July 20th 2011 6:41 pm
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Dear Diary,
Last week, on Thursday, it was one year since the day I made my journey to the Bridge. Mommy doesn't know if anybody knew that but her.
She still remembers it with crystal clarity. Friday night, the 10th I wouldn't eat my Fancy Feast, but then I'd long been picky and never ate much so mommy wasn't concerned. Saturday, the 11th was the same and mommy was a little concerned. Sunday the 12th she took my pictures of me in my collar that Hazel Lucy's mommy made that I won for the Buzzin' Into Spring photo contest. When she took the photos she could tell I didn't want to do it but I didn't hardly put up a fight, I just seemed resigned. It was then she became very worried about me. She called the emergency number for the vet early Sunday evening.
The vet asked if I was throwing up or anything. Mommy said, no, I just was lethargic and not eating. The vet said she didn't think it was an emergency and to bring me in Monday morning.
Mommy took me in Monday morning, the 13th, and then went to work. The vet called her in the afternoon at work and said it was not good news; my x-ray showed a large mass. Mommy left work and went to the vet's office and talked to the vet. The vet showed mommy the x-ray and the mass about the size of mommy's fist in my abdomen. She said she could operate but that there was no guarantee that it would do any good because the mass could come back. The vet said my CBC results suggested lymphoma and that my platelets were low. She said she could do a needle biopsy to confirm what the cells were and mommy said, yes, do that. Mommy then said she wanted to get a second opinion and she took me home. That night she couldn't get me to eat or drink. She ran to the store to buy chicken baby food (because that was what Scooter ate) and tuna but I wouldn't touch any of it.
Mommy called another vet, the vet who had treated all our dogs when we had four doggies. His office said they couldn't see me until Wednesday. Mommy had to work Tuesday and so did daddy so mommy called the first vet and asked if they could keep me on Tuesday and they said yes. So mommy took me there in the morning. When she came to pick me up Tuesday evening I looked awful. There was some assistant vet there and she didn't seem to know anything about my case. Mommy asked if I had been given anything for the pain and the assistant vet looked at me sort of puzzled and said what pain? Mommy sort of shouted, from the tumor and held up the x-ray. The assistant vet looked at the x-ray and then got some stuff she rubbed in my ears that made me all groggy and mommy took me home. That night I wouldn't eat either and I sort of wobbled around, probably because of that stuff they put in my ears.
Wednesday, the 14th, mommy took me to the second vet and then went to work. The second vet called mommy in the afternoon and said he was pretty sure it was lymphoma and that my platelets, which I would need for my blood to clot if I had surgery, had dropped even more in the CBC he ran from what they were on Monday. Mommy said she thought she should send me to the Bridge. (You see, mommy's two cats that went to the Bridge before me, Lucinda and Gabrielle, mommy tried and tried and tried to keep them alive and she knows that they were in pain and unhappy as she and the vets kept trying to save them and she promised me and Edgar that she would not do that to us; that when the time came she would let us go). And the vet said he thought that was best. Mommy asked if I could come home for one last night. And the vet said that would be okay but that he didn't think mommy should wait any longer than that because I would be suffering. Mommy hung up.
Mommy then thought about it for a while and thought about how, if I came home, she would spend the night crying over me and how that probably would not be a kindness to me. And at this point, as always, it was all about what was best for me. Mommy called daddy and asked him what he wanted to do and he said: "I said goodbye last night. I didn't think she was going to make it." So mommy called the vet back and said she changed her mind and said she would be in at five to say goodbye. Then she called the first vet and told her that she thought they would want to know that Emily was going to the Bridge. The first vet asked if mommy still wanted the test on the cells she took with the needle biopsy (why hadn't she done that on Tuesday???????) and mommy said okay.
Mommy, of course, couldn't do anything but cry and so she left work and was at the vet's office at 4:15. She asked if she could just go ahead and be with me. So they brought me to a room with mommy, they had a shunt in my arm for the medicine to send me to the Bridge. Mommy held me and kissed and kissed me and petted me and talked to me but I was not happy. I didn't feel good and I was in that strange vet room and mommy didn't want me to be unhappy. She never wanted me to be unhappy or to be in pain. So she knocked on the door to call them in to send me on my journey. The vet put the syringe in my shunt and gave me the injection and I went limp and my tongue poked out. And mommy cried and cried and kissed me. Then the vet took my earthly shell away.
The vet came back with a cardboard box that she gave to mommy with my earthly shell in it. Mommy left the vet's office with tears streaming down her face and snot running out of her nose and she was making funny little choking and gasping noises. She put me in the front seat and we went home. She put the box on the kitchen floor while she went to change clothes so that Edgar could smell it.
