i could use a warm kiss instead of a cold goodbye
a huge part of me was laid to rest yesterday.
yesterday we had to put the love of my life, mr. anteros delphi kitty no, to sleep.
what started out as a trip to the vet about a week ago just because i was worried, ended as this horrific nitemare that i still don't believe is real.
over the past few months delphi has been losing weight. but he hadn't been showing any other signs of sickness and he had been eating and pooping like normal so we couldn't figure out what was wrong. finally i took him to the vet and after $500 worth of labwork coming back negative for all bad kitty diseases, worms, etc, all they could tell me was that he was anemic, and that wasn't the cause of his weightloss. add on another $68 for antibiotics (just in case) and liquid vitamins and i was taking delphi home.
at this point he wasn't physically ill. and hadn't been. but after a few days suddenly he stopped eating. and drinking. then he could barely walk. and even when he was sitting or laying down, he was wobbly and had no balance. his tail was puffy for a day and a half and his eyes were glazed over. this was all happening on tuesday. after work i came to visit him and found all this out and called the vet. she said he should definitely be seen again but didn't feel like it was an emergent situation (WTF?) and there were no appointments available for the rest of the evening, so i was supposed make an appointment for the next day. i told her i'd call in the morning after seeing how he was.
for the first nite since i moved out of my parents house i stayed overnite to be with delphi. he slept with me all nite. i woke up many times to make sure he was doing okay and feed him water thru the little 3 ml tube for his vitamins. i was so happy because that nite before bed he ate some tuna, and this was the first thing we could get him to eat in the past 24 hours. when i woke up in the morning at 6 to go to the bathroom, he followed me downstairs, walking much better than the day before, and went straight to his food bowl and started eating. we gave him some soft food and he ate most of it, which was probably the best thing i had seen at the time because he passed it up the day before and that has never ever happened. he loves that stuff. then he finally took a drink of water on his own. i was sure he was on the road to recovery.
i had that day off of work because i was supposed to go shopping and to the academy show in mke with amanda. up until then i wasn't sure i was still going to go, but since every bad problem he was having had seemed to clear up i was okay with going. during the drive down my sister called me to tell me he was running around and i was excited because the day before he could barely walk, but a few hours later i got another phone call and this time everything had gone a completely different way. my mom and my sister were saying they thought that delphi had had a seizure and was acting very strange. they called the vet and brought him in and he kept having seizures. the vet said that as a result of the seizures, delphi had become blind and they weren't sure if it would just be temporary or if it would be permanent. they ha to give him valium so he would stop seizing and they took some blood for more labs and did an xray to see if maybe there was something stuck in his intestines or if they could find a tumor....anything. the xray came back completely clean and the labwork showed that he was now hypoglycemic, which she said was the cause of the seizures...but didn't explain his rapid weightloss (which delphi had initially weighed 7 pounds. lost 2 pounds in the course of a few months...and then managed to lose a whole pound from his vet trip a week ago til yesterday).
at this point we were told that he either had cancer or irritable bowel disease, but the only way we could find out the exact problem to figure out the proper treatment was put delphi thru a very extensive surgery of his intestines...and because he was so sick he didn't even have a very good chance of making it thru the surgery. there was also a chance, had he made it thru the surgery, that the problem may have been something that wouldn't be treatable. it was then, over the phone, as i'm sitting on the floor of the bayshore mall in milwaukee crying my eyes out that i had to give verbal authorization for delphi to be put to sleep.
and with that, i was on my way home.
words cannot express how horrible i feel that i couldn't be there with him. he was probably so scared. he couldn't see anything. one of the saddest parts is that because he was so weak, they couldn't get to his veins so they had to inject something into his heart to put him to sleep.
i got home alittle bit after my mom and my sister did from the vet and they brought him with so we could bury him in our yard with cake. it was just the worst thing ever to see my little ducky motionless. it looked like he was just napping and if i flicked his ear he would wake up.
i dug a hole in the yard and everyone said goodbye. even my neighbors were crying, delphi was everyone's favorite cat. never in my life have i ever come across a more gentle, loving ikitty. and with so much personality. he was so handsome and so loyal. and i know he loved me.
my neighbor's grandson, hunter, who's about 9 years old, always came over to visit delphi and out of our pets, delphi was hit favorite. he was outside with us when we buried him and when i asked him if he wanted to say goodbye he pet him and put a little piece of paper in the box that said "love, hunter."
it completely broke my heart.
in my life i have not had to deal with a lot of death. my great grandmother is the only close family member of mine that has passed and it was hard to be too upset when she died because she was 100 years old and lived a long, happy, healthy life, right up to the end. when she got sick, it came out of nowhere and within a week she was gone.
it's just really hard because delphi was my first real pet that i had on my own. i mean, i had cake but that is completely different because of the kind of pet he was. and i was there the day delphi was born. and i loved him since that very day.
and he was still just a baby.
my whole family is torn up about this. Les is working out of town and he almost came home because of it. He said that today was the worst day he's ever had at work. We've all just cried and cried and cried and my parents are already talking about getting their own kitty (or kitties, even).
but nothing will ever replace him. i truly believe he was the greatest cat in the world. and if you ever had the pleasure of spending time with him, i think you'd agree too.
