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juushikaCW for pet death and COVID-19
We decided to euthanize Gillian on Tuesday March 28th. All these updates come late; this was an exhausting process that began with his dental work in January, went downhill in April/May, and turned terminal in March. Everything is padded out by weeks of doing the work or being exhausted from having done the work.
We were told that if infection were the (primary) issue, we'd see improvement after ~2 days on the second antibiotic; improvement would mean decreased swelling and less visible third eyelid. Symptoms waxed and waned, but there was no significant, permanent improvement in those key areas and there were new symptoms like congestion. This meant there was something else going on, probably cancer, but he wasn't a good candidate even for the exploratory work that would have confirmed the source. As his quality of life was never going to improve, it didn't make sense to prologue moderate annoyance and suffering while courting an inevitable decline.
So I took him off the antibiotics, we scheduled an appointment, and then he had a fantastic last day. No force-feeding meds! Still high on painkillers, great appetite: he ate four meals. (I had a lot of feelings about his "last meal" at dinner, and then felt stupid about it at midnight and then 30mins before the euthanasia, when he ate "last meal, reprise" and "last meal the third.")
August is a blanket-tent cat provided that I'm creating the tent, but Gillian for his entire life found under-blanket discomforting and claustrophobic. He preferred to sandwich himself between two warm/soft things in an arrangement we called the "hotdog." But when he started to get sick, probably because he was always running a minor fever, he discovered the beauty of the blanket tent. He spent most of his last months wrapped in my comforter (easier to wash when he drooled blood on it), only leaving to eat. But on that last day he took a break from the comforter to curl up under my blanket while I watched Devon play video games.
I'm happy about that last day. Taking him off antibiotics was a sign of commitment that made it easier to go through with the euthanasia itself. He had a day with less tummy upset, and there was no reason not to feed him a frankly ridiculous amount of food. He felt safer around me without the threat of another dosing. There's no way to know how long that golden period could have lasted, but he had that day and he never had to get worse.
Insofar as I took Mamakitty's end of life experiences forward into this situation, that reminder that attempting treatment may not ultimately be the best option, I feel like I didn't do anything here I regret—I didn't wait too long, but neither did I overcorrect and give up too early, which I worried might haunt me. The primary vet I worked with told me on one phone consult that it's never too early to consider euthanizing a ~15 year old cat, which was the best single thing that she could have said. Euthanasia isn't just giving up, it's also a compassionate and proactive choice, especially in the face of age and preexisting conditions that render not just treatment but even diagnosis difficult or impossible.
Anyway, the actual appointment as weird as fuck but also totally fine. I had to wear a face mask, and what a weird thing to google during pre-appointment anxiety, "how to no-sew face mask" as if this is a totally normal period in history. I tested for comfort but not, as it turned out, for talking! So I sounded funny, and being physically close to someone other than Devon felt funny, and all that atop the already-heightened emotions of the visit. The thing itself is so fast; COVID-thoughts almost blurred over it. But I stayed with him until his extremities went cold—witnessing the bodily changes of death, handling an obviously-deceased body, helps my memory and comprehension, and I need all the help I can get with grief processing. It didn't even occur to me that I could take off my mask when alone with his body, which was certainly indicative of my mental state. Two ads played on the heartfelt piano music Pandora playlist.
I saved the fur they shaved from the injection site, which I also did for Mamakitty. It makes more sense to me than something like a pawprint, because it's a memory of his body but also of my presence at his death, in the process of his death. (I also save cat whiskers, which is my favorite collection, really—so polite and petite, as collections go; and I like that I don't know which are his, I like the long hairs intermingled, a thousand specific, minute pieces of evidence of these cats interweaving their life with mine.)
And then I was done!
⁂
The house feels so empty. This is the first time in a decade that I've lived with just one cat, the first time August has ever been entirely alone. The grieving period of "replacing" a cat is different when there's still multiple cats in the home. Just one is ... small, vulnerable; I can't shake the impression that if something awful happens it will happen to August, as if multiple cats randomizes the recipient of a catastrophe instead of just ... opening avenues for more catastrophes.
August for her part yells to empty rooms the scream of "I have but a cat-brain, and I can't track events in order to comprehend loss, but there's Less Others here and I'm lonely." At the same time she's velcro'd to me, reveling in uninterrupted mummy-time. It's two halves of nascent separation anxiety. She's a one-person cat who's never liked, oh, well, anyone but me. But she's stimulated and enriched by others in her life; she benefits from them, in a begrudging way.
