Yeah. Sucky way to start the day.
My three-year-old daughter and six-year-old stepson came in to our bedroom this morning, around 8:00, to wake me up. The boy knew it was Father’s Day, and knew I had planned on letting his dad sleep in. They were hungry. So, I get up to start making breakfast. My eight-month-old son was in his crib, just rolling around & chewing on his toes.
So, I’m in the kitchen, when all of a sudden, I hear the girl yelling “Sovtek! Sovtek! Sovtek!” (Sovtek was the cat’s name–named after my musician husband’s tube amp). I step out to see what’s going on, and my stepson says “I think there’s something wrong with the cat.” The kids are standing by my bedroom door, looking in. I look in, and see the cat laying there on his side. I nudged him with my toe, and he didn’t move. The light was off, and the room was dim, so I couldn’t really see if he was breathing or not. I turned on the light, and saw that his eyes were half-open, and he was breathing really weirdly, like he was trying to get up a hairball. I nudged him again, and he still didn’t move. My husband was still sleeping (he sleeps really, really soundly).
I woke my husband up, and said “There’s something really wrong with the cat.” He wakes up and sees what I see, except now it looks like the cat is drooling a lot. My husband says “Oh s***. I’m going to take him to the emergency animal clinic,” and starts to pick him up. I said “let me get you a blanket for him.” My darling daughter offered up her beloved blanket, and I said “that’s very sweet, honey, but we’ll use another one.”
So, my husband takes the cat to the clinic. He called a while later, and said the cat was still alive, but had had several convulsions. He said the doctor suspected that maybe the cat had ingested some antifreeze (he’s an outdoor cat, so that’s a strong possibility). He said that they could do a blood test, but it cost about $100, and they weren’t sure if they could save him. Maybe, maybe not. So now I’m stuck. Do we have the cat put down or not? They might be able to save him. I told my husband to ask for some odds. If they’re better than 60% that they can save him, and he’ll go on to lead a normal cat life, get the tests & try to save him. If not, have him put down.
My husband comes home about half an hour later, with no cat. I met him at the door, and he told me that the doctors were fairly certain that it was too late. So, my husband told them to go ahead and put him to sleep.
My husband is not a cat person. But this cat was different, for him. Sovtek really, really liked my husband. He’d come when my husband called him. He respected my husband’s personal boundaries. They got along beautifully. My daughter was absolutely crazy about this cat, too. She kind of understands what happened, but not completely. She knows that Sovtek got very, very sick and had to go to the kitty doctor. She knows that he was too sick to come home, and that he’s not coming home anymore. My stepson understands what happened, thank goodness. He was bummed too, but he’s old enough to understand.
Sovtek adopted us. He didn’t have much use for me, but he wasn’t bad. I feel terrible for my husband & daughter, and for having to make such an awful decision. But we’ll be getting a new kitty within a couple of days–my aunt has a bunch of cats, and she’s perpetually got kittens. Right now, she’s got eight kittens, seven weeks old.
The new kitten will be our third cat. The first one, also an outdoor cat who adopted us, lost a fight with a dog. The new cat will be an indoor cat. And we will continue the tradition of letting my musician husband name the cat. The first cat was Joaquin, after a guitar player named Joaquin Murphy. The second cat was named after my husband’s amp (the amp is black & white–so was the cat). We already have a name for the new kitten. He shall be Tele. Short for TeleCATster.
Other than that, we had a really good Father’s Day. I sincerely hope the rest of you did, and thanks for letting me tell my story!
I lost my 13yro Siamese a year and a half ago–my parents put her down behind my back, when she wasn’t even sick!–and my 17yro Siamese died six years ago after suffering a series of strokes. It was awful to watch her struggle…in the end, she was completely catatonic (no pun intended).