It's been a tough 36 hours. I spent most of last night resting fitfully next to the bony frame of my rapidly failing 23-year-old kitty, Rio (big grey fluffy lump, the Best.Cat.Ever.)
She started fading fast yesterday afternoon, while Youngest Daughter was here. After she left (having said many love-yous, and cuddled for a long goodbye), Hubby and I settled Rio on the bed in The Woman Cave, and watched and waited, and tended to what needs we could discern.
There's more below the Orange Curly-Kos, if you'd care to join me...
We got our little grey fluffball in October of 1991, she and her brother (who ended up with the rather unfortunate name of Diamond). Our youngest was 4, oldest 14, Molly-in-the-Middle was 11.
Rio outlived our oldest daughter by 16 years...was part of the family for almost four years longer than Emmy (who died just short of her 20th birthday), which is an odd thought for me...and explains in part why her loss hits so hard. She was around a long fucking time. 23 is about 109 in human years. Her litter-mate, Diamond, died at age 7, of shock following surgery, right on Emmy's heels. So Rio stands, for our family, as by FAR the longest-lived pet, in the whole mix of cats, fish, mice & a couple of birds here and there.
So yeah, it was a long night.
Hubby and I sat on either side of her, taking turns stroking her back, and gently petting the so-soft-you-could-barely-feel-it fluff behind her ears. We told her we loved her. We told her she was the Best.Cat.Ever. Her unrelated four-footed companion, Layla Babycat, age 12, wandered in and out, flipping from attention-starved, to curious, to seemingly indifferent to everything but the strings on my sweatshirt hood. Rio would occasionally lift her head, with effort; sometimes she was silent, and at others she would vocalize a little low, mournful yowl, sounding more confused and discombobulated than anything. A light touch from either of us would soothe her, and she'd rest again. We talked little, ignored the teevee machine in the background and finally turned to the blues music channel, and mostly sat silent, focused on Rio and on our own memories of her years with us, and our grief at facing losing her.
Hubby retired to his room at about 10, asking me to wake him if I needed help, or if she worsened, and I settled in to try to make her as comfortable as I could until we could get her to a vet in the morning and ease her on her way.
It wasn't easy. She was losing control of her back legs, and couldn't arrange her body without help. If she tried to walk anywhere, she was stumbling like a drunk on a Saturday night. Her once-beautiful jade green eyes were cloudy, and she seemed bewildered. I moved her food and water into The Cave, although she wasn't much interested in either, even when placed right under her nose. I left them within easy reach, and tried to help her into a position where she could rest. She seemed relatively comfortable, and either asleep our just plain out of it much of the time, but it was hard to tell since her eyes remained open.
I drifted off myself, and awoke with a start to find her swaying at the edge of the bed, and before I could stop her, she jumped off and crawled underneath. I lay still for a bit, wondering if I should leave her there, or if I should try to retrieve her. After a few minutes, I got up just to check and see how she looked, and she wasn't there. Panic. Where the hell could she have gotten to so fast, with her difficulty moving?? Did I fall asleep again? I must have...shit. SHIT...
I got up and checked the litter box, which we had moved upstairs: nope. Not there. Her favorite chair in the living room? Nope. Guest room, under the vanity? YES - there she was, fully reclined and looking utterly exhausted, breathing rapidly but very shallowly.
I went to the camping gear, grabbed a self-inflating one-person mattress, and set up a bed next to her. That lasted about two hours, maybe a little more...when she lurched and tried to get up again. Picked her up (gently, oh so gently...she's so fragile...) and back to The Woman Cave, where I once again tried to get her settled on the bed. Arranged myself around her so I was near, and could touch her, but please, please, not roll over on her if I fell hard asleep...and desperately wishing there were a humane, legal, safe way to euthanize one's beloved furbabies at home, and dreading having to subject her to a ride in the car in the morning...
The rest of the night was uneventful, other than scant sleep and starting up every time she raised a head, or made a sound...and the memories.
I remembered nagging my girls about leaving the hall light on all night, and they SWORE they were turning it off, and then I happened upon Rio, leaping into the air to grab the pull chain in her teeth and turning the thing on herself! I thought of Diamond's death, and of her period of mourning for him, poking her nose into his favorite sleeping corner, near the heat vent to the left of the old untuned piano that had been left in the house when we moved in, and she'd cry and cry and cry. The move to that house in the first place, which utterly freaked her out, caused her to escape her box in the car, take refuge under the front passenger seat, latch her claws into the carpet, and caused Hubby to have to remove the entire damn seat so I could unlatch her claws, one by one, and get her into the house, where she hid in a cobwebbed corner of the basement for two days before venturing out. Training her to roll over on command, and asking her, "Will you hold my hand?" and waiting for her to offer a paw...or for her to give nose kisses when asked...she was the Best.Cat.Ever.