I browsed a lot of cats up for adoption during Gillian's decline to keep my spirits up in an albeit morbid way: at least when he dies I can get a new cat! I expected to wait a while after he died before actually doing the thing—but, you see, I am/we are miserable. But it's an awful time to want a cat, because I can't just go to a humane society. Adoptions are appointment-only, cats are moving fast particularly in urban areas, and the lag of site listings/application processing/overworked and underfunded shelters doing their best but not always the best is, uhhhhhhhh, it's bad. It's exhausting and demotivating when I have no energy, only want and grief.
I've tried for three cats and got a bite on the third, who I'm driving down to meet next week. After missing the first two, I'm not even going to talk about this one until everything's finalized. I can't keep getting emotionally invested in cats I might never have.* But fingers crossed.
* Except I am invested and am thinking of names. Percy? Burdick? Mouse? Munkustrap, Quaxo, Coricopat?
I was, frankly, fine with quarantine—worried about family, worried about Gillian, but fine re: personal health and socialization. But cats can carry COVID and regardless it's not wise to touch things outside the home, and so it turns that while I can peacefully go months without seeing flesh-people, I can go about a week of touching only one (1) cat before I start to fall apart. They're my real social network, and with just August, in lieu even of neighborhood cats, I'm lonely.
We decided to euthanize Gillian on Tuesday March 28th. All these updates come late; this was an exhausting process that began with his dental work in January, went downhill in April/May, and turned terminal in March. Everything is padded out by weeks of doing the work or being exhausted from having done the work.
We were told that if infection were the (primary) issue, we'd see improvement after ~2 days on the second antibiotic; improvement would mean decreased swelling and less visible third eyelid. Symptoms waxed and waned, but there was no significant, permanent improvement in those key areas and there were new symptoms like congestion. This meant there was something else going on, probably cancer, but he wasn't a good candidate even for the exploratory work that would have confirmed the source. As his quality of life was never going to improve, it didn't make sense to prologue moderate annoyance and suffering while courting an inevitable decline.
So I took him off the antibiotics, we scheduled an appointment, and then he had a fantastic last day. No force-feeding meds! Still high on painkillers, great appetite: he ate four meals. (I had a lot of feelings about his "last meal" at dinner, and then felt stupid about it at midnight and then 30mins before the euthanasia, when he ate "last meal, reprise" and "last meal the third.")
August is a blanket-tent cat provided that I'm creating the tent, but Gillian for his entire life found under-blanket discomforting and claustrophobic. He preferred to sandwich himself between two warm/soft things in an arrangement we called the "hotdog." But when he started to get sick, probably because he was always running a minor fever, he discovered the beauty of the blanket tent. He spent most of his last months wrapped in my comforter (easier to wash when he drooled blood on it), only leaving to eat. But on that last day he took a break from the comforter to curl up under my blanket while I watched Devon play video games.
I'm happy about that last day. Taking him off antibiotics was a sign of commitment that made it easier to go through with the euthanasia itself. He had a day with less tummy upset, and there was no reason not to feed him a frankly ridiculous amount of food. He felt safer around me without the threat of another dosing. There's no way to know how long that golden period could have lasted, but he had that day and he never had to get worse.
Insofar as I took Mamakitty's end of life experiences forward into this situation, that reminder that attempting treatment may not ultimately be the best option, I feel like I didn't do anything here I regret—I didn't wait too long, but neither did I overcorrect and give up too early, which I worried might haunt me. The primary vet I worked with told me on one phone consult that it's never too early to consider euthanizing a ~15 year old cat, which was the best single thing that she could have said. Euthanasia isn't just giving up, it's also a compassionate and proactive choice, especially in the face of age and preexisting conditions that render not just treatment but even diagnosis difficult or impossible.
Anyway, the actual appointment as weird as fuck but also totally fine. I had to wear a face mask, and what a weird thing to google during pre-appointment anxiety, "how to no-sew face mask" as if this is a totally normal period in history. I tested for comfort but not, as it turned out, for talking! So I sounded funny, and being physically close to someone other than Devon felt funny, and all that atop the already-heightened emotions of the visit. The thing itself is so fast; COVID-thoughts almost blurred over it. But I stayed with him until his extremities went cold—witnessing the bodily changes of death, handling an obviously-deceased body, helps my memory and comprehension, and I need all the help I can get with grief processing. It didn't even occur to me that I could take off my mask when alone with his body, which was certainly indicative of my mental state. Two ads played on the heartfelt piano music Pandora playlist.
I saved the fur they shaved from the injection site, which I also did for Mamakitty. It makes more sense to me than something like a pawprint, because it's a memory of his body but also of my presence at his death, in the process of his death. (I also save cat whiskers, which is my favorite collection, really—so polite and petite, as collections go; and I like that I don't know which are his, I like the long hairs intermingled, a thousand specific, minute pieces of evidence of these cats interweaving their life with mine.)
And then I was done!
