Born July 17 2009
Died July 17 2015
I think if one more person tells me I did the right thing by having my best friend euthanized, I'm going to run screaming into the night.
I did the only humane thing.
He would have been dead before the weekend was out no matter what. My choice simply spared him a few hours to a few days suffering.
When I took him into the vet, I was sure he had a resurgence of feline stomatitis and they'd have to take his remaining teeth.
Instead, I found out that he'd lost more than half his weight and his kidneys had shut down.
Doing three thousand dollars worth of treatment (more than I make in a month even with working two jobs) would have perhaps extended his life by a month or two.
There may come a time when I can think of him and tears don't run from my eyes and my throat doesn't feel like its being shredded by knives while I'm being garroted. But I will never be over this.
Lafayette was the one creature in the world that loved me just the way I am. He loved me and he trusted me. He really didn't trust anyone else the way he trusted me.
When I first brought him home he was very agoraphobic because he had lived at the shelter from the time he was a month old to the time he was eight months old and I adopted him. He hid under the computer table and came out when I was asleep to attack my hand and arm when it would come out from under the covers. My hand and arm was shredded. He wasn't doing it to be mean, he had simply never learned to play appropriately. I took him for his first vet checkup. We got his claws trimmed and I taught him to play with "soft paws." There was no more shredding.
Lafayette always came to greet me when I came in. He wasn't terribly vocal but when the water bulb was going empty, he made sure to let me know. He always liked to be the first to drink the water with the fresh refill.
Lafayette always came and sat on my shoulder when I lay down. He nuzzled his face against my hand while purring and kneaded the covers and, consequently, my chest, which could sometimes be painful with a thinner cover. He was like a big kitten, although big is something of a misnomer. He only weighed nine pounds.
Today I discovered that he had gone down to five pounds.
Both the vet at the humane society clinic and the one at the emergency clinic where we were referred for potential overnight care said that he didn't have long to live regardless of any heroic measures. Kidney failure is painful. My son and I agreed that he shouldn't have to suffer.
When they brought him into the exam room to say goodbye he tried to meow for us. I think he struggled for much longer than I knew to be brave for me. It was only in this past week that he started giving mournful little meows while looking at the full water dish. He would come up to the sink and meow. I left the faucet dripping a bit, thinking it might be less hard on his mouth to drink from the faucet.
I really, really wish it had been feline stomatitis.
Lafayette was brought in to the shelter with a feral colony. The kittens were more than likely inbred. Tara, the cat I adopted with him, was from the same colony. She also had to have most of her teeth pulled due to feline stomatitis. She has done very well since. The vet asked if they were related. Initially I said I didn't think so, but after thinking about it I came to the conclusion that they probably were. Tara is two months younger, so they were likely half siblings or cousins.
Lafayette's immune system was never good. He had a high sensitivity to grain. It made his skin scabby and his fur came out in clumps if he ate anything with grain. As I said, he never got very big. He was half the size of my other male cats.
I told Lafayette that he was my best friend and that I loved him and would miss him. We stayed with him, petting and talking to him, while the vet administered the medication to end his suffering.
I feel like someone scooped out my heart and smashed it into a bed of nails, repeatedly.
I know I did the right thing, that is to say, the humane thing.
It doesn't make this pain in my soul go away.
Special note:
When we returned to my son's place, a bee landed on the inside of the open car door. Honeybees are notoriously quick to sting, but this was the mellowest honeybee ever. It sat there for a few minutes cleaning its wings. My son suggested we leave the car window open a crack so it could get out. As I was trying to turn on the car to open the window, the bee flew off. My son said he felt that the bee was a good sign. I said that in some cultures bees are considered psychopomps. Perhaps Lafayette was letting us know that he was okay and appreciated what we'd done for him.
Special note:
When we returned to my son's place, a bee landed on the inside of the open car door. Honeybees are notoriously quick to sting, but this was the mellowest honeybee ever. It sat there for a few minutes cleaning its wings. My son suggested we leave the car window open a crack so it could get out. As I was trying to turn on the car to open the window, the bee flew off. My son said he felt that the bee was a good sign. I said that in some cultures bees are considered psychopomps. Perhaps Lafayette was letting us know that he was okay and appreciated what we'd done for him.
~Cie~