She survived the night, amazingly. I woke to find Hubby curled carefully around Rio on the other side of my bed, silently weeping as he stroked her head. I untangled myself from the blanket I don't remember having wrapped myself in, and stumbled to the kitchen for coffee. Came back to The Cave and embraced them both as best I could without squishing either, and then started making phone calls. I had a training session I was supposed to deliver for a client at 2pm, and my brain was trying to plan a schedule that would allow us to get to the vet, get me home, allow time to get cleaned up and try to diminish the size of my tear-swollen face so I could be "ON!!!" for three hours in the midst of all this heartbreak.
No appointments available until mid-afternoon at the first two vets. Crap. Get out of the city, try the small surrounding towns - maybe less busy - and behold, not only a timely appointment, but the first expression of sympathy I'd heard from any of the three I'd called, which meant a ton at that particular moment. Scramble to clean up sufficiently to appear in public (such as it might be for this sad occasion), find her favorite blanket, wrap her up (gently, gently!!) Hubby cradled Rio and I drove in an odd mix of bat out of hell (on the rural straightaways) and insanely over-cautious (at intersections and around corners). Ignored the STUPID GPS on Hubby's phone which seemed to want us to wind up two counties away in the middle of a lake and went with analog: chicken scratch on paper as noted from Teh Google Map Thingy on the peecee machine.
Greeted instantly, kindly and by name by the receptionist who'd been human on the phone, and immediately taken to an exam/procedure room. Hubby transferred the Best.Cat.Ever. to my arms so I could have my last turn to cuddle her. The vet, a lovely young woman who appeared to be about 17 years old, came in within moments. She explained the procedure, took our questions, handed us the box of tissue, and sedated our Big Grey Baby in preparation for the injection that would stop her heart.
I know she knew she was in a good place for a good reason.
She didn't start or struggle when we walked in (which was her normal reaction any other time she had been taken in for vetting). She didn't react when a dog was brought in to the outer office & barked loudly. She didn't flinch when the sedation injection was given. She lay in my arms and went even limper than she'd been, which I didn't think possible. The vet said she'd give us some time with her, and for the sedation to really take effect, before she came back to give the final injection.
Half a box of tissue and much blubbering later, she tapped gently on the door and came back in. We laid Rio on the exam table, cushioned by the blanket in which we'd brought her. Doc tried to find a vein in her leg; no luck. Other leg - OK. Injection given. Wait and watch. Check her heart. Wait some more. "I'll be right back" says Doc, gently, and returns with another injection and tells us she will put it directly into Rio's heart. We nod. She injects. We wait. She checks. She leaves, and returns, and does it again. And one more time.
Three injections directly into her good, tough, Best.Cat.Ever. heart. I am SO GLAD we didn't delay in bringing her in: she probably would have lingered for days, or even weeks, and that just was not going to happen. She was just like my Mom, velvet iron, tough as nails under a sweet soft cuddly exterior.
After she was free, the vet told us to take all the time we liked before we left; we were not being rushed out in any way. We rushed out pretty fast anyway, wanting to take our baby home and leave the stench of death at the vet's behind us.
It followed us anyway, and it came on fast- surprised me how quickly she went from being my sweet-smelling big fluffy lazy lump, to smelling putrid, decayed...
We rocked her anyway, cradled her anyway, held her and stroked her and said goodbye some more. We found a box and lined it with her blanket, and tucked her into it (gently, still so gently!) I scattered over her the dried petals from my birthday flowers, and tucked in beside her the still vivid rose from Mothers Day.
Youngest Daughter came after work and brought Forget-me-nots. We found a spot in the garden near her cat, Charlie, who was hit by a car some years back, and prepared a spot for our big old girl. We wrapped the blanket around her, stroked her one last time, and settled her (gently) in her final resting place, surrounded by woodland flowers, and shaded by a beautiful flowering crab apple tree, whose blooms just started opening today. We tucked her in, and planted the flowers smack in the middle of her spot, and placed a beautiful cobalt glass plate (missing a chunk off one side, but I save EVERYTHING) as a marker resembling a rising blue sun, right behind the flowers.
I'm hoping that, as soon as she crossed the Rainbow Bridge, she flew straight into the lap of my Mom, with whom she had a mutual adoration society thing goin' on. Her brother, Diamond, will be in my daughter Emmy's lap (he was HER favorite) and they'll all have a grand reunion.
She leaves a really really big kitty-shaped hole in our hearts. Thanks for reading her story. The thought of crawling into bed tonight and not worrying about squishing her, or kicking her in my sleep, is breaking my heart. I'm so grateful she's free of pain, but I want my sweet-smelling, soft-as-a-cloud kitty back in my bed.
She'd better visit me in my dreams. R.I.P., Rio, my beloved fur-baby. You were the Best.Cat.Ever.
Tue May 20, 2014 at 6:47 AM PT: Update: Y'all made me cry, putting Rio on the Rec List - my heart is melting.