⁂
The house feels so empty. This is the first time in a decade that I've lived with just one cat, the first time August has ever been entirely alone. The grieving period of "replacing" a cat is different when there's still multiple cats in the home. Just one is ... small, vulnerable; I can't shake the impression that if something awful happens it will happen to August, as if multiple cats randomizes the recipient of a catastrophe instead of just ... opening avenues for more catastrophes.
August for her part yells to empty rooms the scream of "I have but a cat-brain, and I can't track events in order to comprehend loss, but there's Less Others here and I'm lonely." At the same time she's velcro'd to me, reveling in uninterrupted mummy-time. It's two halves of nascent separation anxiety. She's a one-person cat who's never liked, oh, well, anyone but me. But she's stimulated and enriched by others in her life; she benefits from them, in a begrudging way.
I browsed a lot of cats up for adoption during Gillian's decline to keep my spirits up in an albeit morbid way: at least when he dies I can get a new cat! I expected to wait a while after he died before actually doing the thing—but, you see, I am/we are miserable. But it's an awful time to want a cat, because I can't just go to a humane society. Adoptions are appointment-only, cats are moving fast particularly in urban areas, and the lag of site listings/application processing/overworked and underfunded shelters doing their best but not always the best is, uhhhhhhhh, it's bad. It's exhausting and demotivating when I have no energy, only want and grief.
I've tried for three cats and got a bite on the third, who I'm driving down to meet next week. After missing the first two, I'm not even going to talk about this one until everything's finalized. I can't keep getting emotionally invested in cats I might never have.* But fingers crossed.
* Except I am invested and am thinking of names. Percy? Burdick? Mouse? Munkustrap, Quaxo, Coricopat?
I was, frankly, fine with quarantine—worried about family, worried about Gillian, but fine re: personal health and socialization. But cats can carry COVID and regardless it's not wise to touch things outside the home, and so it turns that while I can peacefully go months without seeing flesh-people, I can go about a week of touching only one (1) cat before I start to fall apart. They're my real social network, and with just August, in lieu even of neighborhood cats, I'm lonely.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-16 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-18 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-16 09:17 pm (UTC)I wanted to add that I too collect whiskers -- I've never met anyone else who did!
no subject
Date: 2020-05-18 07:14 am (UTC)I used to read Caitlín R. Kiernan's blog on LJ (I don't think she ever made the change to DW) and she collected whiskers, too. I honestly can't remember if that's where I got the idea, or if I found that out after I'd started, but we're not alone! I'd love to see your collection or details about it. I keep mine in an envelope, it's so boring. (The pic I saw of Kiernan's collection was in a small corked glass vial, which is something I should hunt down someday for the exact purpose--it looked lovely!) But I love how many I've managed to find over the years, and I love how good I've gotten at telling difference between whisker and hair--the base of a whisker has such distinctive shape and tension.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-21 08:14 pm (UTC)I started collecting whiskers as a kid -- I had a whole cigar box full of them, from various dear, departed cats, but it got lost or thrown out when I first moved out of my childhood home. I think I started collecting them because I found them beautiful and liked the feel of them. Now I often stick them in my journal when I find them, and write the cat's name and date. The other day, I was stroking Caper, and one of his longest whiskers came out in my hand, which really surprised me, because obviously I know whiskers fall out, but I've never actually seen/felt it before! He didn't seem to be aware that it had happened.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-26 07:26 pm (UTC)But I was rereading this and I'm just so curious how you know who produces which whisker--different colors, different sleeping spaces, just one cat (right now)? I love the investigating the mystery of a whisker's origin but equally enjoy that I may never know the answer*, esp. depending on where the whisker was located, how the cat's body is changing with age, etc. Naming and dating is the polar opposite of my mystery hodgepodge, and I think it's marvelous.
* although I used to live with a cat with ticked/striped whiskers, which was so beautiful--and easily identifiable.
(I've had a whisker pop off while petting before, too. It must be painless/sensationless(?) because August didn't react either, but it certainly felt distinctive on my end!)
no subject
Date: 2020-06-26 07:37 pm (UTC)I used to keep the whiskers in a hodegepodge in an old cigar box, which was lovely too -- mostly I could tell them apart from one another by colour, as the colour were fairly distinct.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-28 07:19 am (UTC)So August was younger, I was at least mostly able to differentiate the whiskers from my black cats from the whiskers from other household cats; when August's started to go white I could differentiate some of hers from Gillian's. I also have good odds of telling them apart based on texture, ex. August's are longer and curlier, like her fur. But the final collection is a crapshoot, especially because I have so many mini-whiskers from chins and ankles, so length isn't a great indicator.
I love the visual of viewing them against white and seeing the subtle differences; it reminds me of checking the length and texture to determine if it came from August or Gillian. I love that we can know our cats bodies so well and be so connected to them in this small, silly way.