saying goodbye

early morning with mr. poo (january 2008).

my family said hello to my. poo when my parents adopted him on june 17, 2003. just shy of exactly nine years later, we all said goodbye.

as anyone who's been reading this blog knows, it had been a tumultuous and tiring few weeks of ups and downs in mr. poo's health of late. he'd spent the night at the pet hospital on friday, june 8th, and came home on saturday... but he didn't do well. he wasn't eating, and was (as i wrote at the time) spending all his time curled up in a sad little ball in the basement. he was also sneezing and snotty and totally congested. we left him at the vet's overnight again on monday the 11th, and the vet called my parents on tuesday morning to say kyle should probably stay another day. kyle's mass had been biopsied on monday afternoon, and we were all awaiting the test results, and the vet figured another night of being assist-fed would help kyle regain some strength.

on tuesday afternoon, the vet called my parents again to say that mr. poo had tested FIV-negative, which was good news. that meant that his immune system was okay, and that he'd hopefully bounce back sooner from whatever was ailing him. YB and i decided to go visit him in the pet hospital that night to see how he'd been doing and to offer him some cheering up.

a few minutes after we arrived there on the evening of the 12th, the vet came hurrying out into the waiting room and said that he'd been trying to reach us. he ushered us into an exam room and then said, "i don't have good news."

he went on to explain that he'd just gotten off the phone with our parents and had shared the news with them, as well: the mass in kyle's abdomen had turned out to be cancer. and, he added, it was the worst kind of cancer to get -- one that's very aggressive and invasive, and one that does not respond to chemotherapy. he explained that surgery wasn't an advisable option, either, since it was very rarely successful in cases like this. (mom had already decided a while ago that she didn't want to subject kyle to surgery, so we wouldn't have opted for it, anyway.) he went on to say that he felt like the tumour had actually grown slightly since he'd first felt it a few days prior, and that kyle had likely been in a fair amount of pain these past few weeks.

we knew what this meant: it was time to let our little guy go.

the vet began saying we could take kyle home for one more night if we wanted to have him with us to say goodbye, but neither YB nor i wanted to put mr. poo through the stress of travel back and forth. as well, we didn't want to prolong his suffering, and we knew that us going home for the night and knowing we'd have to return to euthanize kyle the following day would be unbearable.

"is there any way we could do this tonight?" i asked the vet.

and he said, "of course." it was already closing time at the clinic, but the vet (who was really wonderful through all this) said he and his colleagues would stay as long as we needed them to. trixie called my parents, who were weeping on the phone, and told them to come to the pet hospital. it was time.

the vet brought mr. poo into the exam room, and it was obvious he (kyle) was suffering. he looked terrible, and was like a limp rag. the vet said he'd given mr. poo some fairly potent painkillers earlier, so he was probably knocked out from those. by now, both trix and i were crying, and the vet gave us some time alone with our furry friend.

trix picked him up and held him in her arms, but he moaned a little with each movement. he'd been moaning and crying anytime we moved or carried him for the preceding few days, and now we knew why. he was hurting. she lay him back down, and we kissed him and stroked his downy-soft fur and told him what a good boy he'd been. i remarked at how frail and thin he looked -- such a contrast from the oafy cat who'd earned the nickname "fattie" years ago.

when my parents arrived, both were sobbing. my mother was absolutely devastated and my father, not surprisingly, had self-medicated himself into a haze. trix and i gave them some alone time with kyle and waited in the waiting room until it was time for all of us to say goodbye to kyle for good.

the vet gave us the option of being present for the euthanasia or waiting outside, and we all said we wanted to stay with kyle until he was gone. my mother sobbed that she didn't want him to die alone.

the vet talked us through what would happen and what he was doing, step by step. first, he gave kyle a sedative so that he'd get drowsy and stay calm. and, to some extent, that worked. unfortunately, kyle's actual passing was not very peaceful or calm. administering the sedative was an exercise in screeching cat, and kyle actually bolted off the table during the shot. the vet gathered him up and finished the sedation, but we were all kind of rattled by then.

