Bye Kitty

This is turning into depresso-blog, when it really shouldn't be, as so many of my days are happy. But today is a genuinely sad day, as we decided to put our cat down. People use the expression "putting to sleep" but I can't really say it was like that.

The cat, as you may recall, was diagnosed with pretty advanced GI-tract lymphoma a few weeks ago. The vet wasn't sure how long she had. She did last a while on her prednisone, and even seemed to get temporarily better. But in the past two weeks she stopped eating again, and got even more lethargic and thin. We had to forcefeed her with a syringe to get her to eat anything, yet she asked for her food every night and a.m. It was quite heartbreaking.

I thought about doing it last weekend and then postponed, and then when she seemed worse off this week I decided to do it today, when D could come with me. I called yesterday to make the appointment. She was actually relatively perky yesterday, which made me question things, and even worked up some enthusiasm to eat some cooked chicken on her own. We had a cuddle and she purred, but she spent the night lying on the bathroom floor, a place she usually avoids. In fact, she never lay on the floor before getting sick.

*WARNING - the paragraph below may be slightly disturbing for some. But I just feel I need to get it out of my head, and this might help.

We took her in - she did not like being put in her cage, and yowled. The vet said she had lost another kilo, or about a third of her already tiny body weight, bringing her to 2.4 kg, or just over 5 lb. The vet gave her a sedative, which made her drool, and lick her lips, but seemed to paralyse her. Her eyes were huge and looking at me. He had trouble finding a vein in her tiny paws, but when he did it was all over in seconds. Her tongue lolled out and she was completely, utterly still. D and I were just amazed at how dead she looked. Her eyes glossed over and she twitched a bit. The vet and his assistant left so we could weep over her. Well, so D could weep and I could sob. I don't think I've ever seen D cry before. She just looked so still, her paws curled unnaturally.

I don't think it was the wrong time - I think she probably could have lasted longer, but also, that she was in a lot of pain. She moved so slowly. I also don't think that cats are like us, that they long for just one more day, despite all the pain they're in. But the whole experience, despite a very kind vet, was a little more traumatic than I expected. We had assumed she would just look like she was sleeping, which was what my mum said happened to my dog. But she didn't.

Afterwards, I opened up the carrier and said, come on girl, get in. I think for one horrified moment D thought I might actually try to bring home her limp body, but I said, "No, it's just, her spirit might want to come home with us."

We'll pick up her ashes in a few days. At first it seemed a hokey thing to do, but then I realised, I think I need that closure. We'll probably scatter them somewhere eventually, but for now, I want to feel like she's home with us again.