rotten cat

E  got up at her usual time of 0345 this morning.  Her alarm woke me up (mine was set for 0530), I heard her in the other room, and was looking at my phone alarm when she came in the room and said I needed to get up, that Chevy (the cat) was catatonic (no pun intended) and breathing weird (0402).  I got up and there he was, lying in the closet in a not normal place for him and his breathing was agonal, his eyes were fixed and dilated and he refused to move.  I was in my robe and picked him up.  He was unmoving and his breaths were coming even sharper but shallower.  I went downstairs to my recliner and held him until he died in my arms.  The best we can figure out, he was between 14 and 15.  E got a blanket and we wrapped him up.  She had to go to work, we hugged and kissed and had some tears and she had to leave.  She has to go send people to emergencies and can’t have an emotional day from the beginning (good luck with that).

ROTTEN CAT!!!!!!

E and I began living together over 13 years ago (this year we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary).  She had a rescue dog named Sam I Am (Dr. Seuss fame) and this rotten rescue cat named Chevy (after the comedian/actor Chevy Chase).  Sam and I got along well as long as I was not in uniform (for some reason he hated uniforms).  Chevy didn’t warm up to me right away as is the wont of cats.  After a few months, our relationship began as he would walk by me and I would pull his tail.  He would pull it out of my hand and then walk back by swishing it at me.  After a while, if I didn’t pull his tail, he would slap me with it.  Stupid cat liked the game.  He never was interested in chasing a laser pointer or any other games.  Occasionally he would bat his bell ball around the floor.  But he sure loved the tail game.  He also loved to  have catnip in his scratch pad.  He would sniff it, roll in it, eat it, boy that cat would get stoned on it and then just lay around.  He also thought that shoe laces were the best thing since ground catnip.  He was never a lap cat, he wasn’t interested in being picked up or held and would fight it if you did.

We moved into our new house 8 years ago and he now had a larger area to explore.  I worked late into the night and we fell into a routine.  I would come home, do my chores, make my dinner and eat it and after I was done, he would climb up on the couch next to me and lay there.  We lost Sam 4 1/2 years ago and Chevy definitely felt it.  He would lay where Sam used to on the floor and not move until you made him.  He then started wanting to be with us.  He would get up on the couch next to one of us and demand to be petted.  If you didn’t he would reach out and pat you until you paid attention to him.  If he didn’t know where you were in the house, he would walk through the house calling loudly until you answered him.  Just a rotten cat.

I thought he was going to die last year.  He became lethargic and wouldn’t get up, wasn’t eating.  We took him to the vet and found out he had low thyroid problems.  The vet put him on medication for it.  Hmmmm, choices, we had to either stuff a pill down his throat or try to disguise it in some food……well, the stuffing worked out about like you would expect and he would pick it out of the food and spit it out.  So….let’s crush it and mix it with tuna juice or something.  That worked for a bit until he decided he didn’t like tuna juice.  We tried chicken stock…no luck.  Then inspiration hit R.P.  She processes a baked chicken each week for lunches and there are the usual leftovers from the processing.  She boiled it down and produces a home made chicken stock….mixed the pill in and the rotten cat loved it, of course it had all the fats still in it.  So for the last year R.P. has made rotten, spoiled cat soup and freezes it to be used.  Rotten, spoiled cat.  We have had to have a cat/house sitter when we go anywhere because the rotten cat needs pills fixed for him.  Thank goodness for the neighbors, L&L,  Lois just loves our rotten cat and would come over and spend hours with him when we were gone out of town and give him his pills.  He would even play with her, rotten cat.

Two days ago he didn’t eat his pill and he was off his food routine.  He has done this in the past for a couple days here and there, so it was no big worry.  He has been in his regular routine of pestering us on the couch at night and talking to us so no real concerns.  He had taken to trying to sleep on a forbidden bed in the house and so was shooed off of it a number of times.

Then E finds him this morning.  He was beyond medical attention.  I believe that his system just gave up and that he just died.  There was no time to take him to the vet, I felt him go lifeless in my arms.

As I sit here and write this, I just buried him in the front yard under the big maple next to his friend Sam.  I hope that Sam was waiting for him over the rainbow bridge and will guide him and keep him well.  Don’t know if cats even have the ability to process the knowledge that we loved him and will miss him.  I hope that he was comforted in his last seconds in my arms as I held him, but probably not because he was a…

ROTTEN CAT