Then mommy went in the back yard. It was around 100 degrees that day, July 14, 2010. Mommy dug a hole in the spot where daddy had sad to. She dug it two feet deep, like daddy had said to. Daddy wasn't home yet. Then she opened the cardboard box. In it was a heavy plastic black bag that was tied shut. Mommy opened the bag and took my shell out. Some of my urine got on mommy when she did that. I couldn't help it that my shell went potty after I wasn't there to control it anymore! And mommy wrapped my shell in the pink and red blanket that Arnold P. had given me and she put my little china plate (I had a pretty little china plate unlike any of the plates that Edgar, Salem and Lucy use) that I ate Fancy Feast off of in the blanket with me. And then she put me, my shell that is, in the hole. And she put the dirt back in the hole on top of me. And that was that. The end of my life.
One year and 6 days ago. And the tears were streaming down mommy's face again and the snot running out of her nose again while she wrote this. She has asked herself for one year and 6 days whether she made the right decision. The first vet never did tell her the results of the needle biopsy. And mommy hasn't been able to call and ask. But would it have made a difference? Both vets said at my age, with the size of the mass and my platelets dropping I was not a good candidate for surgery. And mommy had made her promise to me, and to Edgar, about not letting us suffer because she was being selfish.
I had a good life. When I was a kitten I was taped shut inside a box with my siblings and my mom and left in a parking lot. But someone rescued me and then mommy adopted me and I had 14.5 years that were pretty darn good. What more can a cat ask for? I wish mommy's heart just didn't hurt so much for me.
love and angel purrs,
Emily Felicity
March 30th 2011 6:11 pm
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I cannot count the number of times I have written what I hoped were comforting words to many of you who have had to say the final goodbye to you beloved cats. Many, many times I have typed the platitude: "they take a piece of your heart." That is not accurate. They rip a piece of your heart out with tooth and claw when they leave and leave you with a gaping wound, spurting blood. The pain is incredible. There is actually a physical pain in your chest and you want to scream and cry and pound the floor. At least I do. So how I deal with it (not recommended) is I don't think about it. I push it away into the recesses of my mind in the hope that when enough time passes if I think about it there wont be a searing pain over the fact that I cannot put her little warm body on my chest with her paws on my shoulder and kiss her ear and feel her heartbeat - because she is cold and dead and buried in the hole I dug. And I'll never get to look in her eyes again. And that maybe it is my fault. Maybe she could have lived longer if I had been more attentive, more knowledgeable, more...whatever...
I've told several people that the reason I am not active on Catster anymore is because of the times I've been hurt. I believed that when I said it. And in a way it is true because none of the things people did to hurt me hurt the way Emily's death did.
I know, this is nuts. You've all lost your cats and you haven't lost your minds. I have no greater admiration than I do for Calvin's mom who lost her beloved boy without making a huge fuss and who kept her chin up and stayed positive and stayed active. She is a role model, that is certain.
I, on the other hand, am a sniveling weakling who runs away from pain and confrontation. So, sorry. I'm sorry I've abandoned you all. I'm just doing the best I can.
Please don't feel the need to comment. This was just sort of cathartic for me to type this out.
March 26th 2011 6:14 pm
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Dear Diary,
Except for the other angels, Gabby and Lucy, who won't be writing tonight, I'm the last one to get to write a diary. But I'm the reason mom got on Catster for the first time in a while.
Mom finally finished her drawing of me and she got it matted and framed by a dear friend, along with sweet Sky's embroidery of my name. So she put the pictures up on my page.
Mom still thinks of me all the time. But I have to confess to you that when she does, she usually tries to push me out of her mind because it just makes her so sad that I am not there with her physically anymore.
Edgar threw up this morning. That made mommy think of me, and worry about Edgar. But he's okay. And I'm okay. I don't hurt anymore and I'm at the place where we will all be one day. My life was good, and full of love. I have no regrets. I wish mommy didn't hurt in her heart when she thinks of me. But I know someday that will ease.
angelic love and purrs,
Emily Felicity
From mommy: Just typing "Felicity" made me start bawling. On Facebook everyone, including me, just refers to her as "Emily." But Emily Felicity WAS her name. I called her "Em Fecity" all the time. I miss my baby girl. I'm so sorry I didn't get her better care and find that tumor sooner when they could have operated. Who knows how much longer I could have had her with me?? And who knows how long she suffered and felt bad? I tried to take good care of her. I really did. I had her in two or three times in her last ten months for full check-ups with CBC's and they never found anything wrong. Ahhhh the heartbreak of our little ones having such short lives and our being powerless to save them from death! I'm sorry for the ramble. Probably no one reads this diary any more so maybe I won't upset anyone else. I'm okay, really. I just miss my Em Fecity.
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