The Cat
Not sure if you remember that slurry of a post awhile back, that mish-mash of
thoughts and information that somehow had gathered around my desk and brain
like some sort of dust eddy. Well here it comes again, although much
of it this time likely has to do with having to put down the cat. It was my wife's mum's cat and at 19, perhaps was the last
representative in our house capable of being as stubborn as all get out and
wanting to hang onto life no matter what (although I think that my wife
and I will prove much the same, despite all of our coherent rantings now
of saying "if I'm ever like that just shoot me," perhaps a telling tale
of just how long we've been in "the states" and how lightly we assume
that someone would have access to a gun and from there have the
wherewithal to carry out the gory deed, especially to shooting someone who would
provide as much resistance as a wet noodle). Anyway, I digress...
There is never an easy time to make the decision to put down an animal.* Perhaps it is that burden of responsibility of "making the call," of choosing whether the animal lives or dies on that day (no easier for a human although choosing life or death for them is obviously much more difficult legally). We had gone through that before, at times making the right decision and at times not, that is, waiting too long. But one thing we had discovered through all of our years with animals was to always ask ourselves two questions, was there a quality of life for the animal and were we keeping the animal alive for its sake or for ours? In the case of this cat, we both knew that it was time. Now to back up just a bit, my wife's mum had had this cat since it was a kitten, the runt of the litter and in our mind, a bit of a schizophrenic cat in that it would occasionally bite or scratch her (and us). But once both of them arrived at our house, the cat seemed to change, becoming not only a comfort for its dying owner but apparently heading in the same direction quite quickly as if both would go within days of one another. So we didn't expect to have much care to do once my wife's mum passed away. But all of that flew out the window within a day or two, the cat going from showing a bit of "when is she coming back" to soon realizing that somehow she wasn't; he suddenly started chowing away food well beyond his "restricted" diet (he had been in stage four kidney failure for about four years now, which placed him on a bland and very limited diet of the same special kibble and wet food, which we rapidly broke as a "treat" to get him over his depression). But oddly, nothing happened when we let him eat away; his normal throwing up when any variance in food was introduced never occurred. He began to gain weight, to wander around, to enjoy being on our bed while we watched the television (much to the consternation of our other cats), and to be wide awake and waiting early in the morning as if ready to go. A month passed, then another...then suddenly he went blind (turns out he had high blood pressure and this often causes the retina to detach; in his case it was beginning to bulge as if ready to do so). We treated the pressure (in time, as his sight soon returned), but then he just as suddenly stopped eating. Entirely. His weight began dropping precipitously. We tried some electrolytes (once food stops, the electrolyte imbalance can accelerate quite rapidly leading to sometimes painful seizures that can create a painful cat wail that you don't want to hear, something we learned the hard way with an earlier cat of ours). Day five of not eating arrived and I tried a blast of baby food (the vet always recommended lamb but this is rather difficult to find in today's grocery isles so we settled for turkey), then later a nutritional supplement.** We knew that he was past the point of return but at this point just wanted to make his waning days comfortable (go too long on an empty stomach and you'll know the painful jabs that come and go internally). He soon became little more than a moving head, his body now down to just three pounds or so but his days and nights appearing comfortable. My wife and I took turns being at his side through the night, each of us silently petting him and hoping that we would awaken in the morning and he would have passed away quietly. But that dang cat hung in there. We were growing exhausted, our hands on him at night and each movement or sound waking us up as readily as an explosion.
By the seventh night something changed around 1:30 in the morning. His alarm clock meow was now coming about every thirty minutes. And while I was often awakened from a deep sleep and very fuzzy headed, I was even more aware of the tremendous toll and effort each one of those meows was taking from his weakened body. By the morning my wife and I knew that it was time. Finding a vet took awhile because even if you have a regular place you go, you'll soon recognized that you are just one of a hundred or so people who call at the last minute needing some checkup or treatment right now for your pet (because let's face it, pets are like babies and we adults just don't know what's going on when they cry or wail or stop eating); even a traveling or mobile vet was out of the question (we tried, same story). The earliest time anywhere would be late in the afternoon. We had also decided to cremate the body in order to place the ashes together with my wife's mum's ashes, which was another series of calls since the majority of places that do such cremations, including most shelters and such, do mostly group cremations so getting your pet's ashes back is generally not possible. But we found a place (and like many funeral homes, this is quite the business, albeit quite a respectful one; many of the places we called have extensive waits since they contract out with many vet clinics in addition to taking individual requests).
