Confessions of a Blogaholic

...is having to know when and having the courage, strength, and unconditional love to let them go.



Stink was an amazing cat. He was smarter and more personable than your average cat. He was our Alpha male, and he totally ruled the roost in our home. When he was younger (until he was about 2.5), he played fetch just like a dog. You could throw a toy and he would go and get it and bring it back to you. Sometimes, he would pop up in bed (while we were trying to sleep) with the toy in his mouth and meow to get you to play with him. Many, many mornings, we woke up with toys all over the place in the bed. He was also a cuddler. He loved to be held at night from the time we first got him. He'd lay right next to you and let you wrap your arms around him all night, or he'd curl up at the end of the bed and wrap himself around your foot. He was precocious and persistent--always wanting to be in your food and on the counters when we were cooking. He'd eat ANYTHING!!! He was obsessed with drinking water out of dirty dishes that were left in the sink. He stunk to absolute high hell sometimes and was probably the dirtiest cat ever--never cleaned his claws, never covered his horrific smelling poop, I always had to clean his ears for him. He was so sweet....until the end, he would sit in my lap for hours at a time and purr while I held him. In the last two months, he developed this cool talent of peeing in the toilet--no clue where he learned it, he just randomly started doing it one day. It was pretty cool. He was pretty cool...no, he was fantastic and amazing and we'll never find another cat like Stink.

Yesterday, we were faced with the decision that nearly all pet owners have to make at some point in time. Our baby, Stink, was 3.5 years old, and for all of the those 3.5 years, we have had him in and out of doctors, treating him for this and that, paying for this test and that test, giving him this shot and that shot. 3.5 years of feeling like we were shooting in the dark in the hopes of finding a cure for the little guy. Last June, he weighed in at 14 lbs when he was diagnosed with allergies, and we did what the doctors told us to do and followed his immunotherapy program to the T. We gave him the exact amount of the needed shot on the exact day. Every week, his skin and itching got worse and worse, and no one would listen to us. When I continually called the vet to tell them something was very wrong, I was repeatedly told that I needed to have patience and that he would get worse before he got better. Stink lost all of the hair on his head, neck, and a big strip that ran the length of his back.

In November, we were finally given a referral to a dermatologist at O.SU...after paying nearly a thousand dollars and trying several more meds, it seemed on some days like he was getting better. Some days, he would eat 3 bowls of food, which was great. Some days, we could see signs of the old Stink....lying on his back waiting for his belly to be rubbed (like a dog), running downstairs when someone was in the kitchen, jumping up on the counters, meowing. I felt like he was gaining weight...I felt better about him. We scheduled a skin biopsy for next Friday, Jan 8, which would be able to tell us what was infecting his skin; though the dermatologist told us from the beginning it was likely that the immunotherapy had compromised his immune system so much that something more serious could be going on inside him (lupus, AIDS, etc). I was holding out so much hope for this biopsy...I just wanted an answer for us and for him. I wanted it to be done--I wanted to know the cure and to stop stabbing in the dark.

On Thursday, Stink started missing the counter at my mom's house when he would try to jump up there. Not unusual...all my cats have had that problem before. On Friday, he was stumbling every time he walked. Moving around, he would twitch and look so weak. I spent so much time with him on Friday, cuddled up in the bed like we used to do or holding him, wrapped in a towel, on my mom's couch. I knew he was sick, and I knew how bad he looked. I called the emergency services at O.SU, and after being told it would cost $150 just to bring him in, I decided to wait until Saturday to take him to his regular vet.

After a nearly sleepless night tossing and turning and worrying and remembering how Stink used to be, I got a call from my mom at exactly 8:30am. She said he looked much worse, and in my heart, I knew that by the end of the day, I would no longer have my amazing Stink...We headed straight to my mom's, and when we walked in, he was swaddled in a blanket looking so sick and small and so much like a kitten. I held him in the towel the whole way to the vet and while in the examining room. He was down to 7 pounds. We waited, waited, waited for the vet to come in, but I was somewhat thankful for the wait because the longer we sat there, the more time we had before we had to know the truth. We were both a mess. We tried to let Stink walk, but he couldn't stand without falling down. My heart was breaking, and I could see Nate's heart breaking in the tears that were falling from his very soul.

When the vet finally came in, we knew from the look on her face it was over. She told us several scenarios. Either whatever had infected his skin had made its way to his cerebellum causing severe neurological problems, or he's always had some sort of immune system deficiency that has never been caught and has been the underlying root of all his problems. She said we could try another antibiotic to see if it would reach his brain, but the chance of success was only 25%...she said we could do a spinal tap on Monday, but who knows if he would survive the anesthetic. But...if we have learned anything from Stink's life, it is that no amount of money, no matter how great or small, is capable of fixing some problems. We could've paid for the meds and the procedure, no problem, but it was just going to cause him more pain, and we would have to watch him suffer. We made our decision with the utmost love and care; his whole life, we have given him everything and tried everything we could, and he, in return, has given us unconditional love and every last bit of his strength. It didn't matter how much we had fought him to get a pill down his throat, he would turn right around a minute later and love on us like he knew we were only doing it for him. How much more can you ask from an animal than to try as hard as he has try and to fight as hard as he has fought his whole life.

We got some time with him before the time came, and my mom (thank God) came up to sit with us. We all held him and loved him and told him how much he meant to us. I kept telling him how sorry I was...sorry for making him worse with the immunotheraphy, sorry that his life ended up this way, sorry that we didn't have more time with him...I was just so sorry. He looked at us, so weak in his blanket, and I kept feeling like his eyes were begging for this to be over. At one point, while I was holding him, his little hand reached out from the blanket and landed on my lip...someday, I will see that as the sign for "it's ok," but I can't see it that way now. I feel too guilty and too hurt from our decision. Holding him and waiting for the moment to come, all I could think about was how I wished I didn't have a soul so I never had to feel this kind of pain. I wished my heart wasn't so big, so there was less of it to break when things like this happen.

Then, at noon, it was over, and we left the vet empty-handed. My baby, OUR baby was gone. I just hope he knew how much he was loved and always will be loved. I hope he knew how much it hurt us to make that decision and how painful it's going to be to get through our grief. I've never felt so much pain...I've never cried so much...I can't seem to get the hurt to stop. Good memories, bad memories, memories of his last moments, memories when we got him as a kitten, it all hurts. I know that no matter what we did or how much we would pay (which we would've given EVERYTHING if it would've made him better), our original Stink was gone. What we've had for the last year or so was not our baby, but it was a fighter...a fighter who gave his all, but some days couldn't get up long enough to live.

Our beautiful, amazing, cool, fantastic, pesky, loving, cuddling, playful, wonderful, talented, smart, dirty Stink will forever be in our hearts, and eventually, my soul will stop aching long enough for me to see the humanity and love in the decision we had to make.

Rest in peace, my Baby Bean...