built up, as injuries prevented then from being expelled the way nature intended, until the tiny animal’s insides couldn’t hold anymore.

“It was time to amp up my research,” said Harrison. “I basically sat down and learned the entire feline anatomy, and learned how to diagnose further problems.”

Harrison found, during her research, that her kitten was too small to be helped by a feline catheter, and she couldn’t afford to consider a colostomy for her young friend.

“So, I learned to do what I had to do,” she said.

Since her little friend could not use the toilet on her own, Harrison learned to help her.

It was at that point that Harrison decided on the kitten’s name.

“By the grace of God, she survived,” said Harrison. “By the grace of God, she found the one person in Jasonville who was crazy enough to do whatever needed done to save her life. She’s been my Gracie ever since.”

“Eventually, I learned how to tell when she needs to go,” Harrison said. “Usually it’s two or three hours after she’s eaten, and I can feel in her abdomen when she needs it.”

Harrison simply took Grace with her into the bathroom, and due to her study of feline anatomy, knew the right places to press in order to help her friend get rid of waste.

“I carry baby wipes with me at all times, she’s never had an accident, though,” Harrison said.

Gracie sleeps with Harrison, and some evenings Harrison will outfit her with a cloth diaper with an absorbent disposable lining.

“Gracie can’t clean her toilet areas by herself, that’s why I share food with her sometimes,” said Harrison withn a grin.

Then, out of nowhere, a crisis loomed.

“She wasn’t wanting to eat, her tummy was all distended and I could tell she was in pain,” said Harrison. “I rushed her to Royer Veterinary in Worthington, where she had to have an emergency hysterectomy, she was constipated and she was diagnosed with pyometria of the uterus. She was full of infection, and all of her reproductive organs were taken out.”

During Gracie’s two-day stay at the Worthington clinic, x-rays were taken which showed the damage Gracie suffered when being used as a toy by the exuberant dogs in Jasonville.

“She had a distended colon, GI tract problems, and her back was broken about halfway down. Her hip sits sideways because of the way she healed, and the vet said he thought she was remarkably healthy despite her latest problems,” said Harrison.

After that surgery, Harrison found herself back at square one with her furry friend.

“I had to teach her all over again, but this time I actually knew what I was doing,” Harrison smiled.

As Gracie convalesced, Harrison entered somewhat of a dark period of life. An unspecified physical ailment, the death of both her beloved grandparents to cancer and her mom’s divorce all came at once, and Harrison was overwhelmed.

“I really didn’t feel like I could go on,” she said. “But on a really low night, I had a dream about Gracie. In my dream, she could talk, and she said just three words to me. She said, ‘Don’t cry — Try,’ and that message really got to me. I felt like Gracie was in some way trying to pay back the care I had given her, and I stopped crying.”

Harrison took the steps to have Gracie Marie certified as an Emotional Service Animal (ESA), and says her friend has protected her just as much as Harrison protects Gracie.

“I even built her a little wagon, so she could roll herself around. It was really cute, and she hated it,” Harrison said.

“Her upper-body strength is phenomenal, she’s a great bug-catcher and climbs up the couch all the time. I have her with me at every possible opportunity,” Harrison said.

From a tiny kitten not expected to survive, Gracie has grown into a healthy adult cat with a charming personality.

Harrison says if it wasn’t for her, no one knows what Gracie’s fate might have been, and if it wasn’t for Gracie, Harrison’s life would be a much less colorful one.