Sam & Shadow – Diplomacy In Action

For those who don’t already know, Sam and Shadow are our two cats.

• Shadow is about 5 years old. We rescued her as a four-week old kitten. She had kittens of her own about six months later, before we could get her fixed. She also took a rock to the mouth which broke out a tooth and required a $1,200 root canal. I’m telling you, I almost had her euthenized over that tooth - $1,200 for a free cat? Well, I’m glad I didn’t because she’s been a wonderful companion for the family.  She’s all black, short haired, has all her claws and likes to hunt.
• Sam is new to us. He’s gray, a male, and 9 years old. His previous owners rescued him as a little kitten. He’s in great health, loves to rough-house with the kids. His front claws have been removed.

The two cats have been engaged in a bit of detente since Sam joined us about six weeks ago. Sam staked out the kids’ rooms as his space; Shadow kept to the main level and lower level. The two – to our knowledge at least – haven’t quarreled at all, just opted to NOT share much space with each other. The stairwell seems to be the demilitarized zone. The two cats each pass up/down the stairwell, but they each seem to make sure they have the stairs all to themselves before they pass.

M rather loves this carving up of the house into territories, because Sam has claimed her room as his territory and sleeps often on her bed. Sam, you see, likes to roughhouse it with M. They’re more compatible than M and Shadow. R gets quite a bit of time with Sam, too. So they’re happy.

Well, over the last week or so, the detente seems to be warming up a touch. Both cats are spending a bit more time in the other zones…peacefully.

Last night, the family –fighting colds, every one – snuggled up on the couch in the family room to watch Coraline  on the newish plasma TV and the brand-new Blu-Ray player. ANNND, I’ve finally (Finally!!!) been able to put the surround sound receiver together with a kick-butt TV, surround sound speakers and great movie source for the first time since …. since…. well, since my apartment back in 1995. I mean, it has been a LOOONG time.

Anyway, we were all sitting there, on the couch, wearing our Coraline 3D glasses, wrappeded by the sound and the thrilling picture, when Shadow quietly hopped up into my lap, settled in and started purring.

About five minutes later, Sam suddenly appeared in C’s lap, on the opposite side of the couch. He staked out a warm spot between C and M, and hunkered down too.

This was a first. Both cats in the family room, on the couch, at the same time. The fact that they’re not competing for the same favored person(s) is definitely making all this easier. I anticipate that the co-habitation will slowly increase, as the cats realize that everything’s safe and that we all love them both.

For me, I just grooved on how low-maintenance the pet situation has been over the past couple months. Oh, I do so miss Aki and Neko both. But they were ready to go. And the family is comfortable with low-maintenance pets who hold their own in the family dynamic – one on each side of the couch.

Oh. Coraline was fun, too. First time we’d seen the movie. Loved the VERY subtle Oregon references.

C updated

At the five day mark since C came home from her surgery. How's she doing? Pretty darned well, all things considered. She's getting around pretty well. The pain meds work well enough that she starts to think that she doesn't need them any more, so she stops taking them. Which means that suddenly she REALLY needs them and gets VERY grumpy until they catch up with her again....at which point the cycle begins again <GRIN!>

Sam the cat has quietly and expertly inserted himself into our lives. Sam has selected C as his preferred person, followed next by M. In other words, he definitely likes the girls. Which is just fine with Shadow, because she has always preferred the boys. Both cats get along with the other just fine so far. Sam hangs out on C's side of the bed. When C gets up, Sam follows her to her new location, then hangs out with her there. He's quiet, has yet to misbehave, uses his litter box inviolably, and hunts spiders. What is there NOT to like so far?

C has also shared that she's starting to notice a reduction in her joint pain, and other chronic issues that were side-effects of the Tamoxifen drug. As she migrates away from Tamoxifen, she should see a general loss of weight, and better joint health overall.

C does seem to run out of gas by about dinner time, though. It's a little bit like 'back in the day' when chemo would cause her to literally shut off without warning. She does that now, too.

We're making some progress each day on settling the house in. It dawned on me that the last time we lived here, we slowly evolved the house into a fully functional space over the span of about four years. This time? We're doing everything we did then, plus a bunch of setup stuff that we never got around to before - like cupboard pullouts to make it easier for C to reach things on the very bottom shelf. The result? I'm doing in one day now the equivalent of about six months slow evolution the first time.

Curtains have been going up in the bedrooms. M's room is really cool now that it's finished. R's room is developing a great sense of personal character as well. There are still a few scattered boxes on the landing and in the master bedroom, but they're steadily disappearing.

