Caturday: Farewell to a Sweet Cat

 

Bobolink looking up at his owner in pain, fear, trust, and love at a vet visit.

It started three months ago. Our feather-duster-tailed, aqua-blue-eyed, quietly affectionate, FIV cat, Bobolink began losing weight really fast. Blood tests showed autoimmune hemolytic anemia. Incurable. Marginally treatable. Pills from VCA, ointments and powders from Chewy, and specially compounded liquids from Sherman’s Apothecary did little to compensate for a worrisome and continuing red blood cell count of 13 (28 is considered the lower limit). After a couple months, Bobolink had regained the weight he had lost, but his weight and appetite fluctuated by the day. He became my lap cat, chair cat (he fit nicely beside me in Carl’s big lazy-boy), and bed cat, following me everywhere as if attached. Then, two weeks ago, his weight dipped very low, and he lost interest in food. One day, I left the room and returned to find him lying in a puddle of pee and looking up with scared, confused eyes. VCA in Salinas sent him on consult to Blue Pearl, the vet specialists in Monterey. More tests, more results, even more devastating news: amyloidosis in spleen and liver and perhaps kidneys. Fatal. Untreatable. Blood count had dropped to 12. A decision was made to give him a transfusion this past Tuesday. Sunday night, though, he was refusing to eat and had lost another half-pound. When not wanly cuddling, he attempted to find dark places for hiding (cats do that before dying), and his gums were pale. I called Blue Pearl; they classified it as an emergency and urged as to come with haste. Thus began another drama encased in the stillness of night and shrouded in the murky grey of coastal fog as we hurriedly made our way down Poppy Hill, past the fields, through the sand dunes, and along the shore to reach Blue Pearl. Bobolink was rushed in for an immediate transfusion; blood was obtained to determine his blood type (A, yes!, they had it on hand) and his blood count (now down to 7). Sadly, in the process of being prepped for a transfusion, he went into cardiac arrest. Epinephrine brought him back temporarily, and we had to make an instant decision to transfuse or euthanize. The vet had to present us a choice but clearly felt that no choice really existed. Bobolink was unstable; his heart could stop again on the way home or at home, in which case, the vet could not promise a pain-free death. A transfusion might work for a while, but the autoimmune disease might just gobble up the new red blood cells. No matter what, in the fairly near future, we would for certain lose him to amyloidosis, and he would be in and out of the ER until that day came. So, we helped him pass over the rainbow bridge, painless for him but very painful for us. I was able to hold and rock him for about 30 minutes, with the epinephrine-filled catheter still attached. He snuggled weakly, then suddenly stretched upward and gave one last headbutt, after which he buried his head under my arm and did not move again, not even when the vet came in to give him the anesthetic. It was not clear to me whether he crossed the rainbow bridge by himself or with the help of the anesthetic because he did not move (not even any rhythmic motion of breathing) after he buried his head.

He was a very special cat. He would put his paws around anyone’s neck and put his head against the cheek – he endeared himself to vets that way, too. All the vets and techs he ever saw used the same word for him: sweet. Some cats are like no others, and he was one of those. The vet had tears in his eyes as he administered the anesthesia. Bobolink is deeply missed, and even though I spend time in Carl’s chair, it now is empty.

Bobolink was young—barely five years old. The ER vet did not know his age; he thought he was an old cat from the condition of his internal organs and was quite surprised to learn otherwise.

Deciding Bobolink’s fate—to the extent that we had any choice to speak of—once again put front and center the question that a teenage Zhenya, the talented boy artist with spina bifida we had taken in from Siberia so many years ago and who died at the age of 42 nearly six years ago now, posed to me when he was facing medical decisions, the choices for which would have existential significance. Enthralled at the time with Esenin, he had pondered issues of longevity, passion, flamboyance, and promise fulfilled early, a kind of life that not only attracted Zhenya but also, to some extent, defined him in that period. “Is it better,” he asked me, “to live a short khoroshaya (good) life or a long nekhoroshaya (not-good) life?” Of course, only he could answer that question; it is a very personal one. It seems, though, that our Bobolink, like Zhenya, was blessed with a short, good life.

Read more posts about Bobolink

For more Caturday posts, click HERE.

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