I never thought Rocky would be the first to go.
Of my three cats, he was definitely the most energetic. And rambunctious. And just plain bumptious.
In fact, often he was an insufferable narcissist, demanding first crack at the food dish, the attention, the fun spots. Munchkin would stake a claim on a box sitting in the corner of the dinette or a comfy spot on the living room love seat; and it would belong to Rocky, instead, in a matter of hours. He would happily, gleefully steal both hers and Andy’s food if I wasn’t there to referee him. And I did a LOT of refereeing. My favorite words for him were “Rocky, stealing food does NOT make it taste better!”
I wasn’t always the most patient with him. He loved people and got along great with the humans in the house… relationships with other cats were different. In fact, when he first came to my house, he got along so poorly with Andy and Munchkin that I kept him separated in the basement. But after a few years, I decided he deserved to come up a few times a week. He’ll only learn to get along with the others if he’s exposed to them, I remembered. So, I did. And he and the others fought, jockeyed for position, and grew, after months-to-years, to tolerate each other.
A few times a week upstairs turned into permanently free movement throughout the house and basement. And happily, he proved to be more responsible with both human things and feline feelings than I had thought he’d be. He never pooped on the carpet, like Munchkin is known to do. He used his litter box and kept his coat in top shape. He liked to jump on furniture, but he was careful to mind the breakables.
Best of all: Rocky knew the top of my bed was a sacred place. A place, when I was not occupying it, for kitties to rest and sun themselves— NOT a litterbox, NOT a vomitorium, NOT a place to foul where you sleep. He was a good steward of the top of my bed, and he lay there in contentment many a sunny afternoon.
He still always got along better with Andy than with Munchkin. Maybe it’s that male bonding thing, or maybe she never forgave him for usurping all her favorite resting spots.
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Rocky used to be called Ithaca, by his previous owner. An elderly acquaintance of my Mom’s, Miss G, was moving from Colorado to Phoenix, into a retirement home that only allowed one cat. As Ithaca was Cat #2, it was either go back to the animal shelter or have us take him in. Miss G and my family chose option #2.
That was about 2010 or 2011. My Mom called him “Reddy Kilowatt” for his energy and his striking red-orange color. I thought at the time he was about five years old.
Then I noticed when I called him Reddy Kilowatt, he kind of gave me a funny look. So I took the approach Cleveland Amory did when naming his cat in The Cat Who Came For Christmas, running names by him and seeing his response. He seemed to perk up at the name “Rocky”, so that one stuck. (A lot of the time I just called him “orange guy” or “orange dude”, though. His response to those was neither approving nor disapproving.)
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Andy, the gray cat in the pictures, is 17. He has been guzzling large quantities of water every day for the last several years— a common sign of chronic kidney disease. Kidney disease is to senior cats what heart disease is to humans: extremely common, up to 1 out of every 2 cats will eventually die of it. And so I took a little extra vigilance with him compared to the others, watching out for his health and, of course, making sure everybody got plenty of fresh water.
Rocky was slightly younger, at 14 or possibly 15. And I had no reason to be worried about him beyond normal aging.
One month ago, I was working my last day at school before the holiday. All the furkids were at home, hanging around, and I was getting ready for my upcoming holiday job.
One month ago, I had no idea Rocky would only have a month to live.
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I first noticed something was wrong early on Christmas Eve. Rocky ate two small bites of canned food and then turned his head away, not interested. I told myself, he’ll just eat dry food later. Tomorrow is Christmas, and he’ll be sure to eat then. I always get several flavors of fancy cat food for my kitties’ Christmas dinner, and this year it was Tastes Of The Wild with trout and salmon, Newman’s Own chicken stew, and Dad’s Seafood Dinner in gravy.
Andy and Munchkin dove into their Christmas dinner with gusto. Rocky wouldn’t even take a bite. I was shocked. Then I petted him, and his lower backbone felt much more prominent than before.
It had now been almost 36 hours and as far as I could tell, he’d eaten nothing. Not eating for a sustained period of time is a sign of BAD things to come in a cat. He was also much more lethargic than usual. He was no longer bullying the other cats or strutting around like he owned everything… but what a terrible way for someone to become a more pleasant companion!
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I watched him for a few days, and after Christmas, he resumed eating— but not enough. Two teaspoons of canned food morning and night, and no dry food. I finally took him in to the vet on the 31st.
