Knowing When to Let Go

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As you all know, Bill dislikes cats because they are sneaky, don't come when you call them, and look at you funny when you undress! When Bill and I rode along today, I told him that I needed to get back by 2pm to take Rover, my 20-year-old cat, to the vet. The last few days, she's not been eating and has lost a significant amount of weight.

I called the vet's office this morning, and they fit her in at 2:50pm. Rover is diabetic; I even gave her shots for a period of time until they came out with diabetic cat food. Then she developed a thyroid problem, so she is also on thyroid medication twice a day now. And, she's always been a temperamental about sharing a litter box; she has been known to pee on the basement floor to show her disgust at sharing a litter box with the two guys, Thunderbolt and Liam. I guess they always left the seat up or something like that!

To try and curb the temperamental peeing problem, I began to put her into Monty's old puppy crate at night two years ago. It is equipped with a litter box, food and water, a comfy blanket, 24/7 access to all the Lawrence Welk shows, and a mini shuffleboard court. I call it her condo in Boca Raton!

After a few weeks of being in the crate, she'd come in from outside, trot down to the basement, go inside it, and sit there and wait for me to tuck her in. I think Rover was always meant to be an only cat, and I ruined it by inviting every stray to come stay with us and adopting from foreign cat shelters!

Rover was born in Connecticut in March of 1989. My sister found a stray in her apartment complex; she took the stray in and named her "Scruffy." Scruffy was pregnant, and even though the apartment complex did not allow pets, she and her husband kept Scruffy warm and safe and saw her through her pregnancy. Several kittens were born, and they, like Scruffy, were all polydactyls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyl_cat

(Remember: I try not only be humorous but educational, too!)

At the time, I already had two cats, and I remember my sister telling me about Scruffy. After the kittens were born, I remember her calling me and saying, "Jean, I have a really cute male here with double paws! I think he's going to be really big!" I had made the mistake of confessing to her at one point that my feline-owning life would not be complete if I didn't own a big double-pawed male cat at some point. So, I caved to my sister's kitten pitch.

When Nathan's Dad and I were looking for houses, we'd do a drive by of any home we were interested in and he would say, "No, that's not a cat neighborhood or good a Rover." As I remember, Rover was his term for dog. I said, "When we get our next cat, we should call it Rover!"

And, it was so written that I would drive to Connecticut, fetch this kitten, and he would be a mammoth feline with HUGE feet called Rover. After returning with my kitten, my friend, Melissa, a veterinarian, came by to check on her. I remember Melissa picking up Rover, flipping up her tail, and saying to me, "Jean, this isn't a little boy; it's a little girl!" Yeah, my sister was good at many things, but she wasn't good at feline sex identification!

(The ironic thing was that my sister kept a kitten, which she correctly identified as male, and named it Jasper. Jasper turned out to be a HUGE male with HUGE paws! We always laughed about this later.)

As Rover grew, well, it was apparent that the "little" in Melissa's "little girl" description was valid. Rover was a petite but always round feline with these HUGE paws. She was built like a little tank. And, boy, was she tough, which helped her immensely, because she used up a few of her nine lives along the way.

She got hit by a car one night, and we had to keep her in a crate for a few months while she healed; our vet wasn't optimistic, but Rover made a miraculous recovery. A few years later, I couldn't find her one night. I called and called. I was never one to leave my cats out at night. I always had them in before the sun went down. But, she never came home. I put up signs, but there was no sign of Rover for a week, then another, and then finally, I gave up, thinking something horrible had happened to her. I took Nathan to the cat shelter, and we got a new kitty to replace her; this was Thunderbolt.

About 5 weeks after she disappeared, my boyfriend and I were standing in the living room of my house; he had just arrived home from a business trip. There was a slider to a porch by my kitchen table. He glanced toward the slider door and asked me, "Who's that?" I took one look, saw a little furry tiger face in the window, and I said, "OMG! That's Rover!" Then I stammered, "But, Rover, that can't be you, because we've already replaced you!" I opened the door and in walked Rover, though she was a few pounds lighter. I surmised that she must have gotten locked in someone's shed or basement; God only knows how she survived. But, there she was!

