Why?
My life just got picked up and turned upside down in the short span of a week or so.
If you're not a cat/animal person, you can skip this because it probably won't make sense to you. If you are, this is a bumpy ride.
One year ago last month, we brought home a beautiful little 4-6 month old kitten. Her official name wound up being Sylvia, but the nickname "Beans" soon stuck.
She turned out to be the sweetest, most loving cat I've ever encountered. I am not kidding you to say that she never bit, scratched, or even really fussed at anyone, ever. She stayed by my side when I was ill, we'd even taken to calling her "Nurse Beans."
Sunday before last I noticed she seemed a little weak, maybe sleeping a little more often. She'd been vomiting a little over the past couple of weeks, but not constantly, and we were treating it as a hairball. She was eating normally and drinking and everything else. Just a little tired.
Took her to the vet the next day, who surprised us. Despite her being hydrated, bright and alert, she was anemic and her lustrous, thick coat was hiding the fact that she had no body fat and was almost bones. She said the test results (low red count, low white count, low platelets, liver a bit off) were often indicative of a blood parasite. She was negative for FeLV and the others. We took her home and put her on Doxycycline, and the highest caloric cat food they make.
She ate it like a champ, and after a couple of Doxy rounds, she had perked up a lot, and was doing a lot of the things she liked to do. Once we added the prednisolone, she seemed to slide backwards a little, but was still eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom. By this past Monday, one week later, I noticed she was sleeping much longer that morning. I went into the room and laid down with her. She moved over from me, and in walking to another spot, slipped and sat for a moment. I realized she was rather unsteady. She would turn an ear to the laser pointer click, but would not track it. Or me. I began to wonder if she could see. I sat her down on the floor to get her to walk, and she gingerly crept over to the water, but couldn't quite figure out what to do. She crept out and to the main water bowl, but couldn't manage that either. Called the vet to bring her right back in.
Despite a week of chowing down on the high caloric food, she had lost weight. Her frame had always been tiny, but she was a mere 4 pounds 11 ounces. We were shocked. She was still anemic, so we were sent over to an animal specialist hospital for a transfusion. At this point she was somewhat dehydrated also.
When we got there, they told us she was having trouble regulating her temperature. We went back to see her hooked up to IVs for fluids and a big oxygen cone over her little head. I did my specific ear scratch on her and she turned up toward it a little, but her eyes were closing like she'd rather sleep...and she had that "thousand yard stare."
Turned out her blood type was rare, and they had to call in some "donor cats" for her. What brave little soldiers they are. All we could do was go home and wait.
Tuesday they said she was bright and alert, but was having issues regulating her blood pressure. They did a bone biopsy and other bone sample to see if there was cancer hiding in the bone. She went up and down. They would give us hope, then take it away. We visited often as possible, they were hoping being in a room alone with us would get her to eat.
Over the next 24 hours, they told us her thyroid was low, her heart was rounded and showed signs of wall thickening, and she had apparently had a cyst on her kidney that resulted in fluid surrounding the area.
When I saw her the next, I knew she could not see anything but large blotches despite what they said, and the only sound she responded to was large vibrations like slamming doors. She just stares off into the distance. At that point, her BP was low, and would not come up, no matter what drug they tried.
Having had a whole 24 hours to even grasp the idea, we were faced with the inevitable, and had to let her go.
She was barely a year and a half old.
The bone tests did not arrive in time, but were nonetheless inconclusive. They showed degenerative changes to the marrow, which had stopped producing cells. They ultimately leaned toward an unspecified aggressive autoimmune disorder.
We were reassured several times that we did indeed do all that we could have possibly done.
It doesn't help.
God. She was always so healthy and bright, how did this happen? And why? All of the nurses and techs even loved her, and some of them even cried, too.
Potato is my buddy, but he's really become more attached to Alex. Beans, though, was my best friend. She'd follow me around and take care of me, fall asleep with me at my shoulder. She was there when no one else was.
Devastated isn't the right word. Hard isn't the right word. There isn't one.
