On this date last year, Jim and I were catless.
Zoey the Cool Cat crossed the rainbow bridge on 6/23/19, animal shelters are closed on Mondays, and we got Little Queen Olivia on 6/25/19.
Zoey the Cool Cat
Little Queen Olivia
The picture of Zoey the Cool Cat was taken a few hours after she joined our household in September 2007. Her name when we adopted her was Zoey, but after taking this picture, I added “the Cool Cat” to her name.
Little Queen Olivia’s name when we adopted here was Olivia. She was born on November 21, 2017. At 18 months old, she weighed only 7.6 pounds. The vet thought she was only a couple of months old because of her size. Nope. She’s just a small cat. She eats wet food and dry food whenever she wants it and she only got up to 8.6 pounds. She has settled in at 8.3 pounds. She’s Little, and after just a few days of her playing in her new surroundings, it was obvious that she was royalty, so I added “Little Queen” to her name.
We miss Zoey the Cool Cat dearly, but we’re extraordinarily lucky to have had Little Queen Olivia in our lives for the past year.
Little Queen Olivia
Ninja was a severely overweight cat and was supposed to be on prescription food, which we did not know about. Nonetheless, Ninja stayed with us until April 12, 2018.
When I got back, though, I noticed that ZCC was not doing cat things anymore—playing with her strings, jumping up on chairs and beds, and playing fetch. She was just laying around. I chalked it up to her being depressed over me having gone missing for ten days.
It wasn’t until I started volunteering at a cat sanctuary housing about 300 cats that I realized something more serious might be ailing ZCC. I took her to the vet. I wasn’t satisfied with the diagnosis, so I took her to a pet hospital for a second opinion. They wanted to do blood work, urinalysis, and a poop smear. I authorized it. ZCC was not cooperative, though, so all they got was a blood sample and left it up to me to get the other two samples. I have problems getting samples of my own for the doctor, so I wasn’t keen on getting samples from ZCC.
Instead, I took her to another pet hospital that a friend recommended. Said friend fosters a few billion dogs each year, so I trusted her about the second pet hospital. They got blood, urine, and fecal samples. That was on August 13. The results came back on August 18. ZCC was “borderline diabetic,” but she was above the borderline. The vet prescribed Hill’s W/D weight control food, and scheduled a follow-up visit for six weeks later.
The prescription food was $45 for 24 cans of wet food and another $45 for a five-pound sack of dry food. As I was buying the food for the first time, I thought to myself, “I could be buying fresh lobster at these prices.”
ZCC made one final attempt to jump up on chairs and beds, but after a week, she gave up completely and laid on the kitchen floor in front of the refrigerator. Along with that clue, the way she laid was concerning. No longer did she flop. Instead, it took her about ten seconds to lay down, and her rear legs always were stretched out. No more breadloafing. Still I did nothing, other than pick her up to give her love.
For ZCC to get to the catio, she had to go through a hole cut in a low kitchen window. The step up and down was about eight inches. When she was having problems doing that, I should have taken action. I didn’t.
Meanwhile, ZCC was not squatting anymore to pee or poop. She was walking and squatting on her hind legs instead of her hind paws, which started getting messy when she eliminated. I could see that her paw was not getting infected, but I kept the Banfield appointment to ask about her problem with her hind legs. The vet mentioned possible diabetes and arthritis.
Since I had gone on a weekend, their specialist vets were not available. So I made another appointment for a week later, the earliest available, to meet with a specialist to determine what we could do for her arthritis. That appointment was for June 23, a Sunday. When I got to Banfield on June 23 at 3:10 p.m., the vet wanted to take the regular blood, pee, and poop samples, but the results would not be available until Thursday. I didn’t want to wait that long. Banfield recommended an emergency vet just a couple of blocks away that has its own lab and could provide immediate results, so that’s where we went. Said emergency vet was closed on Sundays.
I wanted to get help for both me and ZCC. All the vets and pet hospitals I normally go to are closed on Sundays, many on Mondays, too. Finally, on page 2 of a Google search for “emergency vets near me,” I found Pet Emergency & Specialty Center (PESC). I knew exactly where it was since I used to drive by it several times a day for ten years or so.
I called PESC and was told that they did not take appointments, were open 24/7, and could see ZCC. We got to PESC in about five minutes since they were about a mile from where I had parked to do Google searches.
The vet I met with, Dr. Dwan, was extraordinarily competent and compassionate. They had given ZCC a pain shot, and a preliminary examination indicated severe problems with her back legs.
I authorized him to do any and all tests, costing $672, that he thought necessary to get ZCC some help. I can afford the $672, but I was still of the mindset from decades earlier, “$672!??? It’s a cat! If it dies, I’ll get another one.”
I went home, since that was only 2.9 miles away, and waited for a call, which came 90 minutes later. It was as Dr. Dwan suspected, diabetes, showing classic diabetes symptoms. Unfortunately, though, I had waited too long, and ZCC was permanently crippled from the diabetes having destroyed the muscles along her spine and back legs. He was surprised that she had any rear movement at all.
Her urinalysis showed a glucose level about four times the normal level. Dr. Dwan said that even with daily insulin injections, ZCC probably would be dead within a couple of weeks. She was too far gone. Additionally, with literally no hope for a full recovery, and with her glucose levels being so high in her urine, if I wanted to go with treatment, ZCC would get two double-dose insulin injections each day, and she would be in their pet hospital for probably seven days. I would not get to take her home until they got her diabetes under control.
Total cost for 7 days of treatment and hospitalization would be about $2,000. I can afford $2,000, but I was thinking more of ZCC not making a full recovery and not having long to live anyway.
After I made the decision, Dr. Dwan consoled me, had me sign papers, brought ZCC in to allow me to take as much time as I needed in order to say goodbye, and allowed me to hold her in my arms while he administered the three euthanasia drugs. ZCC was alert and active, but when that first drug took effect, ZCC’s head fell into the crook of my arm and her last breath came out as a soft, quiet snort. That was her last movement.
The people in the lobby that I had been talking to for several hours all knew that I was leaving without my little one and that I would never see her again.
Thank you, Zoey the Cool Cat, for all your love and antics, for being a part of our lives for twelve years. I’m so sorry that my ignorance, stupidity, and irresponsibility did not allow me to do more for you.
On Christmas Eve 2006, it showed up again. I’m thinking, “Hmmmm. A cat that knows human holidays….” I gave it food and water (picture at left). It ate, drank, and stayed….
I think what I liked most about Sophie is that she would follow us around, just like a dog, and I always had been pretty much a dog person. When I was in the gardens, she was right there with me. She would follow us down the street to the mailbox and to the upper part of the lot to pull weeds. She was comfortable in the house…. until the sun went down.
When we decided to move out of the boondocks and into a condominium in an East San Diego County suburb, we took Sophie with us. She used to follow us around on the walkways, and while we were in the hot tub or swimming pool, she was in the trees checking out everything to make sure we were safe.
I uncovered Sophie to make sure it was her. I never should have done that—it’s an image that is with me to this day. Her little body, including her head, was smashed flat. I spent a couple of minutes crying before I put her in the car, took her to our old home in the boondocks, which we had not sold yet, and buried her, still crying. I marked her grave with a little cat face and whiskers made out of little stones (picture above).
Russel Ray Photos 