I fed her, but having not eaten in so long, she immediately had digestive issues, so I took her to my vet the next day. I was trying to tell the vet Rover's story when the vet asked me, "Well, are you sure this is Rover?" which I found to be an odd question. I said, "Well, this cat came to my door wearing Rover's collar, so are you trying to suggest that Rover may have been mugged for her collar or had her identity stolen by this cat?" Needless to say, I never went to that vet again.

When I was in the later stages of my pregnancy with Isabelle, I'd go to bed, and that's when Isabelle became restless, sloshing around inside me. (God, I loved that part of pregnancy the best -- when you lie there on your back, and it looks like your stomach should have a starring role in the movie "Alien!")

Before Rover's Boca Raton condo days, she'd jump up on the bed, come to the top of the covers, and then ask to come under the covers and sleep next to me. On those nights that Isabelle was most active, Rover would come under and then nestle down next to me with her back against my tummy. (Rover has the loudest purr, which the vet and vet tech remarked on today as they always do.) Rover would start to purr, and within minutes, Isabelle would stop moving around wildly inside me and go to sleep. It was as if Rover tucked in Isabelle on those nights with a purring lullaby.

Anyway, once they had Rover in the exam room today, they checked her out from purring head to HUGE polydactyl toes. Her heart was beating fast, she was dehydrated, and she was down to 4.2 pounds. The vet asked if I wanted to run blood tests to check her thyroid; I said I would. They also wanted to give her fluids. The vet, who's not my favorite at the practice, only because she wants you to do everything to save your animal without really considering all the circumstances, asked if I'd be willing to do some kind of heart scan for $350. (I remember working with an engineer at HP who had a $200 limit on all animal expenses. I know he didn't really mean it, but he was fond of saying, "Hey, if it's over $200, forget it!) I told her that I would not do the heart scan. I said, "I have two other cats, a dog, and I'm unemployed. And, she's 20 years old!"

Today, I found myself in a difficult spot. I wanted to get her hydrated and see what was going on; however, at the same time, she IS 20 years old. (Rover is my longest loving relationship and probably always will be at this rate.) I told her that I would like to do the blood tests and hydrate her; however, if the tests revealed that her thyroid condition had worsened or she now had a heart condition, that I couldn't really justify spending hundreds of dollars to address the issues. I was practically crying when I said this, and I had thought about it all day; it's really hard to know when to let go, and it's even harder to feel "okay" about it.

Bill had told me that he had two dogs. And when I asked if he still had pets, he told me that when he lost his dogs it was so horrible that he decided that it was easier not to have pets than to ever have to go through that loss again. I wouldn't agree,, because I think it is better to love and lose over and over than to ever be without a furry creature sitting in your lap or barking when you come home at night. Okay, maybe not the barking, but I do like the wagging tail and the "I'm so happy to see you" look.

I know that many people go to great lengths to keep their ailing pets alive, but I figure that Rover has lived 20 good years, well, except for getting hit by the car and being locked away somewhere for 5 weeks. After telling the vet how I felt, and I felt horrible. I needed someone to say, "It's okay to let go," if you feel that is what you need to do. And, I cried the whole way home in the car, because I couldn't tell myself it was okay to let go.

I had to euthanize my beloved cat, Caesar, a few years ago. He was a feral in my neighborhood. I trapped him on my porch in a havaheart with sardines for bait. He was such a wonderful cat, and I knew he had a heart issue from the get go. One day, he had a stroke and became paralyzed. My vet said it was unlikely he would ever recover, so I put him to sleep.

Somehow with Rover, it seems different, because all her parts work but just not that well anymore; she has been with me through thick and thin for 20 years. I remember when I first got divorced, she'd climb up on my chest, fall asleep there, and purr loudly, her lullaby for me then. Whatever happens, it's not going to be easy. I do hope that when I get there, I can let go knowing that I did everything I could for her. <3