Someone on my list, just the other day, said of her cat "She is different. If I had lost her, they would have had to put me in the hospital on suicide watch. I can't even bear to think about it. I know it may sound stupid to some people, but this is just how it is."
This is how it was with her for me.
I've gone all over the map. I stayed with it long enough to make important decisions, but after each, I would lose it. In the last moments, I was near fainting. I collapsed after the doc left the room. They had to come take her away before I could leave the building. I have cried so hard, my face looks like someone mistook it for a pin cushion after someone else punched me in each eye. My stomach hurts so bad at times it feels like I'm hanging from a hook. To top that off, I have a kidney infection from forgetting to drink enough during this whole thing.
But I'm not alone.
I've never seen Alex cry like this before. He wasn't able to make it to work today. Utter mess. Beans was so special, this usually stoic man was knocked to his knees.
We can't eat, and only sleep when we collapse. I've lost four pounds...he's lost six.
There was a Time Life Music commercial playing as we were leaving the place for the last time.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
Only darkness every day.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And this house just ain't no home
Anytime she goes away.
I had to ask for a garbage bag to take with me to the car. And I had no idea how right it was.
We got home late last night to a house that feels...voilated. It's got that "been empty" or "broken into" feeling even though there are three of us here and nothing else changed.
"It feels like...like we've been robbed."
"We have."
We are all (Potato included) sleeping in the same bed in the middle room as though it were some kind of bomb shelter. I can barely go into my room for longer than to go get something.
We lie there and say things like:
"I wanted to lose weight, but this is not what I meant."
"We needed to spend more time together, but this is not what we meant."
Potato has stared at us intently, and seems to be on high alert. He turns at any little sound, as though he fears someone else is there besides us. We're worried he thinks someone is coming to get him, too. We doubt he remembers Julia having to come back for Melda, but who knows. He did find and sniff the carrier on the floor.
We keep halting at things. I had to remove the temporary litter box we had out to keep her in one room to rest. Food I eat has her name on it. Her leftover medicine and food is still on the counter. A thousand little cuts. She used to walk out and sit on a little blue plastic bin lid I had dropped on the floor under my desk. She did it so much I left it there. I can't move it. I just can't.
It's like time stopped.
I had to take her little bed out of the room because we just couldn't keep looking at it. It was parked next to "the hot box" (the portable radiator we use) where she loved to stay. That's when the "shoulds" got a hold of me.
I should have known that it was weird for a cat to actually try to stick her face in between the blades of the heater.
I should have noticed she had stopped making any detectable "thump" when jumping on the bed, such that she could sneak up on us. She must have been lighter.
I should have known that deep stare she was giving me was an attempt to tell me something.
I should have noticed she was shrinking before my eyes.
I shouldn't have just trusted it was a hairball.
I should have been suspicious instead of relieved when she stopped jumping up on the counter.
A million things I tell myself and I can't seem to stop, even though everyone tells me they'd not have noticed that stuff either and to stop beating myself up.
Now I keep getting snippits of songs stuck. The one from above, and Hall and Oates' "She's Gone." Which then makes me flash back to REMs "Everybody Hurts," and that one scene in the car, which I find I had remembered incorrectly, but I've gone back to get the clip, edit it, and show you what I saw, the way I remembered it:
That's what it felt like coming home. I don't think we said much of anything the entire trip.
Though Alex and I have learned a lot about each other through this, somehow. And life. And how we want to do it differently from now on.
We'd come home earlier in the week and tried to watch tv for something mindless, but we turned to Oprah's Life Class...and just at the moment where someone also named Leslie was talking about going through the grieving process with losing someone she loved so much. The main lesson was gratitude, and how to find it no matter what.
We are certainly grateful for the time we had with this little Saint of a cat. I am also grateful LJ did not eat this because I don't think I could type this again.
And I know that this is only a tenth, maybe, of what popfiend is going through, especially having been actually broken into on top of everything else...I just...I just can't even. But I am grateful, truly, for the wisdom through experience he was willing to share that has helped us along.
