My heart is breaking. To the local Vet for $471 for the euthanasia and a cremation where I receive her ashes and buy an urn. She yesterday seem to be letting me know she has had enough of life.
Darling Clarycat — summer 2017
Yesterday at 10 am or so Clarycat lay down on her side in the enclosed porch; she could no longer sit up without falling back. She seemed unable to walk. She never ate any tuna in the early morning. About 11:30 I put her in a cat-bed and brought her into my study and she lay there near me all day. When I tried to pick her up for supper, she just collapsed on the floor. I tried to reach the Mobile Vet by phone and was not surprised to be told by a tape this was off hours and if it was an emergency call something like the ASPCA. I emailed them and got one of these studiedly indifferent notes I remember from Kaiser when Jim was dying. They said they had no appts early this week, didn’t come after 5 pm but maybe could make it Tuesday after 3:30 (the time I asked). Of course no price cited. So after a while I said I would contact the other vet and see what they offered.
But this morning I found her on the other side of my bed (I had taken the cat-bed into my bedroom) and she walked. I carried her into the kitchen and she ate about 3/4s of a can of tuna. She tried to walk again, did not manage but has not given up on life altogether. She is not immediately dying. Now I will phone the other local Vet and try to make an appt for check-up and/or euthanasia, ask the price and if they cremate and will sell me some form of urn. I will do that with the Mobile Vet. The Mobile Vet has now lost my trust. Dr Hood never herself responded. This reminds me of Kaiser where no doctor but Wiltz ever got on a phone for Jim no matter what — even when he began to bleed to death– I don’t know if I ever told you of that experience. Read it here:
Oddly crazily a burden of guilt I have carried since my dog died (I was 31 or so) is now lifted. My dog was dying, lying on the bathroom tiles and I didn’t know what to do. I had no regular vet, no car — my father had been paying for cancer treatments but we had given these up. I somehow got the number of someone it was said who would come and take the dog, put her to sleep in front of me (not dead, just sleep) and take her away and euthanize her. My dog looked dead, all but dead. I let this happen. The man came, injected her so that she would be sleeping now and took her away. It was 2 in the morning. I have ever since been so guilty. Well last night the Mobile Vet told me of some service that does this. What do they do with these animals has troubled me all these years. I was hysterical and Jim no use. He kept saying it’s only a dog.. He did not appear to grieve. I could not bear the idea of her dying on me. I did not know what to do. Jim was not always of use; he was especially bad over ill health, either his own or someone else’s.
This morning for the first time I realized this is common. It happens all the time 🙂 who knew? I was so young. I think to myself this morning that I should have waited until morning and phoned my father; he’d have come over and found a vet for us. But who knows? not right away and he lived in Queens and I in the Bronx and who knows if he’d have said to phone that number.
Clary was attached to Jim; she would sit in his lap on the front chair he preferred for years. She sat by him for the months in bed. When he was close to death, the last few days, she began to make caw-caw-cawing sounds; she would trot back and forth in the hall between the front of the house and the bedroom — where she had been sitting by his side also when he tried to sleep. When he died she sat in that front chair for about three weeks. Then slowly she transferred her attachment to me.
Listen to Judi Dench recite: When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state:
After a lifetime of aloneness and exclusion, if I thought on Jim he was my lark, and my Clarycat is what I have left of him living with me.
I am not taking her in today because I have lecture notes for tomorrow to do, and an Every-Other-Week Trollope group to attend. I want to hear what’s said about Miss Mackenzie. (I am not yet through with life.) Tomorrow I must teach. If she dies before then, I shall not be able to work; I shall be crying. But if Tuesday later in the day or Wednesday well before Thursday’s teaching, I hope to cope. Today she is staggering about trying to stay near me or go to her food or sit in the sun. I am also putting it off.
Ellen
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
So sorry to hear this Ellen. We know how devestating the loss of a beloved pet is – thoughts are with you. Nick.
Thank you for this reply — for thinking of us. She has been my real companion for the last 10+ years. I remember how you grieved for your cat, Nancy. My father grieved for his Siamese kitten so long ago.
I understand your sorrow. Clarycat is so sweet and beautiful a cat, truly family, and such a comforter. It’s sad to see her go, but cats are not long lived, and it happens. My sympathy.
It seems that often these deaths or their anniversaries occur just around the time of these JASNAs.
I’m so sorry, Ellen. The agony of losing furred family is so great, it’s almost enough to make you reconsider having them. But the pa
Such a difficult decision, but also such a loving one. I’m so sorry for your pain.
Hello – I can well relate to the complex and guilty feelings that accompany our human ability and obligation to minimize the suffering of our animals through euthanasia. I share your frustration with the lack of vets who’ve developed a thoughtful approach to it. In the last fifteen years or so I’ve fostered a number of immune compromised cats, and it doesn’t get any easier with repetition. So i have a lot of thoughts on the subject, but what made me want to write was a synchronicity between something in your last paragraph, and recently becoming re-inspired by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. If you’re not already familiar with it you can start with the article below, which i came across through today’s email (for myself, but it may speak to you). Perhaps something will resonate with you and give you the lovely spark of feeling “seen” that i feel blessed with. In any case, my heart goes out to you and your Clarycat. The animals may understand better than we do that we are all so much more than these limited and painful bodies. https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/why-intps-feel-overwhelmed-when-looking-for-friends/
I don’t understand the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Thank you for your empathy and kind thoughts.
I’m very sorry to hear this, Ellen. You have my sympathies. I know how hard this is. I still miss my dog, who we had put down 27.5 years ago. Be grateful for the time you had together.
Tyler