<\/p>\n
I think we’re in the last few days for the cat pictured in the icon. Bless his heart, he’s had a good, full life, and lived longer than we thought he would. He’s about 16, diabetic and has been receiving twice-daily insulin injections for the last seven years. Additionally, he has thyroid problems for which he gets twice-daily pills, cataracts which have rendered him nearly blind, and glaucoma which he receives thrice-daily eyedrops to manage. He’s down to about six and a half pounds. His digestion is bad, with him not keeping food down sometimes, or, as yesterday, having diarrhea. He’s also flea-ridden, in spite of various anti-flea remedies, because he’s in ill-health and is not cleaning himself very well or often. I comb him daily. In spite of all his problems, he is still in charge, and still lords it over the younger, much fatter cat in the house.<\/p>\n
He’s a good boy, but he’s not eating anymore. He’s been to the vet several times already this year, and at this point, I think this is it, just because I don’t think there’s anything they could do for him. Right now he’s very comfortable, lying on a towel on our treadmill in the den. I think it’s about as high as he can step. No jumping for him anymore. He’s spent the last few days alternating between lying there and lying on a rug in front of our daughter’s dollhouse.<\/p>\n
My husband got the cat when he was a tiny kitten, small enough to walk back and forth on the palm of his hand. Apparently it was quite difficult for him to get a cat, since many people were understandably cautious about giving a tiny kitten to a group of college guys. In the lean years before I met him, when there wasn’t enough for the hubby and cat to eat, he would always be sure the cat ate first. Sometimes it would have to be junk like sour cream, but he did his best, college guy that he was.<\/p>\n
Before the cat had his last round of illness (that’d be the glaucoma a few weeks ago), I would have said that it’d be a shame when the cat went, but frankly, that’d be one less expense and responsibility. These cats have cost us hundreds of dollars in the last two months alone, and I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed eyedrops, etc. for him, particularly when I’m also having to keep an eye on the obesity-related problems of the other cat. But funny, when I called the vet a few weeks ago for an appointment, and they said, “well, maybe in a couple of days,” I started crying. (Obviously, they fit me in that day at that point.) It’s surprising how much I do care about this guy.<\/p>\n
I think of all the things this cool cat has done. He once leaped a 6 foot tall fence without touching it in order to get to the catnip plant on the other side.<\/p>\n
One winter when it snowed, we were worried about him and traced his footprints through the neighborhood, only to find he had curled up beside a warm hot water heater in someone’s basement and was just fine.<\/p>\n
He was a strong hunter in his prime, but only liked to eat the animals’ heads. He often left the headless corpses of mice in the garden. We theorize it was as a grisly warning to the rest of the rodents.<\/p>\n
When we had three cats, we once found him calmly eating from his food bowl, a paw on the head of each cat beside him to pin them down.<\/p>\n
He once brought a bird into the house, and when my husband yelled “Purr-Zha!” at him, the cat picked up the bird, carried it to his food dish, then looked up at my husband like, “Okay? We all good now?”<\/p>\n
I hope I’m wrong and you have many happy years left, but if that’s not to be, I hope you stay as comfortable and warm as you are now, and go gently. We’ll miss you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}