Celebrating a Life: My cat Baby

Some people, who are not animal lovers, or do not have pets, cannot understand the attachment some of us have for our pets. I do not have children, but I do have pets who are just as precious to me and who I love just as dearly. In some of my earlier posts I have mentioned an ongoing illness with one of my cats, my 16 year old male cat, Baby.  He became ill in June and after many visits to the vet, many tests and trying many different treatment regiments, his vet came to the sad conclusion in August that my poor kitty was probably suffering from intestinal lymphoma, a common cancer in older cats. We were unable to get the definitive diagnosis we craved because the tests  would  cost about 3 months of my salary and unfortunately, this is not possible for us. We held out hope that he had a lesser (and non-fatal) disease, like IBD (inflammatory bowel disease). And for the last two months, the high fiber prescription diet food and a once-daily pill of Prednisone, had helped him tremendously and he was back to his normal self; alert, active, playful, eating like a horse and having no bowel distress.

We knew, however, that the possibility remained that he might indeed have cancer and even though they have pill forms of chemotherapy these days that can prolong life for a cat with lymphoma for 6 months or even a year, it was still devastating and I was unsure if it would be "right" to prolong the inevitable. Either way, he would die from his disease. We were assured that this type of cancer is usually painless and that during his chemo therapy ( he would take 1 chemo pill every two weeks) he would be pretty much as normal, but we still hadn't decided whether we would take such steps and weren't sure the pros outweighed the cons of going in that direction. I think we were mostly in denial that he had cancer and still held out hope it was something else . We decided to make his life as comfortable as possible for as long as possible and continue to hope that he did not have cancer and that his current treatment would enable him to spend a few more years with us. We had very high hopes with the success of the last two months and how well he was doing, but unfortunately, he took a very serious, and very sudden turn for the worse on Tuesday this week. He was perfectly normal on Sunday, his usual self. Monday morning we noticed some diarrhea in the litter box; the first diarrhea he's had in two months, but he seemed fine otherwise. We called the vet to discuss the dosage of his medicine, and decided to divide his pill in half and give him a half a pill twice a day to spread out the effectiveness of it over a 24 hr period. Monday evening, I was distressed to notice signs of his ataxia returning. He had had a flare up of ataxia before starting his new medicine, and he'd had it once before, right around the time his illness started in June, but at the time, we thought it was weakness due to dehydration from his diarrhea. For a general explanation of ataxia in cats, click here. During the second flare-up in August it was right around the time his vet was concluding that he had lymphoma and his weakness and wobbly gait was determined not to be dehydration, as we had thought before, but ataxia, and it was discussed that the ataxia might be a separate medical issue, or related to the cancer, which might have spread and could be affecting his brain and neurological functions, which would explain other neurological problems that were evident; his vision was impaired and he did not have normal responses to certain stimuli during the time the ataxia was present.  Again, a complete neurological work-up would be needed to determine the exact cause of his ataxia, but we lacked the $2,000 it would have cost us to have the tests done. The ataxia generally only lasted a day or two before vanishing. Since starting his Prednisone, he had no flare ups of ataxia.

By Tuesday morning, he was still weak and wobbly, but still able to get around. He was eating his food, and drinking like normal. I gave him his morning petting and tucked him into his kitty nest before leaving for work. Sometime during the day on Tuesday, something happened and he slipped into a coma and when I arrived home from work, he was laying on his kitty blanket, un-responsive and unable to move. It was a devastating sight to me. The vet suggested a blood clot in the large main artery that runs along a cat's back, a severe stroke, or the cancer itself as the cause, but he will not recover. I am heart-broken at this sudden turn of events and hoped and prayed that he would pass away quietly on his own, but it has been two days and there has been no change. He lays in his kitty nest with a warming pad to keep him warm and I keep him near me, watching over him all night, but he is immobile and un-responsive. It is like he is already passed away, except he is still breathing. No amount of talking to him or petting him has aroused any response. Cats, when unconscious or comatose, do not close their eyes like people do; their eyes remain open. It is sad and causes my heart to ache to see him lying there, with his eyes open, un-seeing and unblinking. I like to think that somehow he knows that I am there with him, even though I doubt he is aware of anything.

So, tomorrow, I will end his suffering. To keep him on like this is cruel; he will not recover and his systems are slowly shutting down. I dread being severed from him in this way, but to keep him like this is selfish. I have held out hope that he will pass on his own for the last two days, but I cannot let him linger this way, to die slowly. We have an appointment for tomorrow with the vet. I am grief-stricken, my heart aches. I will miss him terribly and feel sorrow that it had to end this way for him. I feel sorrow for myself as well, knowing that I will miss him always; my special guy.

