Hi All:
First, for every one who has commented so far on Boo's Goodbye Mom post that can be found on this link (http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976848360) a truly heartfelt thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your thoughts and prayers are making it easier for my wife to say goodbye to her favorite boy.
This Saturday will be Boo's last day, we have an appointment with the vet at the proverbial hour of High noon...he deserves nothing less, and being the last appointment of the day, it gives my wife time to say her good byes.
Perhaps it is the artist in me, or a deep need to say a proper goodbye to this cat, but I've hatched an idea, and would invite some of you to be a part of a Video Goodbye to Boo on You Tube that I want to air when we get home this Saturday. I'll share with you my idea, and if some of you would like to be a part, just message me for my email address so that you can send your pictorial contribution and be a part of this heartfelt Gather members artistic collaboration, "A Fairwell Salute To Boo".
The idea is simple...I would like to have various pet owners (yes, Dog owners are welcome) to write a small Haiku Goodbye message, and send it along with a picture of one or all of your pets to me. I'll take the submissions, or as many of them as I can and put them into a video slide show presentation "A Fairwell Salute To Boo" video to Pina's favorite cat.
Told you it was simple...the Haiku format was chosen, as there is limited space on a slide for words. Your words do not have to be a Haiku, but do have to be short and crisp in nature to fit on a slide that will then be followed by the pet picture of your choice who is saying goodbye to boo.
I'm sorry for the shortness of this, but would like all submissions for this video in my hand no later than late Friday afternoon...I hope several of Gather's pet lovers will be a part of this project. I'll upload the link to the You Tube video sometime Saturday, probably late afternoon, or early evening.
Porgie Tirebiter
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This was bad enough, but then his moods changed - once the most accepting and receptive of the cats, he started having fights with Ginger, the youngest male, who he accepted before Ginger matured. Because Ginger is part of a real family in our home (with his parents and two sisters with him here), Boo was at a significant disadvantage. The minute he hissed or swatted at Ginger, the entire family would surround and challenge him. Snowball, Ginger's mother - a cat who adored Boo before she had the kittens, would swipe at him. Every day it was constant battle - not only of cleaning up after him, but trying to soothe the ruffled fur.
I have taken him to the vet numerous times, especially a year ago. I was worried that he was sick - he had gotten heavier, drank a lot of water and ate like a horse. Absolutely no diabetes. I thought he might have a disease - nothing. The vet said that he was a healthy 10 year old cat then, but he thought it was behavioral. He was put on an anti anxiety drug, ELavil - which did calm him but he still peed, anyway. The pills cost us $30 a month, and after a few months of this and no change, I took him off of them. We tried Feliway, we tried giving him extra attention. We shut off rooms and our basement to keep him from destroying more things. I was just reaching the point recently of trying holistic medications and separating him, but he grew worse, especially this last month.
Things have deteriorated so badly now he has taken to both defecating and peeing in our entry hall. I am not sure he is the one pooping, but when I saw him crouching down to pee the other night, it made sense he was the one doing the pooping. When he sprays now, he leaves a three foot long urine puddle. He pees outside the litter box, or someone does, but I suspect it is him. We cannot keep up with the relentless, exhausting cleaning. My house smells vaguely of pee, a sad note because it used to be such that no one knew we had 8 cats - it never smelled.
He also cleans himself less and less, and his fur has lost its silky sheen - it looks oilier. He has also lost a tremendous amount of weight and to such an extent I can feel each vertebrae on his back. With the other cats, including our 14 year old Chili, I cannot. A small benign lump on his belly has grown larger. I could go on.
Finally, Boo has always been very talkative, but over the last month he was yowling and grouching and howling incessantly. (The last few days he is quieter, which is strange - he barely utters a sound.) Sleep for me became a nightmare because instead of calmly sleeping beside me, he would clean me all night - my hair, my face, my hands or simply be restless, lying down, getting up, etc. I was up half the night! Sometimes he is his normal self - the last two nights he has curled up beside me quietly (as he has done for 11 years) and purred. He woke me up the last two mornings as per his old self, but when I come home at night he looks at me blankly, as if nothing is behind his eyes any more. He recognizes me the most I think, but even then, he has forgotten some commands I taught him. Sometimes, I know he wants to jump on my lap, but he doesn't remember my commands for the most part. Sometimes he forgets how to climb up entirely and I pick him up, but then sometimes he remembers. We have both observed him lying in the center of the kitchen floor (with his head up) staring into space. Ginger walks by but he says nothing, until he recalls his nemesis a few minutes later and utters a plaintive yowl. And finally, he always slept one portion of our stairway landing so he could see what is going on. Now, he sleeps by the side steps a few feet away on the same landing, alone in the dark.
The whole thing is unbearable. On Saturday December 2nd at 12:00 Noon we have an appointment for him to join the Rainbow Bridge. It is impossibly exhausting for us both - and all I do - every day - is cry, as does Porgie.
Thank you for being here for us.