Farewell, Cleo

I had Cleo put down this morning.  It was harder than I realized, we have not had an animal need intervention before.

She had injured her leg and after rounds of antibiotics, no change.  She was still in a great mood, eating and purring and loving being petted.  I kept putting it off and putting it off, convincing myself it looked a little better, that she was still getting around, that she was still seeking us out for affection.
I did not sleep last night, I woke up at 12:17 and laid there until I finally peeled myself out of bed this morning.  It wasn't getting better.  The vet had given us a new type of meds that were a 'last resort' for badly infected puncture wounds, but a full week into the 10 day round, it was not looking any better. The vet suspected snake or spider bite, the wound was necrotic.  She wasn't acting like she was in pain because the nerves were too damaged to feel it.

I had decided to wait until Saturday to decide if she needed intervention, so Matt could help.  But after feeding her her med-laced food and using wipes to clean her face and body, I realized this is what my life has become.  Every day I watch her, all day long.  I shovel her poop into holes I dig for her, I poison ants (with borax) when they start making lines toward her leg, I clean her bedding and wash her body and spray her leg with peroxide and work a doll brush through her tangled hair, which had begun to fall out in clumps. I have not gone anywhere in nearly 3 weeks.  I didn't want to give up hope, but how fair was it to keep her in this limbo?

Yesterday, she changed locations about a dozen times requiring hourly searches to relocate her in order to keep the dogs from harassing her.  I was taking Nia and Murph out myself all last week, never letting either out of my sight.  It was constant reminding the kids to watch for the cat, daily prayers that she would pass easily in the night.  I was so stressed.

Today, I found her under a car, then under the porch, then splayed on the sidewalk, then on the porch, then in the mint and I finally realized she just can't get comfortable.  That was a change, but not for the better.  I went out and tried to soothe her and she just yowed.  The vet had said I would 'know when it was time'.  I didn't understand it until I did.

I went in to get a basket and a towel.  She purred as I carried her to the van.  She purred as I talked to her going down the road.  She purred as I held her for the vet to examine one last time, her body so hot, her face pressed into my neck.   The fever was new.  I took her to the vet a week ago and she was running normal.  Over the weekend, she felt cat-temp.  Today, it was like holding a sunbeam.

I signed the paperwork saying I gave permission to euthanize her.  That to my knowledge she had not bitten anyone.  The staff at the vet's office was so kind.  I had envisioned being scolded for choosing to put her to sleep, or being debated or talked into trying yet another type of medication.  But none of that happened, they were gentle with us both.

The first shot, she did not even flinch.  She purred and we petted her and I cried and cried and cried, tears splashing off my sandals, running under my feet so that later, every step, I squelched.  She went very limp and the vet gave me a minute.  I adjusted her body on the towel and helped her close her eyes.  I rubbed her head until her last purr faded and she was breathing shallowly and I rubbed her as clean as I could with the combo of baby wipes and copious amounts of tears I had on hand.  It didn't seem right for her to be dirty, she was always messing with herself, fighting that long fur to lay smooth.  Cats are filthy.  I wiped her feet, her mouth, made sure her ears were clean inside.  Got the fur smoothed down her spine.  She was so thin, this cat who, in her prime, was a hefty 13 pounds was now just over 5.

The next shot was a tiny pink goo-filled syringe.  It took a couple of seconds to get it all in her leg. The vet set the needle down and listened for a heartbeat.  She was gone.  It was that fast.  She never seemed stressed or scared or hurt, even the car ride in wasn't hard.  She drifted off being petted and if there is any justice in the universe, that is where she still is hovering-in that memory of that feeling of no pain and many hands, of running her purr engine and making biscuits on the old towel I had wrapped her in.

The vet arranged her body like she was asleep and placed her in a bag that she taped off.  I paid at the desk and went back in the room to get her.  The bag was hot, that poor cat.  I feel so horrible for both letting her wait so long and for letting her go so soon.  She still had 4 days of meds left.
But they were not helping at all, the vet told me during the exam that the only thing left to try was amputating it and she doubted Cle would survive the anesthesia.

At home, I dug a spot outside my window.  It's not where the rest of our pets are buried and I hope she doesn't mind.  The bag was still warm as I lowered it into the hole, careful to keep her arranged in a comfortable cat curl.  I put a double stack of brick on top because the very last thing I want is to walk outside next week and see shredded green plastic and ecstatic dogs.

Of the 4 cats we have had for well over a decade, Wonder is the only one left.  After Muta disappeared, Wonder has stuck close to the house, despite the fact that Murphy and Nia are little shits to her.  There is a stray orange male kitten who has moved in to the shed.  While he seems sweet and I have not seen him mess with Wonder, efforts are underway to trap him to take to the pound.  I can't do it any longer. I don't want more pets.  I don't know if it's my age or the fact that I thought we HAD to have animals for the kids-who really don't seem to notice we have pets-or the fact that a 'quick' exam at the vet is now $160 a dog. Or if it's the weekly washing of the vacuum filters because they get clogged with dog hair.  Or if it was losing Zephyr and then Kaiju.  Something along the way fell off my personal radar and I feel done.

