Caturday: Death Watch
Happy Cat's days of valiantly fighting his brain tumor are drawing to an end. We are now on death watch for him as he valiantly trues to stave off death even though he knows it is hovering over him, calling.
Happy Cat was one of those cats who never asked for anything, not even for a home. He was an alley cat, and he would wait until all the other street cats had finished their turn at the handouts from local residents, including us, before he would approach and finish up the remnants. We got to know Happy Cat from afar, seeing him every day hunkered down under the juniper bush, watching the other cats eat. (One of those cats was Snyezhka, his pal, whom we captured and adopted.) He would only come eat after they were done and he thought we were gone. Then, he became very ill. Something prompted him to trust us to help, and we found him spread-eagled outside our second-story entrance door one morning as we were departing for work. Cat lifted into carrier (he gave no resistance), work cancelled, vet engaged. Happy Cat had officially become a member of our family. He had a severe lung infection that took three weeks to get over, but then he became a chill, easy to domestic, big (16 pounds) brother to our other cats, especially Snyezhka, whom he was clearly delighted to find inside our house. In time, he would integrate two new cats into our family--I would say singlehandedly, but singlepawedly is more accurate--both of whom had been captured and neutered by the snip bus and whom local shelters would not accept because they were too feral. "Unadoptable" was the term applied to Jack and Bobolink. Happy Cat gained their trust, became their playmate, and showed them how to be grateful for a good home: warm, dry, stocked with food, and filled with family to love them.
Last summer, it seemed like Happy Cat might have had a stroke. Overnight, he started sleeping hanging off the edge of the couch in seeming defiance of gravity. He walked in circles rather than a straight line, and lost his eyesight. An MRI nixed that home-made diagnosis. Instead, something far worse had occurred. He had a brain tumor.
Over the next six months, he dropped from 16 pounds to 6. In November, he went on hospice. Nothing more could be done for him by the vet. We got a large dog crate for him and made him a small home inside our large home: soft bedding, litter, food, and water. It was a safe place to be at night, away from poking cats curious as to what was wrong with him, and at times during the day, it became a way to be with his human staff without being underfoot during meal preparation. The rest of the time, he would stumble through the house, voraciously devouring his food while continuing to lose weight, interacting with the other cats (but less and less as time went on), and just kept on being Happy Cat--quiet, unassuming, grateful.
Five days ago, Happy Cat changed. He stopped eating. This was not Happy Cat! Clearly, he had started the process of dying. He still wanted water, and, even though he could take only very slow steps, criss-crossing his feet over which he seemed to have limited control and toppling over every few yards, he would make his way from one room to another, from one water bowl to the next, and then he would find a quiet, generally dark place to sleep for hour after hour. We knew cats look for dark places to die in, and it was clear that this prompt is genetic for Happy Cat had no one to teach him this; he just followed his genetic predisposition.
Two days ago, the vet prescribed a barbiturate for pain. Although Happy Cat made no complaints, her assumption was that he had to be in pain. He was not having any bowel movements; instead, he would squirt out pools of blood. His digestive organs were clearly disintegrating, likely riddled with cancer cells.
We began shifts of sitting with him, holding him, dropping water from a syringe into his mouth, which he accepted gratefully. Though he mostly slept, still spunky and still one of the most considerate cats we have encountered, he would get to his wobbly feet and drag himself out of arms insistently and away from bedding and our clothes, and, too weak to look for a litter box he could not see, he would release his puddle of blood on an easily cleaned patch of floor. Then, he would wobble back and want to lie beside whichever one of us had the current shift.
He is now in bed with Fawn, an adult paraplegic, and getting much loving, caressing, cuddling, and warmth, which he clearly seeks. We lowered the lights in the room and closed the curtains, making a "dark place" for him to thwart those genes impelling him into uncomfortable crooks and crannies. The rest of us take turns popping him to see how he is doing and to caress him for a moment. Soon, it will be my turn.
I will spend the night with him. I do not know whether to hope to find him alive or dead in the morning. He is clearly in pain; the barbiturate seems to help, but his breathing is labored and has been for hours. Our vet agrees that bringing him to the clinic would put undue stress on him at this juncture (he gets severe panic attacks from car rides, usually requiring an hour of oxygen for him to start breathing normally again). We are too far off the beaten trail for home vetting. The one vet who does come to this area for euthanasia is on vacation for a week. So, having walked to the Rainbow Bridge with Happy Cat, we now wait with him until he is ready to cross it.
Update. 11:52 pm. With two big gulps of air and two shudders, while cuddled in Fawn's arms, Happy Cat crossed the Rainbow Bridge, where we hope he is now cavorting with his pals Snyezhka, Bobolink, Intrepid, and Murjan who crossed before him.
For more Caturday posts, click HERE.
Read more posts about cats.
Watch for Luna Norwood's forthcoming book, Raising Happy Cat Families.
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