My only comfort now is to know that he had a good life for 16 years, that he was well-cared for and very much loved by me, his "mommy". The last two months of his life were happy and the medicine he had made his life comfortable. His end will not be what I had hoped for, and is coming very much sooner than wanted, but at least he had no pain, and I will be with him to send him off, with love, kisses and hugs, and hope that somehow he will know I am there.

To celebrate the life of my beloved buddy, here are some pictures from happier days:

The picture above was from his "fat" days! He used to be a real tub of lard when he was younger!

R.I.P. my darling lap baby.
May 1993--Oct. 1, 2009

Today's Spotlight On: Halloween Decor!!

It's that time of year again.......to drag out the multitude of storage tubs from my attic to start decorating for Halloween! I usually start doing it pretty early because I have so much stuff and I have a Halloween village, which takes a week in itself to set up. Not that it's overly large; I certainly don't need a whole room for it, but it is sort of putzy to unpack all the little stuff from their boxes and set everything up just right.

We were planning on having a costume party again this year, but some unexpected bills that are going to be due this month (and extra $400 I didn't count on) will prevent us from having the party after all, even though this year we were going to go low-budget on the food and have it BYO for drinks (other than wine and hot mulled apple cider, which I usually make), to help keep the cost down. It's disappointing, but we can plan one for next year when, hopefully, things will be better.

But, I thought I'd share a few pictures of some of the Halloween decor that I have already put up!

This and That...

I cannot believe it's September already! September tenth, to be exact! Where did the summer go?? It seems like it was hardly here at all.  What did I do with my summer? Apparently, nothing much....

I had a lot of plans for the summer; I was going to get a tan (maybe). I was going to ride my bicycle more often. I was going to make Erik jog with me so that I could work my way up to being one of those people who run  several miles every day and not feel like I was going to keel over and die after a mile.
But, I didn't get a tan because I never seemed to have the time to make the drive out to my mother's house to lay by the swimming pool and I refuse to lay out in the hot sun without a swimming pool nearby. Oh well, I don't really need a tan. I think white skin is coming back into fashion anyway. If freckles ever become the rage, I'll be all set there too.

The running thing started out well, but then I hurt my knee somehow in July, while cleaning the baseboards in the house. How stupid is that? I don't even really know what I did to cause the injury, but it's been 2 months and my knee is still messed up and sore.I think I severely strained or pulled a muscle or tendon. At any rate, I have not been able to work out like normal or run without making it worse, so I've been sort of "benched".

 As for the bicycle riding: during a bicycle ride with Erik in early July, my bicycle got a flat tire when we were 4 miles from home. Even though we had a bike pump, repair kit and extra inner tube with us, it was too severely damaged to repair the tire and we were being swarmed by mosquitos as well. The bicycle was acutally formerly Erik's so I know nothing about how to change the tires or fix anything on it. I've never owned a mountain bike, like this one. I had a ten speed Schwinn when I was a teenager, which incidentally, was the last bicycle I owned. Erik said he would get a new tire for it and fix it, but weeks and weeks passed without it being fixed, so the last two months of summer passed without me being able to ride the thing as planned. He just fixed it this last weekend, so hopefully we will still have some nice fall weather this year, so I can ride it some more before winter. I think my injured knee will handle it okay, more so than running.

 As for the rest of summer: Well, my youngest sister had foot surgery because she dislocated all the bones in her right foot after stepping in a hole in her yard and then tripping and falling over a drainpipe. She can't drive or walk or put weight on her foot for 12 weeks, or work either (she's a nurse). Being a mother to young children, two young active boys to be exact, she has needed help at home during the week when her husband is at work, which means that my days off (Fridays) I have been at her house all day, which I suppose might be why it seems like I haven't had time to do anything at my own house! I am happy to help her though, of course; but that extra day to do things sure is helpful to me, and I am surely missing it.

And of course, as usual, the recession and poor economy surely has not helped make it a wonderful summer for most people, including us. Many of the summer activities we usually do have been curtailed for money reasons. Any extra money we managed to have was used for some necessary car repairs, some of them expected and some of them un-expected, as is usually the case when it comes to cars. Some of it also went to vet bills for my cat, Baby. He has been doing well on his new medicine, but it certainly wasn't easy the last 3 months trying to figure out what was wrong with him and trying to get a treatment regimen that worked for him. Erik's work is expecting to pick up again in the next couple of months, so we are hoping he may be getting back some of his usual overtime, which will be very helpful. We'd like to go back to Door County again, like we did for our first anniversary, and hopefully this next year will be better for us, budget-wise, and we can plan for  fun activities next summer!

I just still can't believe it's fall already.......!

A Funny Thing Happened in the Cemetary....

