Queen Astral Is Dying. Astral Kitty Is Returning to the Galaxy.
The short note:My little kitty is dying. Kidney failure. She's home with me tonight with an IV drip of saline, mostly so I can say goodbye. I just found out this afternoon about 6pm. I wasn't ready to have her put to sleep.
I'm writing to you, because you knew her. She is my tiny little blonde kitty with the circles on her sides.
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The long letter:
My little kitty is dying. She has kidney failure. I found out late this afternoon after the vet sent out blood for bloodwork (a geriatric workup).
You know her as Astral, or Astral Kitty, or Queen Astral. She's my tiny little blonde kitty with the waves and circles on her sides. I once told someone I didn't know well that the circles were where the aliens had taken her up. I don't remember who the person was, but he or she didn't get the humor and looked at me like I was out of my mind. The sides of this little kitty are like golden fields with crop circles in them.
The vet gave my little kitty almost 200mL of saline, because she was so dehydrated. The front-desk person told me that's why she was crying over the weekend, because being dehydrated is painful. The vet didn't say that to me, but I don't think I mentioned that she cried when she wasn't sleeping until later, after the saline, when she was fluffier and seemed more comfortable. She was trying to tell me something with her cries this weekend. I just didn't know what she was saying.
The vet sent her blood to an outside lab that sent someone to pick it up, get it analyzed, and send a report all in a matter of hours. The lab values show that she is very sick. If a person had the same values, the only treatment would be kidney dialysis. I had the option of having her put to sleep this afternoon, or leaving her there alone overnight getting fluids all night (with no one there, only her, and only someone coming back to check on her during the night).
I asked if I could bring her home and give the fluids myself. She's supposed to get another 600mL of saline by morning. (1000mL is about a quart, so she'll have had almost a quart of saline added to her tiny body from midafternoon today until tomorrow early in the morning. It seems like I remember her weighing about 7 pounds a few years ago. She weighed 5 pounds today. She's less than half the size and weight of my other cats.)
The saline is for her comfort, so she'll be properly hydrated, and to try to flush out her kidneys. Having her home with me tonight is for my comfort, so I can say goodbye to my suddenly leaving little kitty.
I'm sending this note to you, because you met her at some point. She was the little runt-of-the-litter kitten whose mom left her under a bush by my maternal grandmother's back steps. She's always been special to me for that reason. She's soooo soft, and she's a connection to my grandmother who was still able to walk and go down the back steps when my little kitty lived by the steps.
I didn't want my grandmother to trip over her, and fall down the steps, and break a hip, and go to a nursing home and die. None of those things happened. My grandmother died anyway about 7 years later, in April of 2002. Now, my kitty who always reminds me of my grandmother is dying, even with a saline drip, even with my desire for her to be my eternal kitty.
I knew when I started this menagerie that I'd hit a few years, at some future point, when I'd be sad a lot, because my cats and dogs would all get sick and die during a short period of time. That time has begun. My first of the animals is dying. My quirky little kitty who never liked any of the others anyway, and would have been happy to have been my one and only kitty all her life, is dying.
I held her in the hammock for awhile with the IV bag hanging on the same hook that held the end of the hammock. Right now, she's lying on the floor between my feet with the IV bag hanging from a nail.
The vet said kidney failure is not painful. He said people who have hemodialysis because of end stage renal failure have said they don't hurt when the toxins build up in their bodies. They just feel muddled and unclear. That may be how she is. She's sleeping. She'll respond if picked up or licked by the dogs (they got one shot at nuzzling and licking her an hour or two ago). But mostly, she's just sleeping. She's ready to die.
We've had the "would you unplug ..." conversation in my family and the "would you want to be unplugged ..." For me, the obvious answer is "Yes, unplug me if I am brain dead and I will not recover." The answer is also, "Yes, I would unplug ..., but I would need time to say goodbye first." That doesn't mean I would need years, but I need a little time to come to terms with the sudden loss of a loved one.
I'm trying to take that time tonight to be with my little kitty and see that as much as I want to keep her with me, her time here is through. I asked if things would have been different if I had seen some kind of signs earlier. The vet said if I'd seen something a month ago, the levels in the blood would have been lower, so maybe I could have kept her alive for a couple of months, rather than having only a couple of days to come to terms with losing her. But, that's all. And, I would have been keeping her alive with an IV drip of saline and with occasional injections of saline under her skin.
The vet said cats hide symptoms very well, so it's hard to know when they are sick. I noticed that her behavior changed a little over a month ago, but I just thought she had a personality change. She didn't seem sick until this weekend. I felt like she was dying, but I told myself she was sick with an infection that an antibiotic would cure. My wishful thinking was only that. Wishful thinking.
So, my little Astral Kitty is dying. My little rejected-by-her-mom kitty, of whom my grandmother said, "I took pity on her and gave her some milk and biscuits" is dying. My little kitty of whom my uncle said, "Drown this cat or take it home," is dying. I am drowning her now. In my tears.
I am very sad.
ps - Now she is sleeping again on my lap. If I did not believe she was dying, I could believe she was simply sleeping peacefully while I type. Rest in peace, my little Astral.
posted by jordanrep.com/10522 @ 10:11 PM
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