in loving memory of my little ducky, mr. anteros delphi
february 14th 2005 - september 5th 2007
yesterday we had to put the love of my life, mr. anteros delphi kitty no, to sleep.
what started out as a trip to the vet about a week ago just because i was worried, ended as this horrific nitemare that i still don't believe is real.
over the past few months delphi has been losing weight. but he hadn't been showing any other signs of sickness and he had been eating and pooping like normal so we couldn't figure out what was wrong. finally i took him to the vet and after $500 worth of labwork coming back negative for all bad kitty diseases, worms, etc, all they could tell me was that he was anemic, and that wasn't the cause of his weightloss. add on another $68 for antibiotics (just in case) and liquid vitamins and i was taking delphi home.
at this point he wasn't physically ill. and hadn't been. but after a few days suddenly he stopped eating. and drinking. then he could barely walk. and even when he was sitting or laying down, he was wobbly and had no balance. his tail was puffy for a day and a half and his eyes were glazed over. this was all happening on tuesday. after work i came to visit him and found all this out and called the vet. she said he should definitely be seen again but didn't feel like it was an emergent situation (WTF?) and there were no appointments available for the rest of the evening, so i was supposed make an appointment for the next day. i told her i'd call in the morning after seeing how he was.
for the first nite since i moved out of my parents house i stayed overnite to be with delphi. he slept with me all nite. i woke up many times to make sure he was doing okay and feed him water thru the little 3 ml tube for his vitamins. i was so happy because that nite before bed he ate some tuna, and this was the first thing we could get him to eat in the past 24 hours. when i woke up in the morning at 6 to go to the bathroom, he followed me downstairs, walking much better than the day before, and went straight to his food bowl and started eating. we gave him some soft food and he ate most of it, which was probably the best thing i had seen at the time because he passed it up the day before and that has never ever happened. he loves that stuff. then he finally took a drink of water on his own. i was sure he was on the road to recovery.
i had that day off of work because i was supposed to go shopping and to the academy show in mke with amanda. up until then i wasn't sure i was still going to go, but since every bad problem he was having had seemed to clear up i was okay with going. during the drive down my sister called me to tell me he was running around and i was excited because the day before he could barely walk, but a few hours later i got another phone call and this time everything had gone a completely different way. my mom and my sister were saying they thought that delphi had had a seizure and was acting very strange. they called the vet and brought him in and he kept having seizures. the vet said that as a result of the seizures, delphi had become blind and they weren't sure if it would just be temporary or if it would be permanent. they ha to give him valium so he would stop seizing and they took some blood for more labs and did an xray to see if maybe there was something stuck in his intestines or if they could find a tumor....anything. the xray came back completely clean and the labwork showed that he was now hypoglycemic, which she said was the cause of the seizures...but didn't explain his rapid weightloss (which delphi had initially weighed 7 pounds. lost 2 pounds in the course of a few months...and then managed to lose a whole pound from his vet trip a week ago til yesterday).
at this point we were told that he either had cancer or irritable bowel disease, but the only way we could find out the exact problem to figure out the proper treatment was put delphi thru a very extensive surgery of his intestines...and because he was so sick he didn't even have a very good chance of making it thru the surgery. there was also a chance, had he made it thru the surgery, that the problem may have been something that wouldn't be treatable. it was then, over the phone, as i'm sitting on the floor of the bayshore mall in milwaukee crying my eyes out that i had to give verbal authorization for delphi to be put to sleep.
and with that, i was on my way home.
words cannot express how horrible i feel that i couldn't be there with him. he was probably so scared. he couldn't see anything. one of the saddest parts is that because he was so weak, they couldn't get to his veins so they had to inject something into his heart to put him to sleep.
i got home alittle bit after my mom and my sister did from the vet and they brought him with so we could bury him in our yard with cake. it was just the worst thing ever to see my little ducky motionless. it looked like he was just napping and if i flicked his ear he would wake up.
i dug a hole in the yard and everyone said goodbye. even my neighbors were crying, delphi was everyone's favorite cat. never in my life have i ever come across a more gentle, loving ikitty. and with so much personality. he was so handsome and so loyal. and i know he loved me.
my neighbor's grandson, hunter, who's about 9 years old, always came over to visit delphi and out of our pets, delphi was hit favorite. he was outside with us when we buried him and when i asked him if he wanted to say goodbye he pet him and put a little piece of paper in the box that said "love, hunter."
it completely broke my heart.
in my life i have not had to deal with a lot of death. my great grandmother is the only close family member of mine that has passed and it was hard to be too upset when she died because she was 100 years old and lived a long, happy, healthy life, right up to the end. when she got sick, it came out of nowhere and within a week she was gone.
it's just really hard because delphi was my first real pet that i had on my own. i mean, i had cake but that is completely different because of the kind of pet he was. and i was there the day delphi was born. and i loved him since that very day.
and he was still just a baby.
my whole family is torn up about this. Les is working out of town and he almost came home because of it. He said that today was the worst day he's ever had at work. We've all just cried and cried and cried and my parents are already talking about getting their own kitty (or kitties, even).
but nothing will ever replace him. i truly believe he was the greatest cat in the world. and if you ever had the pleasure of spending time with him, i think you'd agree too.
in loving memory of my little ducky, mr. anteros delphi
february 14th 2005 - september 5th 2007