after about 10 minutes of petting kyle and comforting him and waiting for the sedative to take effect, which it finally seemed to do, the vet produced the syringe with the life-ending barbiturates, and told us that kyle would be gone within seconds of being injected. he said it would be like a sigh, a last exhalation of breath, and then it would be over. he asked us if we were ready.

tearfully, we all said yes.

as soon as the vet touched kyle with that needle, though, kyle suddenly "woke up" and was panicked. he reeeeowred and tried to swing his head back to bite the vet, so the vet tech had to restrain him. this was what was most upsetting for all of us -- kyle was not calm and was not going peacefully. the last living image we all have of him is, sadly, his face straining, his mouth open in a loud moan and his fang caught in the knit blanket on which he was lying. in many ways, that was the most horrible part -- as if he knew what was happening and was fighting to get away.

once the vet actually did inject mr. poo, though, everything did end in seconds. the vet was right -- it was maybe three seconds after the syringe was emptied that mr. poo's little heart stopped beating and he was gone. mom sat down in a chair and just sobbed, and YB and i stroked mr. poo's head. the vet asked us if we wanted to feel the mass, and i said yes. he guided my hand to where the tumour sat, and it was probably the size of a large plumb. definitely bigger than i'd thought, and definitely very big, relatively speaking, for a cat.

the vet gave my mom a big hug and said she was a good cat mom. he reiterated that there was nothing she could have done to prevent cancer, and that we did the most loving thing we could do for kyle by letting him go. "it was one last favour you did for him," he said.

we all stayed with kyle for another 10 minutes or so. my parents left first, and YB and i stayed a bit longer to collect kyle's things (my mother said she couldn't bear to bring home his empty carrier). my parents had decided to have kyle cremated, and filled out the appropriate paperwork before heading home. trix and i weren't sure mom was in any condition to drive, but she insisted.

trix and i stayed with mr. poo for about another five minutes or so. YB said she felt bad just leaving him in the room, so we asked one of the vet techs if she could carry him out and away. she did, we collected kyle's carrier and walked tearfully to the car.

"i can't believe he's gone," trix kept saying.

the next couple of days were extremely sad. sorting through kyle's things and putting all his stuff (kibbles, litter box, etc.) away was heartbreaking. kyle had a big basket of playthings -- ranging from lengths of knotted string to ping-pong balls and cat toys -- which we dumped out on the living room floor. one by one, we went through them all so that we could each pick out a few to keep. the ones he'd never really used were bagged to give to a cat shelter; the ones he'd chewed beyond recognition were tossed. trix took home some of his blankets, and we each claimed one of his many collars. we did all this through a fairly constant veil of tears.

in the days that have followed, i've managed to grieve and return to life fairly normally. but i think that's largely because i have the benefit of distance -- i don't live in my parents' house, which is filled with reminders of kyle at every turn, and i never lived with mr. poo for any extended period of time. my parents saw him every day for nine years, and even YB lived at home with him for several years before she bought her house.

so, as is to be expected, they are all having a hard time with things. YB is especially sad and working through her feelings slowly. mom has her ups and downs -- it's most difficult around the times of the day that involved ritual (breakfast, dinner, bedtime) when she had one-on-one time with mr. poo. and dad... well, he's combining antidepressants with sedatives, so he's in a medicated fog and nicely detached from reality.

they've purchased a rose bush, which they're planting in the backyard today in kyle's memory. they're positioning it in a spot that would have been visible from kyle's favourite place at the back window. his ashes, when they're ready, will be kept inside.

what's been really amazing and wonderful is the outpouring of support and love from some of our friends through all this. YB and i have received many messages of condolence, and several of her friends even sent condolence cards. as well, a few weeks ago, i joined an online messageboard for cat owners whose pets had hyperthyroidism and, when i posted on tuesday night that kyle had passed away, the members of that board flooded me with kind, caring and thoughtful condolences. i was so incredibly moved. i copied the messages and passed them on to YB and mom, who were both floored that virtual strangers could be so compassionate. (i was not surprised, though -- i know from experience that you can meet life-long friends on a messageboard. :-))

my parents' house feels weirdly empty these days. its lovable and ornery smallest resident is gone, but the hole he's left behind is enormous and will take some time to fill back up again.