I can only hope dogs do what dogs are supposed to do and decline quickly and die at home after just a day or two of illness. If I have to put down Jessie or Kuma, I will break.

I don't know what the future holds.  On the way to the vet, I told Cleo to find me again, when I was ready.  She meowed once, and was quiet.  I talked non-stop the whole way and that was the only time she replied.  So maybe, when I am 70 and ready to stop running around so much, I'll go to the pound and see a little grey stripped long-haired kitten with green eyes and a meow like a bell and I'll say, "Well, hello there Cleo Della Rosa, how have you been?"  and she will say, "Meow".  And I will be forgiven.

maybe

Happy Birthday Cleo!

We have had Cleo 4 years today.
She was about a year old when we found her, possibly 2 years old, according to the vet when we took her in to be fixed.  He said she had tartar on her adult teeth.
I have no idea when her actual birthday is, so today is as good as any.

A couple weeks after we got her, I did not take any of her before that because she was so skinny and sick, I did not think she would live and we all agreed we would be sad to see those pictures later.
Little did I know!

Now, she is a full grown lovely kitty, if a little mentally imbalanced...

And now, she's seen where you live.
bwahahaha!

Wontin' and Gettin'

Taking a 13 year old boy to get a hair cut can actually be one of those experiences you look back on in the future and wonder if it was all worth it. I mean, the hair will be right back in his eyes because in this period of time for him, EVERYTHING grows at an alarming rate and most of it smells a little off if it's been more than an hour since their last shower.

I had him scrub his head first thing yesterday when we woke up and while he was in the shower, I made an appointment to have his hair cut. We headed down to the shop, him glaring and growling from under his fringe, me humming along with the radio. When we got there, I said, "If you will be a good boy and sit still while the nice lady trims your hair, I will get you ice cream." He snarled and made some guttural noises.

We walked in and she took one look at his wild, still-dampened locks streaming in all directions, winced and said, "Are you wontin' a hair cut, or are you gettin' a hair cut?"

I think that is about the best way to sum up life in general, not just giant little skulking boys who once had shiny brown eyes. I know he had eyes at one point, because you have a picture of them. Sometimes you get it, whether you wanted it or not. And sometimes you don't get it, no matter how much you wanted it. Wanting and getting. Or, if you live in rural Alabama, wontin' and gettin'.

After the trim-she was very kind and clucked and fussed and was easy with the comb-I was once again reunited with the shiny brown eyes I had been missing. They were full of spit and vinegar, but 13 and 3 are nearly identical phases, I knew he would be distracted by something else soon enough-especially now that he could see again.

I paid the $10 and thanked the lady, looked back at the tumble and fall of the 6 inches of his hair now littering the chair and floor. There was a quick hitch in my breath, I am often just behind myself in reactions, I do-then think. It wasn't the cutting his hair, it was the leaving it behind to be swept up and discarded. It was a piece of my child to me, a mess to be swept up to her.

A few months back, we came home with a van full of abandoned kittens we had found out geocaching. We placed what we could, kept one and after much thought, decided to take the last 2 to the pound. I researched and found a local animal shelter that had an 90% success rate in placing pets. It helped if they were young, attractive and healthy. We had adopted through their program twice and send a small donation in on each of the dogs' adoption day every year. We have also helped foster dogs for them in the past.

We took them in one afternoon to drop off and were told we could not drop them there because we did not reside in that county. Our county animal shelter has a 40% success rate. I sobbed all the way home. We could not find a home for them-I had tried for 2 months-we could not afford to keep them, Matt's job was secure, but his take home for the year was cut 20% to keep it that way. There has not been extra money in months.

Finally, a friend who lives in that county said she did not mind running them in and we arranged it, dropped them off and I headed home very happy about the way things had turned out. She called on the way to take them to the shelter and asked a couple questions, their age and sex and so on, so she could better pull off them being 'her' cats. In the background, her daughter asked something and she told her, "We don't need to know their names."

After I hung up, I cried a long time. Their names were River and Simon, they were sibling cats. What had I done? Now no one would ever know their real names, they would not be adopted out together, River in particular was the most beautiful cat I had ever seen and we kept Tuesday Jane, the plain orange tabby who was not regal at all, she laid with her back legs splayed all over the place and had a rusty purr and big wide eyes on a wide, flat face. Was she even really a cat? She could have been some alien posing as a cat and now I was stuck with her.

Then Ben came in and scooped her up, telling her she was his friend cat and they went outside to play with a stick and some string.

And I realize now, it's just another case of wontin' and gettin'. We saved those kittens back in November and they did not freeze to death or get run over. They got fed, got homes-the 2 animal shelter drop-offs were adopted, but not together. And we have 4 other rescue cats already. I wanted to keep them all, we got to keep one. I wanted the pretty one, we got to keep the one Ben loved.

At some point, it becomes what you can realistically do. You let go of this to make room for that. Possessions, people, family, animals and even emotions.

And Jake managed to let go of being pissed about his shearing almost as soon as he got back in the van. He sat down, buckled up, looked at me and said, "I want my ice cream."

He got what he wanted.