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Tomorrow, we're saying goodbye to Taters. I can't put a memorial to her in a tl;dr. I have to be verbose about it in order to process. Chalk it up to ADHD. Chalk it up to e/n. I need to tell my story somewhere, to put into type what I've talked about with my friends and family, in order to process what's about to happen. Taters is 16 years old. She's been with me for at least 15.5 of those years.  From 2010, taken on a freakin' Palm Pre She was adopted by a family friend of my wife's, who - there's no nice way to say it - is legally and developmentally an adult but not mentally an adult. My MIL (then my girlfriend's mom) took her in, but their existing elder cat did NOT approve. Thus, Taters came to us as "can you hang on to her until a permanent home is found?" We now have the term "foster fail" for this situation but at the time - September 2007 - we had one cat and weren't sure if the landlord or roommates would be OK with two. She eventually won us all over and the permanent home was with us. Taters was half of the two-cat rock of stability and love that was our life so far. She teased her elder sister Triangles, who was a valkyrie warrior princess cat from hell, in a loving and friendly way. Taters was there when my girlfriend became my fiance and we moved in together. She was there (well, not THERE there) when we got married. She was there when my wife got sick, and unable to drive or work. Or stand for long periods. Or look at things with blinking, flashing lights. She was there as I tried to figure out how the hell I could get into a better spot in my career so I could not only hate every single working day, but become the sole breadwinner. She was there when Triangles' tumor, first identified and removed in 2008, recurred. They said at that time Triangles had six months to live, but Triangles was too mean for cancer to deal with, and it took cancer four years to rally and come back. She ran from the vets who came to put Triangles to rest. She was there when we adopted two new cats and one of them began suffering to breathe, getting rushed to the shelter, and to the emergency vet. She was there when we grieved at the horrible, painful unfairness of losing Triangles - even though we wouldn't get bitten anymore - but how poor little Rudy didn't even last a week with us. Taters was there when Cecilia, the surviving kitten, came down from integration, while the loss of Rudy still burned so much as I was trying to claw against horrible impostor syndrome, under the pressure of being the sole breadwinner. She was there when I had nightmares, anxiety, worries, self-doubt, obsession, and for every turn of the thumbscrew, Taters was there - in my lap, on my chest, purring, schnoogling, curling up, loving me in a way I never thought myself worthy. She was there as my wife re-learned how to walk, how to pivot into a very different career. She was there as I tried to deal with all my personal and professional poo poo. She was there when my wife finally was able to work and got a job. As I skilled up, advanced, and got more and more into my career. She was there as tough therapy sessions got me slowly, slowly, somewhere closer to better. Always loving me in that way I didn't think I deserved. She was there when Cecilia suddenly declined, while my wife and I were still symptomatic and suffering from COVID. That horrible decline, that 18 hour period where her last hours in the world were spent with tubes, injections, blood draws, hospitals, and clinical professionals who cared and did their best, but in the end she didn't come home. Taters was there for us. For all the teasing Ceci did to Taters, she was there for us when her sister died suddenly and horribly. Then, over time... she just wasn't quite there anymore. We knew she wanted to know where Ceci was. She comforted us, but she had never been the only cat. She couldn't have known, but she knew. We tried slowly integrating her with Freddie. It was tough to start, we had our concerns, but they started eventually being OK with each other's presence - there are photos of Taters being on the same bed as Freddie, both of them resting comfortably. In the end, though, we had to put a temporary door to stop him - and soon, we had to shut Freddie upstairs entirely. Then Taters got sick. In October 2022, for two days she just stopped eating or drinking, and her little squeaky meows sounded strained. We'd gotten her bloodwork done in September - other than a slightly elevated ALT level, she was amazingly healthy for a 16 year old cat. One E-vet visit showed a possible buildup of gas due to unknown blockage - the meds they gave barely helped her eat. Another E-vet visit showed way higher ALT values. We had to force-feed her clinical care food in order to keep her alive. For two days, we held her down and used a wide gauge syringe to shove clinical care food thinned with water. She ate again, but not as much... and that was how things continued. She didn't eat as much or with the same gusto after that. We took her to the vet for followups. More bloodwork. An ultrasound showed some kind of splotch on her liver and maybe her GI tract, but not enough to draw clinical conclusions. We didn't want to do any testing that would compromise her quality of life. We knew this going in. She was 16. That's way old for a cat. But the eating came and went - some days she'd eat, other days not at all. She started peeing on things inappropriately. We went through a gallon of Nature's Miracle and washed the blankets and sheets. We moved one of her litterboxes into the living room and that cut down on things for a while, but then it didn't. She'd pee on blankets on the couch, even if they were folded on the back of the couch. I wasn't reacting well to this - especially if we're about to go to bed after a long day of worrying about her, what to do, and there's cat pee on the blanket for the 5th time at an unpredictable recurrence. We went to Japan in March. We walked our pet sitter through what steps should be taken if things got bad, or if she took a turn. We left details on what to ask the vet to do with her earthly remains. Every day the pet sitter showed us pictures of her food dish - and she was eating. Not all of it every day, but she was eating. Two weeks on the vacation of a lifetime and I thought maybe she'd be bouncing back. We came home to a bedroom turned into a litterbox. Four or five different pee spots on the blankets, all the way through to the sheets. If we didn't have mattress protectors, it'd have gone to the mattress - but those protectors were put on only after the peeing started months earlier. Three or four poops on the bed. Puke