34 Hours Later

By Friday morning I'd decided I might not wait until Monday. I talked to Kris and Julie and Candy at work and after talking to them, I'd decided to call Dr. Absher's office and say I'd bring him in Saturday morning.

It was Kris who helped. She fosters cats and is very sensitive. When I told her about his disinterest in bladder control, that shook her. She only gives up on cats at the last moment, but when she heard that, her immediate reaction was that he'd given up and was telling me that by not using his litter box.

At 4:00 I called and told them and Lindsey said I could bring him in anytime after 8:15 am.

I stayed up with him all night. I watched him rest. I watched his labored breathing. I saw him refuse food. I watched him walk a few feet and have to lay down to rest before continuing. I saw him ignore a dangly-string toy.

Finally this morning at 8:00 he had his last chance. He tried. He ate a bite of the a/d, the high-fat high-palatability food that he wouldn't really be able to eat because it would aggravate his pancreatitis. I saw him walk to the kitchen to drink water. I noted that he'd been drinking quite a bit all night and hadn't urinated. He had to walk the 15 feet to his water bowl in stages. He had to stop to rest along the way. When he got there, he had to lay down with his head over the bowl to drink instead of stand. Then he finished drinking and urinated in the kitchen. But watching him drink, I knew that this really was time for him to go.

He meowed a little when I put him in his carrier. Usually he's screaming. He was quiet during the ride. Usually he meows. When I put his carrier on the bench in the vet's waiting room, he was silent... usually he's screaming. It's his distinctive characteristic, and even Thursday when we were there, Mary had noticed how quiet he was.

They really got attached to him at the vet's office. I thought it was just me, and them being nice, but Lindsey told me that he was the first cat they'd be euthanizing that they'd gotten attached to. Well, she's only been there a year or so and Mary just a couple of years. But they did love him, and that was why I was so glad to have him board with them.

So it's done. I don't know the timing, but he's probably gone now. After Thursday, they must have known it was coming, and Lindsey agreed that it was better to do it now before he started feeling totally miserable. Actually, with not eating, he'd be just starving himself anyway. Hard to believe it's been almost 10 years since Comet left. Probably the white-kitty is gone too. Now Popeye's kitty spirit will rejoin all the other kitty spirits.