In all of the years since we rescued him from the street, Mike Wazowski had never done this. No matter what I put him through - baths, teeth brushings, ear washes, eye drops, washing litter (and worse) from his paws, butt wipings, giving pills, giving injections - he has never intentionally bit me.
But there I was at 3:00 this morning with his teeth on my arm.
I woke up just before it happened, so all I saw was his head going back and snapping forward. And then he just sat there, not biting down or letting go. Just holding his teeth on either side of my bicep.
It wasn't a real bite - he didn't get through my t-shirt, let alone break the skin - but it was unsettling because it was completely out of character.
Like I said, I had been sleeping, and my dreams were not restful, so perhaps I moved in such a way that caused him pain or made him feel trapped. He's been sleeping in similar positions, with his face in my face, for well over a year now and I'm sure I've moved in all kinds of ways, but it's never elicited this response. *shrug* Maybe he just got fed up.
He's also been sick recently and we're just now starting to get him back up to a normal amount of food each day, so maybe he had a cartoon moment and envisioned my arm as a juicy steak. Either way, I doubt we'll ever know what caused it.
Even though he didn't bite hard, even though I can imagine reasons why he bit, emotionally it was difficult to work through. For the first time, I felt a tiny bit of threat as he stood over me, waiting for me to put an arm out for him to sleep on. When he finally gave up and curled up against my back, it still took me quite a while to get back to sleep.
And I felt a jolt - not fear, more anxiety - when I woke up this morning and realized he had somehow managed to work his way around and back into my face while I slept.
I don't really worry about him biting me again. I'm more anxious about what it means. I don't want to be hurting my cat in my sleep. On the "please no, I'm not ready" side, I don't want his brain tumor to be causing personality changes. Because that means it's growing and changing which means we have less time with him than we hoped.
We're off to the vet to get his recent stomach troubles checked out. Hopefully it was just a bug and everything is stable.
Fingers crossed.