in the bedroom. Another vet visit was scheduled. An average cat's ALT is something like 110 - in September it was 115, in October during the crisis it was 120something. In March, it was in the 700s. She returned to not wanting to eat her usual favorite food. She was always picky and would only eat one or two foods - now she wanted neither. I tried permutation after permutation of food type, ingredients. High-quality stuff from the specialty pet store. Consumer stuff from Petsmart. Freeze-dried foods. Cooking chicken for the unseasoned broth and using it to hydrate the freeze-dried food. In the end, all she'd eat is a little bit of cooked chicken. Even just now, as a literal last gasp, she won't eat chicken that has cat nutrient powder mixed into it, hydrated with chicken broth. The peeing accidents happened so often. Her weight kept dropping. She's acting normally in so many ways - she still wants to be with me, she still wants to come and cuddle with me, but the lack of a clinical smoking gun in the face of this poor cat who's growing skinnier and skinner, who is too sickly to be put under anesthesia for a biopsy, who has conditions that if detected by a liver aspiration couldn't be cured, has peed on the blanket so many times that it's driven me into a months-long process of suffering. My wife has been having a rough go of it too, but it took so many nervous breakdowns - so much of me shouting, being unable to cope with the fact that we don't have bedding to sleep on tonight again, that in the end I broke down fully and I said to her, the woman I love so much and treasure, the words no spouse should ever, EVER say - "I hope you're happy with this" and "it's her or me." It's come from the wrongest possible way. We've been crying a lot. I've been trying to salvage what's left of my coping skills. She's trying to come to terms with the fact that we can do nothing, and we risk her suffering like Ceci. We are putting her to sleep before it gets worse, thinking that she's got some form of dementia - the litter box issues - which may also be digestive (her distaste for food, the gagging when sniffing food, everything else) and also some form of liver failure. All the info we have points to this being her time - but having no singular clear thing, that's been the worst. I couldn't cope. I couldn't get over the looming, constant worry that's lasted since October 2022 - which still stems from the sudden, tragic, traumatic, painful and horrible loss of Cecilia in August 2022. I simply can't recall what life felt like before then - the trip to Japan took me out of my element, took me away from it all. It was wonderful. I felt like a person. Then I came back home to a peed-on, pooped-on bed and a stark reminder of "your cat is dying and if you don't take unilateral action to euthanize her, overriding your wife's hopes and concerns, you will suffer for an indeterminate, ongoing period of time, all the while Freddie is restricted to the upstairs, not allowed to explore the home that he was adopted into. You, MJP, and you alone, have the burden of caring for this sick, peeing cat. Get used to it. Get used to this horrible place. There is no relief for her or you." Eight times, I had a breakdown based on Taters peeing on something critical. Eight times my wife was getting worried. Eight times I brought it up to my therapist and psychiatrist. The seventh time, I asked my psychiatrist for a short term as-needed scrip for benzos - the anxiety and concern were just so omnipresent, I couldn't function. I literally had to turn to drugs - yeah, prescribed and taken properly, but still drugs - in order to get out of the worst of it. Finally, in the one explosion, my wife started to agree. We invited my SIL and her husband over to say their farewells, and it took them to say she really didn't look good to drive the fact home. We are reconciling. I am seeking better medication management for future occurrences of these breakdowns. I've had them plenty of times in my life, but only during this ongoing crisis did they merit this kind of change and attention. But merit they do, and I have grief to add to the need to fix my poo poo. And grieving, we are. She's banned from the bedroom at night so we can at least sleep and wake up without cat pee on the sheets. Last night, I lay down on the couch, and she jumped up to sit on my chest, like she'd always do. Last night was among the last times she'll ever do that. Earlier this AM she did as well, and I'll give her the same time tonight and tomorrow morning. She's been in the sunroom all day. She loves it in here. Tomorrow in the sunroom, I'll feed her some chicken, and the vet will come in to at least not startle her. Maybe she'll jump into my lap, but I'll give her skritches as she gets an injection to sedate her, to feel no pain, and another injection to end her life peacefully. I'm going to cry again - I've been doing that a lot the last few days, weeks, months - and for the first time in my adult life, I'll have to face the fact that Taters won't be here anymore. This long, horrible series of months when the life with cats I loved was denied - through death, illness, failed integration, and long decline - will end. Taters won't get worse - we don't know if she's in pain and suffering, but we know she won't get to that point. I have been telling myself "it's premature to put her down now, she's just having eating problems" but it's been so apparent, and I just can't do it anymore. I've been pushed to the point where I simply cannot cope, and it's been the right time for a while. Only now do I have my wife with me on it. The circumstances are not how a family should approach this, but it's still the right call. I'm going to miss her so, so, so much. We'll be ready to give our love to another cat when the time is right. We'll let Freddie down from upstairs - he'll finally have all the time he wants in his new home, where he'll be loved for the rest of his days, and with a new friend when the time is right. I don't know how I could have gotten through the last 15 years of my own life, let alone life in this world, without Taters. Without this loving tortie baby, who purred and squeaked and curled up on my chest and lap. I'm going to miss the hell out of her tomorrow, and I'm going to have to work on how I got to this point - but she won't be in pain or confusion anymore.  Thanks for reading if you did, and my apologies for the wall of text if you didn't. I was at least able to get it all out and for that I'm grateful.
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May 8, 2023 21:25
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 16:20 |
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