We all know death is a part of life. Well when that part means a life has to end, it gets a little more tricky and a little less cliche. I alluded to our sick kitty in my las post and from there, things got pretty bad. Folks, this will be a fairly wordy, fairly sad post. Nonetheless, I figured my readers would want to know what happened to a part of our family this week.
Most of you know that I got a cat at the very beginning of my senior year of college. She was a rescue, found in my brother-in-law's backyard, only 8 weeks old at the time. I took her into my home (with the go-ahead from my roommate) and became a caregiver for the teeny tiny black & white, long-haired kitten. We named her Millie Mocha.
After college and the wedding, she made the transition to Jay's and my apartment here in KC (our first home together). She transitioned well until we blind-sided her with a new addition to the family, our dachshund, Dash. Our wish was that they'd become great friends and get along well. She did not take to him at first, but after we moved into our rental home (thanks Wes and Catherine!) she began to warm up to him and even more so when they started spending the days together in the laundry room.
Just a few weekends ago, she began using the doggie door (we aren't sure how or why she learned, but all the sudden, she knew) and would go in and out as she pleased, just as Dash did. We weren't concerned; however, I did buy her a new collar and nametag in case she wandered outside the boundary of our large yard. Last Saturday, when Rachel and David were over, she was a perfectly happy kitty. On Sunday morning, it was quite a different story. She had vomited several times in the laundry room and also had very abnormal stool. We thought she had just eaten something and would pass it in a day or two. Suddenly she became very very lethargic, stopped eating and drinking, and we knew something was wrong.
We were able to take her to the vet on Tuesday evening and after and hour and a half of waiting, the doctor diagnosed her as severely dehydrated and told us he was very very concerned for her. He did not know what had caused her to be so dehydrated but knew that she needed immediate help and overnight IV fluids. We then took her to the emergency vet care and specialty clinic where she was admitted and immediately put on an IV for overnight care. We were very sad to leave her in that condition but felt if she truly was dehydrated that she would be feeling better by morning.
It was hard to deal with the reality of the severity of her condition and I kept thinking "Dehydrated? That's not that serious. She'll get better." We talked about the different possibilities and outcomes on our way home and decided that we would go see her in the morning to make a decision about her treatment. After a restless night of sleep we drove back to the clinic at 4:30am to speak with the doctor. She told us Millie had not made much improvement overnight and the cause of her illness was still unclear. At that time, we knew she would not get better without significant, costly treatment and did not want to put her through more than she already had gone through. We knew, as hard as it was, what we had to do.
On our way home, I told Jay, "You prepare for the worst but you never expect it." We never expected we would have to make that decision so soon or how emotional it would have been. She will be missed here in our home and the memories we have are still very fresh so that makes it tough. But as I said before, death is a part of life - it just happens to be the end of it.
Here are some pictures of Millie we've collected over the past few years... She was such a sweet, furry, vocal and beautiful cat. :) A homage to love and loss:
Halloween costume
The window was her favorite spot. Jay caught this on a hot summer day :)
We took this the weekend before she got sick. Glad we got a good family pic!
