A sweet and abiding relationship is about to come to an end — my sixteen years with my great little kitty April. Tomorrow morning I take her to her vet to have her put down. It hasn’t been an easy decision, and it has been long coming. But I realize that even when a cat might still have some lingering physical energy left, other considerations just might trump all.
At over 25 years old April is suffering from senile dementia. It shows itself mostly in the form of uncontrollable fits of howling, sometimes short duration but other times she gets started and just can’t seem to stop. My only solution has been to lock her up in a room by herself until she gets over it. Unfortunately, opening the door of the room usually wakes her up—and it all starts over again. It’s been kinda tough going around here for the last month or so, when the severity of her dementia notably increased.
We crossed a dividing line this week when she began peeing on things. She’s not showing the usual symptoms of a bladder infection; this is more behavioral, I think. She must be frustrated that I won’t let her be around me much any more. But I’m having a work-at-home summer, writing and researching and archiving materials, and she has become almost impossibly disruptive. If she’s sleeping under my desk, an accidental touch from my foot will touch off another fit—or even her just waking up to eat or get a drink of water results in a half-hour of howling. Just the tension alone, wondering how long I have before she goes off again, has been an abiding problem. So keeping her away has been the best course of action.
I tried. I’ve been giving her daily blood pressure medicene. I’ve taken her to the vet three times this last month and gotten test after test. Everything points to a cat in rickety physical condition who is not necessarily dying from kidney failure but can’t be expected to live that much longer. I don’t think that euthanasia is justified on purely physical evidence. But do I wait until she’s nearly comatose? Can I wait that long? Most of my strategies for dealing with her now consist of coming up with ways to keep us apart. My house has a lot of doors and I’m using them. If I’m in Room A, she is not. Her mental deterioration has far outstripped her body’s slow decay.
It’s particularly sad because until this last six months she and I had an incredibly close relationship. She was with me all the time, slept with me all night, cuddled around my feet when I was in my home office, sat in my lap in the living room. She was quiet and affectionate, my little buddy, my companion, my pal.
But now the peeing on things added to the howling—and the number of times during the last month that I had to calm myself down after being provoked to the point of wanting to wring her neck—convinces me that we have reached this point. I’m appalled by my own animosity towards her. Of course she’s blameless. I want to respond with boundless compassion and calmness. I get irritated instead. At least I haven’t acted on the irritation. Or have I? Avoidance and passive aggression. Hmmm.
Nonetheless I’m feeling guilty and let down by my own human weakness—frazzled and irritated and tense and frustrated rather than graceful and serene.
Yet it has to be done. The last time I had a pet euthanized—that was 17 years ago—I couldn’t face being there with her when they gave her the shots. I felt guilty about her, too, but that’s because I thought that maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough to keep her living even though her kidneys were all but dead meat. That’s probably why I have kept plugging along with April, convinced that I have no right to end her life until I have exhausted every other option, including turning myself into a nervous wreck.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be there with her every minute. None of the stress and bother of these last few months can erase the glowing memories of the best kitty ever.