Once at the vet, we asked what had happened, had we done something right or wrong (the electrolytes --as simple as unflavored Pedialyte-- was correct, the high-calorie nutrition paste, not so much. As she explained, the massive eating and life surge was often an animal's all-out response to, as she said, "throw everything it's got into this final effort"...and then it hits a wall. When it stops, it completely stops, although our cat did keep on with the water. This was why that despite appearing good on the outside, his insides were actually shutting down as efficiently as lights switches being turned off one by one; when he threw up that morning I could see that none of the nutrition supplement over the past few days had been absorbed. She comforted us, and the cat, then administered the overdose of pentobarbital,*** a seizure barbiturate that when given in such quantity can quickly stop the heart and brain function (in our case, it was just seconds for the cat). And despite the gagging that happened over and over, she explained that this was the body's high level of adrenaline fighting the drug, but she assured us that everything had stopped; there was no heartbeat and no reflex reaction when the area near the eyes were touched. I've seen this just a few times (the gagging) in cats that were real fighters, she told us. Dang cat, no wonder my wife's mum loved him so...he was just as stubborn and as strong as her.
We had grown used to him of course, even optimistically thinking that he was going to rebound and stick around for awhile, bringing our total feline household membership to six. He was quite loving, no bites or scratches for us. We talked to him a lot, slept with him a lot, and even though my wife and I knew that we had done the right thing, we spent the day filled with a slurry of emotions. There it is, that word slurry, an appropriate term for summing up our tired bodies and perhaps our even more tired emotions and minds. The cat had suddenly moved in to our lives and had just as suddenly moved out. Perhaps the only saving grace came from a friend of ours, a person who rather unpretentiously lays claim to being able to both see and feel spirits. Your mom wants that cat, he told my wife, but she's a bit miffed because the cat is rather comfortable at your place and more or less wants to stay...but it's confused because it knows it's time but cats don't know what's next. He had called my wife the morning that we were putting the cat down.
There is never an easy time to make the decision to put down an animal.* Perhaps it is that burden of responsibility of "making the call," of choosing whether the animal lives or dies on that day (no easier for a human although choosing life or death for them is obviously much more difficult legally). We had gone through that before, at times making the right decision and at times not, that is, waiting too long. But one thing we had discovered through all of our years with animals was to always ask ourselves two questions, was there a quality of life for the animal and were we keeping the animal alive for its sake or for ours? In the case of this cat, we both knew that it was time. Now to back up just a bit, my wife's mum had had this cat since it was a kitten, the runt of the litter and in our mind, a bit of a schizophrenic cat in that it would occasionally bite or scratch her (and us). But once both of them arrived at our house, the cat seemed to change, becoming not only a comfort for its dying owner but apparently heading in the same direction quite quickly as if both would go within days of one another. So we didn't expect to have much care to do once my wife's mum passed away. But all of that flew out the window within a day or two, the cat going from showing a bit of "when is she coming back" to soon realizing that somehow she wasn't; he suddenly started chowing away food well beyond his "restricted" diet (he had been in stage four kidney failure for about four years now, which placed him on a bland and very limited diet of the same special kibble and wet food, which we rapidly broke as a "treat" to get him over his depression). But oddly, nothing happened when we let him eat away; his normal throwing up when any variance in food was introduced never occurred. He began to gain weight, to wander around, to enjoy being on our bed while we watched the television (much to the consternation of our other cats), and to be wide awake and waiting early in the morning as if ready to go. A month passed, then another...then suddenly he went blind (turns out he had high blood pressure and this often causes the retina to detach; in his case it was beginning to bulge as if ready to do so). We treated the pressure (in time, as his sight soon returned), but then he just as suddenly stopped eating. Entirely. His weight began dropping precipitously. We tried some electrolytes (once food stops, the electrolyte imbalance can accelerate quite rapidly leading to sometimes painful seizures that can create a painful cat wail that you don't want to hear, something we learned the hard way with an earlier cat of ours). Day five of not eating arrived and I tried a blast of baby food (the vet always recommended lamb but this is rather difficult to find in today's grocery isles so we settled for turkey), then later a nutritional supplement.** We knew that he was past the point of return but at this point just wanted to make his waning days comfortable (go too long on an empty stomach and you'll know the painful jabs that come and go internally). He soon became little more than a moving head, his body now down to just three pounds or so but his days and nights appearing comfortable. My wife and I took turns being at his side through the night, each of us silently petting him and hoping that we would awaken in the morning and he would have passed away quietly. But that dang cat hung in there. We were growing exhausted, our hands on him at night and each movement or sound waking us up as readily as an explosion.
By the seventh night something changed around 1:30 in the morning. His alarm clock meow was now coming about every thirty minutes. And while I was often awakened from a deep sleep and very fuzzy headed, I was even more aware of the tremendous toll and effort each one of those meows was taking from his weakened body. By the morning my wife and I knew that it was time. Finding a vet took awhile because even if you have a regular place you go, you'll soon recognized that you are just one of a hundred or so people who call at the last minute needing some checkup or treatment right now for your pet (because let's face it, pets are like babies and we adults just don't know what's going on when they cry or wail or stop eating); even a traveling or mobile vet was out of the question (we tried, same story). The earliest time anywhere would be late in the afternoon. We had also decided to cremate the body in order to place the ashes together with my wife's mum's ashes, which was another series of calls since the majority of places that do such cremations, including most shelters and such, do mostly group cremations so getting your pet's ashes back is generally not possible. But we found a place (and like many funeral homes, this is quite the business, albeit quite a respectful one; many of the places we called have extensive waits since they contract out with many vet clinics in addition to taking individual requests).