We planned out the curtains for the main level today. Tomorrow, the rods and drapes will go up. C is apparently planning to prepare pictures/paintings for hanging on the wall tomorrow as well. Once the drapes are done, and the paintings are on the walls, the place will be nearly complete.

Of course, there's still the office and the garage to tackle. The Office has served as our staging room. It's a pile of boxes right now. We'll get to it last, but it'll be worth the wait.

Neko – The First 10 Days

Surprisingly uneventful.

The family is not talking much about Neko. That’s because we’re so focused on what needs to be done in the next 20 days or so.

We’re getting used to his absence by letting time pass while we’re focused hard on something else.

I know that, throughout the family, each of us is processing our grief in our hearts, while using our heads and hands to solve urgent matters.

Not to imply Neko was a burden, but taking his care and behavior out of the equation  has noticeably simplified the moving logistics. We miss him, but his absence has also sent us back to Dragonfly less burdened than before.

When the time comes to stop, breathe, and notice his absence, we will also be a little bit healed already.

I think it helps that Shadow has remained at the Cottage while we’ve been camping out at Dragonfly. There have been no animals at all while we’ve been preparing for the move. When the cat and the fish finally make the move this weekend, it should seem like a gain, not a loss.

My family, I daresay, has figured out how to face death, and to grieve in healthy ways. The family unit does it better than any one individual within the family. A blessing.

Neko – Here It Is

The Japanese word for ‘cat’ is ‘neko’. In our house it’s Neko – a proper noun. That’s because Neko is the name of our 15 year old male Persian cat. Neko is not in a good way of late.

His health has always been just a little fragile. He’s battled kidney and urinary issues most of his life. In the last year or so, his jet black coat has turned gray. Concurrently, He started spending nearly all his time sleeping. About six months ago, he also started acting extremely anxious. A little anti-depressant medication helped him calm down. Behind the anxiety, said the vet, was a polyp in his throat. Over the last eight weeks or so, we’ve been working with the vet to try to manage this fast-growing throat polyp which increasingly blocks Neko’s esophagus. He’s barely eating – he can’t smell (cats won’t eat what they can’t smell) and he has obvious trouble swallowing. His breathing is labored. Clearly this thing is taking up much of the available space around it.

The vet said surgery to remove the polyp is ‘multiple thousands of dollars’. So, instead, we’ve been using some steroid drugs to try slowing the polyp’s growth. As of this morning, however, Neko can no longer purr or meow. There is a noticeable bump on the side of Neko’s neck, near his larynx.  I would guess that the steroids are not achieving the desired result, that the polyp is not been slowed at all by the medications.

The last time we took Neko to the vet, she agreed to throw everything at this to see if we can make any improvement. If this didn’t work, the vet warned us, our choices were surgery, euthanasia or allowing the polyp to cause natural asphyxiation.

Like I said, today, Neko cannot meow. C just called me from the vet. Neko’s polyp is, in fact, a cancer tumor that started in his nasal passages and broke through into the palate. The tumor’s consumed the bone in the top of his mouth. It’s filling his throat. Given that the tumor started in his sinuses, it’s impossible to diagnose until it breaks through into the throat or palate. By that time, it’s really just too late. The vet says he’s got two or three days, give-or-take, before he asphyxiates naturally. State-of-the-art chemo might buy him eight weeks, at great expense to us.

   ***

There was a day, back in early 1995, when C – then the woman I was dating – asked me to stop by a pet store in Raleigh Hills (next to the Fred Meyer store, now a Starbucks, but what isn’t these days?) to give my take on a black Persian kitten in the store. C already had a cat, she was thinking about adding a kitten to her life in her one-bedroom apartment.

I did as she asked. That Persian kitten seemed so aloof, so disconnected. I held him, petted him, put him back, and told C that I’d pass if it were me.

Well, it wasn’t me. She bought him anyway and named him Neko. He promptly started terrorizing the place, complicating life greatly.

Once, when he was about six months old, he strayed too close to a candle flame with his bushy tail and lit himself on fire. It must have been like like watching Shere Khan at the end of  The Jungle Book… I wasn’t there at the time, but I was on the other end of the phone when it happened. The commotion was on par with Fibber McGee’s Closet.

Whenever I was around,  however, Neko would curl up on me. Not with me, on me. He slept next to my head. He tried to sleep on my face. He licked my hair, giving me a bath. He purred directly into my ear. At 3 in the morning. “Damn tormentor of a  cat!” I’d say. “He loves you” C would counter. We were in disagreement, but we were both right.

