The New Coffee Room

(Boy, the keyboards here are nice! And the food!)

As you know, I've had the dwindles for the last couple of years. I became a shadow of my former self, and I lost a ton of weight. I think I was down to about 3 lb. Although the vet I saw said I had terminal liver failure, I refused to give in, and having been given 6 months to live, I passed that mark about 2 ½ years ago. I've been as feisty as ever. I bit Dad so bad that he needed IV antibiotics about a year ago.

The last year has been rough. Grooming has been a low priority, and dad has had to restrain me when he brushed me. My mats got bad every now and then, and he'd had to shave me in places.

Nevertheless, despite my cachexia and weight loss, I've enjoyed eating (at at 4 tonight!) drinking, and occasionally playing with some toys.

I've mellowed, a bit, and let G2 pet me once in a while. Mom bathed me on Christmas Eve. I actually didn't bite her because it felt soooo good.

So, D3 was over tonight, and found a HUGE mat on my left cheek. It was the size of a golfball, perhaps a bit smaller. She told dad about it, and he picked me up to try to shave it so that the hairs wouldn't pull on my skin. When the clippers came close to my cheek, pus came out. A lot of pus. Mom tried to rub it, and a huge flap of skin came off, revealing muscle and tissue underneath.

Everyone agreed that it was time.

They took me to a vet where D3 and D4 take their cats, and they were SO kind to me. They agreed that with this huge flap of skin lifted off, there was no way that I could be cared for, especially given my nature of biting, etc.

I told them that it's time.

They took me to the back, sedated me and started an IV. After I was asleep they brought me back to Mom, Dad, and D3. A quick injection of pentobarbital and I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was in a much better place. No pain, no anger. The food is great, and my friends are here! Mr. Whiskers, Addy, Oliver, Jack, Peanuts and everyone else that's lived with Mom and Dad.

I'll miss them, but I'm happy now. I hope they miss me.

Dad will post a link later on to show what it looked like (graphic, so he'll just post the link, rather than the actual picture).

Yeah, I'm resting, in peace.

I took another pitcher tonite.

You can see it's better - you can actually see a few veins on Dad's hand.

You can see how scrawny I am now.

This is what I looked like when I was living with D3, about 10 years ago:

Yeah, I’m still here. I’m scrawny as hell, cranky as hell, and frail as hell. I’ve been with Mon and Dad for 9 years now, and considering history, that makes me about 14-15 years old. Three years ago, when I started to lose weight, the vet said I had liver disease and would probably not survive the year.

Shows you what vets know.

But…I digress.

Since I’m feeling really punk these days, I’ve paid little to no attention to keeping myself lady-like. Self-grooming is something that I’m just not into, and for a cat, that’s something. So, I let my hair grow a bit longer than it should. Frequently, it gets matted up. I ends up being hard clumps of fur that pull on my skin and I walk around, meowing, because it’s uncomfortable.

Dad has tried his best to get them out, but I only tolerate brushing so much. And I only tolerate it from my head to my shoulders. Anything farther back is a hard NO!

As i’ve mentioned in the past, my previous owner had me declawed, so my only real defenses are my back claws and to bite.

I bite hard.

Dad found that brushing is a questionable adventure, so he tried something different on Sunday evening: he got his beard trimmer and took off the guard leaving just the cutting head exposed. He used it to get a lot of my mats off. It left huge clumps of hair in my bed, and all over the floor. But then, he got to this one spot that I didn’t want him to touch, and I let him have it. I bit him, hard on both hands. The one on the left got a scrape, and bled for a while, but the one on the right was nice and deep. A real injection into his hand.

Monday morning, his hand was pretty swollen and sore. Though I’ve done this before, and he’s had a good hard bite in the past, this was something a bit more. It usually passes on it’s own after a day or so, but by Monday night, it was no better, in fact worse. The black dots you see are where he marked the edge of the redness to see if it was progressing. The smaller of the marks on his index finger is where I injected him.

So, yesterday, at about noon, he decided he needed to be seen. He went to the Urgent Care place near us where they did x-rays (which were fine) and put in an IV for some antibiotics. They also gave him a prescription for oral antibiotics. He got home about 4 pm yesterday.

By bedtime, he was no better. Hand was pretty generally swollen at about 8 PM. This morning, it’s still swollen, but less painful, and less “angry” looking. Looks like the oral antibiotics are kicking in.

Bad girls, bad girls. Who you gonna bite?

I got a pitcher.

I am not enjoying this thread. It might give people ideas.

Sometimes we purr when we're feeling miserable. It's a way of finding comfort. People tend to assume that we purr when we're happy and content. My sister Maggie purrs when she's scared.

Nevertheless, Jolly, I'm sad to see one of my sisters pass. You've been a good dad to all of your animals. You should take pride in that.

RIP, Kitty.