Another lovely goddam Monday! Why does all the unpleasant shit in life happen on Monday?
So, one of our cats (the female) was not feeling well last week so we took her to the vet. The wife noticed she hadn't been eating and she was listless and meowing a lot. The vet ran some tests, took some blood work, etc. and told us she had a kidney infection and was constipated. No big thing, we got some medicine for her and thought everything would be good. Well, we got the call this morning from the vet: the cat has CRF (Complete Renal Failure) to a highly advanced degree. She's also old (16 years) and not in great health to begin with. We have some treatment options but the vet wants to meet with us tomorrow to discuss what they are. The wife is taking this hard, but she's not the problem. My boy is a already a wreck and he doesn't know the whole story yet.
This is HIS cat. This is the one who sleeps with him every night and follows him everywhere he goes in the house. If he sits, she sits. If he moves, she moves. When he watches TV or plays his video games, she' always curled up right in his lap as he does. My boy loves this cat immensely. He's an only child and she's his closest companion. Just the act of taking her to the vet and being sick was enough to set him crying. We have to sit him down tonight and let him know that she's really very sick, with an incurable disease, and we might have to put her to sleep if the treatment options aren't reasonable, or if she doesn't have a good chance of showing major improvement from them.
This fucking sucks.
It's going to be hard for me because I'm not really fond of the cats. The boy knows I don't care for them very much and I'm worried that if the answer is to put her down, he's going to think it's because I don't like cats. (I don't, but neither do I want the poor creature to be sick or die!) Any way it goes, it's gonna be ugly. My son is going to be devastated and that thought puts tears in my eyes. It's going to be a bad night around our house.
Fucking Monday!
Well, at least I got a good bit of writing done today. 4,200 words on the finale of "Fish", all of which I'm pretty happy with. I also did more on the long sysopsis for GS over the weekend. I got through about 3/4 of the story and it reads pretty well. I was gonna do more tonight but (obviously!) that ain't happening! This whole week is gonna be insane. The boy and I are heading for a full week of camping with the Scouts and we have a ton of crap to get ready. Throw the problems with his cat on top of that and mix in the regular insanity of my life and I doubt I'll have time to breathe. I'll try to keep posting but it may not happen. If you don't hear from me this week, please keep a good thought for the cat.
And for my son.
Later.
3 comments:
The loss of a pet is never a good thing. Good luck with the kid tonight. It is not an easy thing. Sending positive thoughts your way.
Thank you both for your thoughts.
Laura: that's a great idea, I think I'll do that. We have plenty of shots of him and the cats, it'll be nice for him to have that by his bed. Thanks for the idea!
JA, you MUST do the photos thing. Laura has it bang-on. I was in the same place as your son, my cat passed away several years ago after 17 years. She was MY cat, in exactly the same way (used to try to follow me to school). Even though I was 25 when she passed it was just as hard. Now I have a nice photo album where I dredged up every pic I could find (went through some closets at my parents place too) and every now and again I run through it. It's been a few years so the edge is softer, but I can really enjoy the memories.
Don't forget to keep the best one in its own special frame on display. I have my cat's photo in the bedroom to this day.
Sending my sympathy to you and your son...
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