Always one to make it more complex than it needed to be, not even getting Neko neutered would be straightforward. The vet could only find one testicle. The vet said that having only one wasn’t that uncommon. “Take him home and see if he’s still got one up inside somewhere” he said. So we did. Everything was fine… for a while.

A couple months later, when C and I combined our lives and everyone lived together full-time, Neko responded to his new family by marking his chosen belongings. I remember once when we’d folded the laundry but stacked it neatly on the floor under the window just before going to bed. The next morning I awoke to the smell of cat spray in our bedroom. Mad, I climbed out of bed an went in search of the source. The source was the freshly-folded laundry. Even more angry, I started sniff-sorting the laundry into ‘smelly’ and ‘clean’. It didn’t take long to realize that the ONLY clothing in the ‘smelly’ pile was MY clothing. That little so-and-so had surgically marked only my clothes.

That same week, he sprayed the inside all  my dress shoes. “Damn tormentor of a cat!” I’d sneer, after threatening to go after his remaining testicle myself, with a spoon in place of a scalpel. “He loves you” C would counter, unphased by my threats.

Ultimately, we took him back to the  vet, who went back in and found the second testicle way up inside. None too soon in my opinion.

The foundation of the relationship was now set: Neko and I were to have a love-hate relationship based on an unconditional respect and affection  for each other while still somehow having an ongoing battle of opposing wills. In many cases, the activity that looked like hatred was, in fact, motivated by love. Oh, that was so hard to see for so long.

Take Neko’s one hunting conquest, for example. Neko never was much of a hunter. In fact, the only prey he ever caught was Max, my pet cockatiel, who was about 13 years old at the time. Max was out of his cage – as he’d lived for all his life with me – when Neko cornered him. In the dark. Neko didn’t even kill Max, just wounded him mortally, leaving Max to die of trauma hours later. I was mad. That cat was so afraid of the real world outdoors that he hid in the woodpile and resorted to  hunting a family member. The outrage! In my eyes, he was a yellow-bellied worm of a cat. It took me months to overcome the urge to kick him every time I saw him.

And yet, I could never completely disown him. We still had a bond. Couldn’t break it.

He avoided the children when they were very little – too fast and unpredictable for him. I’m pleased to report that, as R got older, larger, and moved more carefully around Neko, Neko started sleeping on R’s bed with him. The two became close in the past year or so. M is a bit younger, Neko has started being a little interactive with M.  

   ***

In August, we had to put down Aki. That day, Neko started insisting on sleeping with me instead of R. I don’t know why for sure, but I can guess. I’d go to bed and Neko would appear from out of nowhere, demanding to sleep on TOP of me, purring constantly.

See what I mean? Irritatingly loving. He affected my sleep greatly. Damn tormentor of a cat, once again. Except we’re both 15 years older, and both a bit wiser.  Now? I’m not so much angry as I’m quizzical.  Did he need me as he mourned Aki, or did he think I  needed him? I greeted his efforts with love an acceptance. We found compromises so that we both got what we wanted. After a while, he learned to curl up in the crook of my knee as I slept on my side. That, it turned out, satisfied us both. He continued to sleep with me until he couldn’t make the jump to the bed any longer- until the polyp (nee tumor) had sapped enough strength to make the leap impossible.  Once he couldn’t get on the bed, he turned to sleeping on the floor of the bathroom – something he’s never done before. I tried carrying him to bed with me. He’d opt to hop off and return to the bathroom floor. It’s becoming clear to me that Neko is waiting for something.  I believe, knows full well what’s coming.

Just as we did last August, the family once again stands nose-to-nose with the prospect of  moving on without one of the animal members of the family.

C is scheduling an at-home euthanasia for Neko tomorrow. Afterward, I’ll make t

he trip out to Banks; Neko can go with Aki once again, prowling the farm together in the afterlife, as they did their mortal life. Bounding around together, free of their bodies that simultaneously were fighting cancer together.

   ***

We chose to experience this day back in 1995, when C brought Neko  home to her one bedroom apartment. We didn’t know then how it would play out. Naively, at that time, I don’t think either of us really cared about the end-game of life (have kids, face cancer. You start paying real attention to the end-game). Whether you think about it or not,  that time inevitably comes. And here it is.

You know what? for all the torment and complexity he brought to living, he’s bringing the most amazing wisdom, grace and peace to this particular process.

Neko, you’ve grown. You’ve challenged me to grow, too. I’d like to think that I have indeed grown through your torment. You’ve taught me about unconditional love; about the irritation that goes along with loving living beings. Thank you for the caring, love and presence you’ve been. It has been a gift. 