Once at the vet, we asked what had happened, had we done something right or wrong (the electrolytes --as simple as unflavored Pedialyte-- was correct, the high-calorie nutrition paste, not so much. As she explained, the massive eating and life surge was often an animal's all-out response to, as she said, "throw everything it's got into this final effort"...and then it hits a wall. When it stops, it completely stops, although our cat did keep on with the water. This was why that despite appearing good on the outside, his insides were actually shutting down as efficiently as lights switches being turned off one by one; when he threw up that morning I could see that none of the nutrition supplement over the past few days had been absorbed. She comforted us, and the cat, then administered the overdose of pentobarbital,*** a seizure barbiturate that when given in such quantity can quickly stop the heart and brain function (in our case, it was just seconds for the cat). And despite the gagging that happened over and over, she explained that this was the body's high level of adrenaline fighting the drug, but she assured us that everything had stopped; there was no heartbeat and no reflex reaction when the area near the eyes were touched. I've seen this just a few times (the gagging) in cats that were real fighters, she told us. Dang cat, no wonder my wife's mum loved him so...he was just as stubborn and as strong as her.
We had grown used to him of course, even optimistically thinking that he was going to rebound and stick around for awhile, bringing our total feline household membership to six. He was quite loving, no bites or scratches for us. We talked to him a lot, slept with him a lot, and even though my wife and I knew that we had done the right thing, we spent the day filled with a slurry of emotions. There it is, that word slurry, an appropriate term for summing up our tired bodies and perhaps our even more tired emotions and minds. The cat had suddenly moved in to our lives and had just as suddenly moved out. Perhaps the only saving grace came from a friend of ours, a person who rather unpretentiously lays claim to being able to both see and feel spirits. Your mom wants that cat, he told my wife, but she's a bit miffed because the cat is rather comfortable at your place and more or less wants to stay...but it's confused because it knows it's time but cats don't know what's next. He had called my wife the morning that we were putting the cat down.
How did he know?
We knew that her mum always said that she wanted the cat but how did he know that? And to call that morning? Nonetheless it brought us
a bit of comfort; we wanted to think that her mum was indeed waiting and that
her little cat would be happily reunited with both her and his own
parents and siblings. He might not come to you for awhile (in dreams), the friend told my
wife, because he'll be busily running around like crazy. Ahh, to believe or
not to believe. We certainly wanted to, even as we wanted to provide
comfort to the cat...as if we knew. But all that we really knew was
that we had spent the entire day in a fog, a haze, a swirl of wondering if
ending his life was our call, even if done for the right reasons. It was a
slurry...it was time to clear out, to process, and to question, and to pause. The next post of that "slurry" of information could wait. Goodbye Tucci, we'll see you shortly (we think).
*This is probably the reason I could never become a farmer or rancher, or would likely starve if abandoned in a jungle or forest. Quite likely I would hold a chicken up and do little more than hope an egg would pop out, my having seen far too many images and videos of factory slaughter houses and such. Hey, I even have trouble yanking out weeds. Life seems to be life and seems to have a bond we have yet to acknowledge; all of this will emerge in a later post on of all things, termites!
**Check out those sites of what to give or not give your cat and you'll find things on the do NOT give list like whey and sugar and milk...but when you head to the pet store or the vet, you'll discover that virtually every single "vet approved" supplement features any or all of those items (corn syrup is a biggee); so just be ready to read a LOT of labels and stand by your decision which will likely be as good as any (and still leave you with guilt).
***In chemical parlance, it works by "resulting in a profound suppression of glutamatergic neurotransmission." Beyond cats and dogs, the same drug is administered for assisted suicides in humans in certain states, and until recently was used by prisons as a lethal injection for executions.
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| In Memorium -- Tucci, 1999-2018 |
*This is probably the reason I could never become a farmer or rancher, or would likely starve if abandoned in a jungle or forest. Quite likely I would hold a chicken up and do little more than hope an egg would pop out, my having seen far too many images and videos of factory slaughter houses and such. Hey, I even have trouble yanking out weeds. Life seems to be life and seems to have a bond we have yet to acknowledge; all of this will emerge in a later post on of all things, termites!
**Check out those sites of what to give or not give your cat and you'll find things on the do NOT give list like whey and sugar and milk...but when you head to the pet store or the vet, you'll discover that virtually every single "vet approved" supplement features any or all of those items (corn syrup is a biggee); so just be ready to read a LOT of labels and stand by your decision which will likely be as good as any (and still leave you with guilt).
***In chemical parlance, it works by "resulting in a profound suppression of glutamatergic neurotransmission." Beyond cats and dogs, the same drug is administered for assisted suicides in humans in certain states, and until recently was used by prisons as a lethal injection for executions.
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