We will miss you, our sweet, beautiful little girl.
If you're not a cat/animal person, you can skip this because it probably won't make sense to you. If you are, this is a bumpy ride.
One year ago last month, we brought home a beautiful little 4-6 month old kitten. Her official name wound up being Sylvia, but the nickname "Beans" soon stuck.
She turned out to be the sweetest, most loving cat I've ever encountered. I am not kidding you to say that she never bit, scratched, or even really fussed at anyone, ever. She stayed by my side when I was ill, we'd even taken to calling her "Nurse Beans."
Sunday before last I noticed she seemed a little weak, maybe sleeping a little more often. She'd been vomiting a little over the past couple of weeks, but not constantly, and we were treating it as a hairball. She was eating normally and drinking and everything else. Just a little tired.
Took her to the vet the next day, who surprised us. Despite her being hydrated, bright and alert, she was anemic and her lustrous, thick coat was hiding the fact that she had no body fat and was almost bones. She said the test results (low red count, low white count, low platelets, liver a bit off) were often indicative of a blood parasite. She was negative for FeLV and the others. We took her home and put her on Doxycycline, and the highest caloric cat food they make.
She ate it like a champ, and after a couple of Doxy rounds, she had perked up a lot, and was doing a lot of the things she liked to do. Once we added the prednisolone, she seemed to slide backwards a little, but was still eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom. By this past Monday, one week later, I noticed she was sleeping much longer that morning. I went into the room and laid down with her. She moved over from me, and in walking to another spot, slipped and sat for a moment. I realized she was rather unsteady. She would turn an ear to the laser pointer click, but would not track it. Or me. I began to wonder if she could see. I sat her down on the floor to get her to walk, and she gingerly crept over to the water, but couldn't quite figure out what to do. She crept out and to the main water bowl, but couldn't manage that either. Called the vet to bring her right back in.
Despite a week of chowing down on the high caloric food, she had lost weight. Her frame had always been tiny, but she was a mere 4 pounds 11 ounces. We were shocked. She was still anemic, so we were sent over to an animal specialist hospital for a transfusion. At this point she was somewhat dehydrated also.
When we got there, they told us she was having trouble regulating her temperature. We went back to see her hooked up to IVs for fluids and a big oxygen cone over her little head. I did my specific ear scratch on her and she turned up toward it a little, but her eyes were closing like she'd rather sleep...and she had that "thousand yard stare."
Turned out her blood type was rare, and they had to call in some "donor cats" for her. What brave little soldiers they are. All we could do was go home and wait.
Tuesday they said she was bright and alert, but was having issues regulating her blood pressure. They did a bone biopsy and other bone sample to see if there was cancer hiding in the bone. She went up and down. They would give us hope, then take it away. We visited often as possible, they were hoping being in a room alone with us would get her to eat.
Over the next 24 hours, they told us her thyroid was low, her heart was rounded and showed signs of wall thickening, and she had apparently had a cyst on her kidney that resulted in fluid surrounding the area.
When I saw her the next, I knew she could not see anything but large blotches despite what they said, and the only sound she responded to was large vibrations like slamming doors. She just stares off into the distance. At that point, her BP was low, and would not come up, no matter what drug they tried.
Having had a whole 24 hours to even grasp the idea, we were faced with the inevitable, and had to let her go.
She was barely a year and a half old.
The bone tests did not arrive in time, but were nonetheless inconclusive. They showed degenerative changes to the marrow, which had stopped producing cells. They ultimately leaned toward an unspecified aggressive autoimmune disorder.
We were reassured several times that we did indeed do all that we could have possibly done.
It doesn't help.
God. She was always so healthy and bright, how did this happen? And why? All of the nurses and techs even loved her, and some of them even cried, too.
Potato is my buddy, but he's really become more attached to Alex. Beans, though, was my best friend. She'd follow me around and take care of me, fall asleep with me at my shoulder. She was there when no one else was.
Devastated isn't the right word. Hard isn't the right word. There isn't one.