She said that he had pretty severe kidney disease based on his lab work. Cue me being surprised again— two cats with kidney disease in the house? Rocky was not a water guzzler like Andy, and he was younger than Andy… or was he? Cats can be notoriously difficult to age, and while I was under the impression he was 14 or 15, he might have in fact been older than Andy for all I know.
She also noticed his belly was a little distended, and asked if I’d noticed. I said I had, but I thought that was only in relation to his increasingly knobby spine. She said while examining him, she thought his abdominal sounds were a little muffled, and that combined with the distension suggested some kind of abdominal effusion. She wanted to do an ultrasound with collection and examination of the fluid. I wanted to do it, for curiosity if nothing else. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford the $355 price tag.
So I used my old medical training and attempted a differential diagnosis. Since nothing suggesting liver or heart problems turned up on labs or the physical exam, the most likely causes of free abdominal fluid would be: severe kidney disease, cancer, or FIP (feline infectious peritonitis, one of the worst viral infections your cat can get). None of them good. All very likely terminal.
I braced myself for the worst. I did have enough money to buy a bag of Plasmalyte fluid and some needles, to give Rocky fluid subcutaneously. His kidney problems had left him dehydrated, and I wanted to help him out at home.
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Through the coming days, as Rocky shriveled Andy grew plumper and more robust. Now I had to watch Andy to make sure he wasn’t stealing Rocky’s food. I joked that Andy was a vampire, sucking out Rocky’s life force to give himself youth and vitality.
Rocky’s energy and appetite did improve, but only a little. His favorite foods were Friskies Mariner’s Catch and Fancy Feast Cod, Sole & Shrimp. Rocky ate his two teaspoons of food morning and night, jumped up on the bed, hung around with Andy, and in general was happier and in better spirits.
And he got thinner and thinner.
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On Thursday the 16th, he stopped eating again, and stopped drinking water. Now I knew the gig was up— it was only a matter of time at this point. I upped his SQ fluids and started leaving towels and blankets all around the house.
Most touching of all, in his last days he seemed to be trying to fulfill a bucket list— climbing up onto the counter, jumping on furniture he hadn’t jumped on in a while, even joining me in the bathroom while I was taking a shower! He'd always been trying to get in the shower to drink out of the leaky bathtub faucet (which, in retrospect, may have been a sign of his kidney problems even if he wasn’t drinking a lot out of his water dish). I explained to him that sorry, the faucet was fixed now and didn’t drip anymore; but if he wanted to, I could turn it on for him to just a trickle. After I finished my shower, I did just that— and dude climbed into the wet bathtub, reached out to the water stream with his paw, and even sipped a little from it!
Later that night, I put him on a pile of towels at the foot of my bed, but he climbed up my nightstand and got in bed with me. Even though I don’t sleep well with cats in the bed, I let him do it… I didn’t need to be anywhere early the next day as I was working only in the afternoon.
He thought this might be the last time he’d be able to jump up on my bed, and indeed that turned out to be the case. He wanted to cross that off his bucket list, and quickly.
That was Thursday night. Over the next two days his decline accelerated. He became too weak to climb up anything, then to walk into the next room. His last day on earth consisted of getting up, walking a few inches, then slumping again to the floor, repeat many more times. I gave him fluids, attempted to drip some water in his mouth with a wet paper towel (all I succeeded in doing was spilling the water all over the floor), placed him on blankets, and petted and loved him. Andy sat on the back of the couch, watching over us. Munchkin just kept her distance.
Each morning, I woke up, expecting to find him gone, only to see him lying in the living room, still breathing, still moving his head at the sound of me approaching, still living to fight another day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Finally, I went to bed at 1 a.m. Sunday. Rocky was lying on a soft bath towel, breathing shallowly. I woke up about 8:30 a.m.— and this time, Rocky was well and truly gone. His last bit of strength had finally left him.
I was so glad he had gone peacefully. Things could have been a lot worse. I was the most afraid of him falling off my bed or the couch and breaking bones. I was also worried he would go while I was out, without me getting another chance to love him and say goodbye.
I hope I made him more comfortable in his last days, and I know the Rainbow Bridge is a welcoming place where he will meet all my past furkids. I will miss his beautiful soft fur and his slight little purr, and the way he titled his head when I scratched the sides of his chin to give him more.
Farewell, my little orange guy. I love you!