This is not usually the way most people start out a story. There usually aren't humorous things going on in cemetaries, admittedly. But then again, nobody has ever accused me of being unaware of the concept of "gallows humor". For a definition of gallows humor, click here. I don't know if this story really applies to the concept of gallows humor; probably not, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

The other day, E and I were walking through a cemetary that is near our home. The Prairie Home Cemetary is quite large and the oldest cemetary in our town. I believe they started doing burials in it in the 1850s or 1860s or thereabouts. While it may seem strange to some people, both E and I actually enjoy walking through cemetaries and do so quite often. It is much like being in a park; it's usually very pretty and usually very quiet. I love to look at the older burials of course, and wonder at the stories of these people's lives. Sometimes I feel a sad sort of poignance about it, knowing that these folks buried over a hundred years ago no longer have people alive to remember them and all is left to show they were here at all is a worn stone marker with a few words and some dates. I feel somehow gratified to pause at their stones, read their names and acknowledge, if only for a minute, that they were here, even if no longer mourned. I am not naturally squeamish about death, as an abstract, which I suppose explains my enjoyment of hanging out in cemetaries.

It is not, and was not, very odd for a long time, to consider a cemetary as a public park of sorts. Folks in the Victorian Era often spent Sunday afternoons in cemetaries, looking at the monuments and even having picnics in them. The "garden cemetary", as they were then known, was just becoming the popular thing in that era. Before that, cemetaries were quagmires of filth and the stench of decay, often with multiple burials stacked upon one another in layers so that some bodies were only inches below the ground and cemetaries were avoided by everyone. They were feared to be pits of putrid disease, which in fact, they probably were. The new "garden cemetary" soon became all the rage and as there were few things such as public parks in those days, the cemetary soon became the place to be if you wanted to enjoy a little fresh air and sunshine or some quiet time to contemplate your thoughts.

But, I digress. Getting back to my story; E and I decided to take one of our evening walks to the cemetary, as we often like to do, seeing as the weather was very fine. It was about 6:30 in the evening on a Saturday night; not usually the time of day when you'd find many people in a cemetary. In fact, on all the times we have been there to go walking, we have never seen anyone else there at the same time we have been (unless they were on the very far side of the place; it is a very large cemetary and seems to go on for miles although I don't know it's exact acreage). On this evening, however, we saw several cars in our immediate view as we entered through a small side gate that we discovered and often use. One car passed us by at least twice and we did also see several people walking, as we were. We often stick to the older section where the older burials are, but we did eventually wander into another area that we had not previously been in before (very near the cremation gardens) and saw again, at least 2 cars that seemed to be "looping" through the cemetary. Both E and I commented on how odd it was that there were so many people about and we guessed that perhaps they might have been people who had attended a funeral there, though it seemed rather late in the day. As we paused to admire a particular crypt, one of the cars we had seen paused and a woman leaned out of the open window and said, "Did you find it?"

E and I both looked at one another for a moment in mutual confusion. My first thought was that there had been a funeral, or there was going to be one, and this woman seemed to think we were going to be attending the burial (even though we were both wearing shorts and t-shirts) and that she had mistaken us for mourners who were lost.

I missed part of what she said next, so complete was my confusion, but the gist of her next words regarded how they had been driving around for quite some time (there was a man in the car with her) and that "everyone" they had come upon said they were unable to find "it".

I soon learned what "it" was she was talking about and I had one of those moments where it would seem appropriate to smack a hand against your forehead and then say, "Duh!"

It seemed she had mistaken us for fans of Les Paul (1915-2009), who had died August 13 in New York and then "went home" to be buried in Prairie Home Cemetary( with great pomp and circumstance, I heard), since Waukesha was his hometown and place of birth. If you are not familiar with Les Paul, the musician, inventor and innovator, you can click here. The link is from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to which he was inducted in 1988. Around here, he is often called "The Wizard of Waukesha", so-called because he was the inventor of the first solid-body electric guitar,known as the Gibson, and also the inventor of multi-track recording among other things.

Apparently, all the people we had been seeing in the cemetary were fans looking for the burial site to pay tribute to the "Wizard" and this woman had assumed that we were there for that reason as well. She must have noticed our evident confusion, so we quickly explained that we lived nearby and often walked in the cemetary and had clear forgotten about the famous person who had recently been buried there. At this point it was her turn to give us a rather strange look; I'm sure she probably did not know many people who walked in cemetaries as a recreational activity.

We told her that during our recent wanderings that evening we hadn't noticed any "fresh" burials, but admitted we hadn't really been looking either, but if we did find it and we saw her again, we'd certainly tell her.

As we walked away, E and I commented to each other on how strange a way to greet someone you came across in a cemetary with a cryptic "Did you find it?".

Then again, she might have found us just as strange, when we told her that we "come here all the time"!