Someone on my list, just the other day, said of her cat "She is different. If I had lost her, they would have had to put me in the hospital on suicide watch. I can't even bear to think about it. I know it may sound stupid to some people, but this is just how it is."
This is how it was with her for me.
I've gone all over the map. I stayed with it long enough to make important decisions, but after each, I would lose it. In the last moments, I was near fainting. I collapsed after the doc left the room. They had to come take her away before I could leave the building. I have cried so hard, my face looks like someone mistook it for a pin cushion after someone else punched me in each eye. My stomach hurts so bad at times it feels like I'm hanging from a hook. To top that off, I have a kidney infection from forgetting to drink enough during this whole thing.
But I'm not alone.
I've never seen Alex cry like this before. He wasn't able to make it to work today. Utter mess. Beans was so special, this usually stoic man was knocked to his knees.
We can't eat, and only sleep when we collapse. I've lost four pounds...he's lost six.
There was a Time Life Music commercial playing as we were leaving the place for the last time.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
Only darkness every day.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And this house just ain't no home
Anytime she goes away.
I had to ask for a garbage bag to take with me to the car. And I had no idea how right it was.
We got home late last night to a house that feels...voilated. It's got that "been empty" or "broken into" feeling even though there are three of us here and nothing else changed.
"It feels like...like we've been robbed."
"We have."
We are all (Potato included) sleeping in the same bed in the middle room as though it were some kind of bomb shelter. I can barely go into my room for longer than to go get something.
We lie there and say things like:
"I wanted to lose weight, but this is not what I meant."
"We needed to spend more time together, but this is not what we meant."
Potato has stared at us intently, and seems to be on high alert. He turns at any little sound, as though he fears someone else is there besides us. We're worried he thinks someone is coming to get him, too. We doubt he remembers Julia having to come back for Melda, but who knows. He did find and sniff the carrier on the floor.
We keep halting at things. I had to remove the temporary litter box we had out to keep her in one room to rest. Food I eat has her name on it. Her leftover medicine and food is still on the counter. A thousand little cuts. She used to walk out and sit on a little blue plastic bin lid I had dropped on the floor under my desk. She did it so much I left it there. I can't move it. I just can't.
It's like time stopped.
I had to take her little bed out of the room because we just couldn't keep looking at it. It was parked next to "the hot box" (the portable radiator we use) where she loved to stay. That's when the "shoulds" got a hold of me.
I should have known that it was weird for a cat to actually try to stick her face in between the blades of the heater.
I should have noticed she had stopped making any detectable "thump" when jumping on the bed, such that she could sneak up on us. She must have been lighter.
I should have known that deep stare she was giving me was an attempt to tell me something.
I should have noticed she was shrinking before my eyes.
I shouldn't have just trusted it was a hairball.
I should have been suspicious instead of relieved when she stopped jumping up on the counter.
A million things I tell myself and I can't seem to stop, even though everyone tells me they'd not have noticed that stuff either and to stop beating myself up.
Now I keep getting snippits of songs stuck. The one from above, and Hall and Oates' "She's Gone." Which then makes me flash back to REMs "Everybody Hurts," and that one scene in the car, which I find I had remembered incorrectly, but I've gone back to get the clip, edit it, and show you what I saw, the way I remembered it:
That's what it felt like coming home. I don't think we said much of anything the entire trip.
Though Alex and I have learned a lot about each other through this, somehow. And life. And how we want to do it differently from now on.
We'd come home earlier in the week and tried to watch tv for something mindless, but we turned to Oprah's Life Class...and just at the moment where someone also named Leslie was talking about going through the grieving process with losing someone she loved so much. The main lesson was gratitude, and how to find it no matter what.
We are certainly grateful for the time we had with this little Saint of a cat. I am also grateful LJ did not eat this because I don't think I could type this again.
And I know that this is only a tenth, maybe, of what popfiend is going through, especially having been actually broken into on top of everything else...I just...I just can't even. But I am grateful, truly, for the wisdom through experience he was willing to share that has helped us along.
We will miss you, our sweet, beautiful little girl.