Aki’s Last Day -

At dinner time, Aki and the whole family took a long, leisurely walk in Laurelhurst Park Monday. The kids were happy and joyful with her. It was clear that she was struggling. Even on double morphines, she could only walk about 100 feet before she needed a 5 minute rest. But she SOOO wanted to be on the walk with us all. We sat in the grass, and watched the clouds go by. Aki sat, as always, with her attention tuned to whatever happened behind our backs, protecting us from anything that might sneak up from behind.

As I walked Aki back to the house, she was really struggling to walk. Trying to do her a kindness, I first tried to cross the street and go immediately into the alley  – the most direct route home. Aki had another idea. See, she always preferred to go home the long way, walking down the tree-lined Oak Street, then approaching the house from the alley on the side opposite the park. Oak Street was her favorite, without a doubt, so it shouldn’t have surprised me when she – realizing my plan – dug in and refused to go anywhere but down Oak Street. It took a second or two to understand what she meant with her behavior. And when I did, there was naturally no other choice but to walk home by way of Oak Street one last time. Even if it meant carrying her the last bit home. I didn’t have to carry her afterall, but it was darned close.

Back at the house, the vet met us in the back yard. As she set up for the procedure, Aki – lying down because she couldn’t stand after the walk - had steak fillet and salmon for dinner, followed by a big bowl of ice cream. Two bowls, actually… we vamped because the vet needed more time to answer all of C's questions.

Then, it was time to get started.

The vet used a two-stage procedure: a big dose of sedative, wait 20 minutes; then an overdose of anesthetic. We gave Aki a THIRD bowl of ice cream for the sedative shot. She licked the bowl clean with eyes drooping, fighting sleep. She got that bowl clean, though. Then she sighed and drifted off to sleep with all four of us gently petting her.

Snoring, softly.

R, being the technical-minded twelve year old boy he is, was fascinated by the process. He was asking questions of the vet and she took the opportunity to talk him through not only each step, but also how each step fit into the entire procedure. She explained each piece of equipment and what it did. When she tied on the tourniquet to raise a vein, she showed him what she was looking for and let him feel it too. He asked her, "if we didn't do anything more after the sedative, would she ever wake up?" The vet answered that she would indeed, but that it would take almost 24 hours.

When the time came for the anesthetic, she asked, kindly, "we can proceed whenever you feel ready enough." R spoke first, saying "I'm NEVER going to be ready, but we need to do this. Me being ready isn't the point. I vote 'now'" And do we did we all. And with quiet tears from me, C and M - but fascination with the IV from R - the vet gave Aki the anesthetic.

Aki's soft snoring breathing just.....stopped. No rattling breaths, no flinches or twitches to startle the kids, just a gentle cessation. It took a full minute or two for the kids to really realize she'd gone. Nothing had happened. Nothing dramatic, anyway. Only peacefulness.

After the vet confirmed that she had passed, w picked her up and put her in the minivan for the trip to Banks. The kids opted not to go on the trip to bury her; they stayed with friends close by to home while we finished the task.

Once we got to the farm, C and I were met by my sister who stayed up late to help us. We placed Aki in a grove of trees where about a half-dozen other family dogs have been buried. We placed her with a toy, and three bouquets of flowers, on top of one of her favorite blankets. Then we planted a Galaxy bush  to mark her spot. Aki had been to the farm a number of times while alive; she liked it there.

On Tuesday morning, M said that she was glad she was brave enough to stay for the whole thing. She said it wasn't scary at all. It was sad, but not scary. Aki got to go on with dignity, surrounded by her family. Having had to put a cat in extreme duress down in a veterinary office with no advanced warning, C and I knew what the alternative can be like. We were heartened to hear M's perspective. That, afterall, was what we wanted to achieve in honoring and aiding Aki's passing.

M's cell phone now carries a new charm -- the heart-shaped dog license from Aki's collar.

Tonight, a week later, I came home from work and was startled to find that there was no dog blocking my path, greeting me. I stepped around her presence anyway, confident that her spirit was both here, and amongst the trees in Banks, all at the same time.

Neko? Is that YOU?!??!!

From Youtube, via BoingBoing. This is all too true.

 

Dog Update

It is indeed just a urinary tract infection (UTI). The doc, however, does call it a “hummer” of an infection. She identified over a half-dozen bacteria that cause UTIs in the sample we took over the weekend – a coordinated attack. Left untreated, this UTI would eventually turn fatal. So we’re glad we caught it. UTIs are common for old dogs. The vet assures us that we’ll clear this one up, and Aki will probably do just fine in the warmer weather. Looks like she’s with us for a good while longer!