Today has been the hardest Monday I can remember. As anyone who knows me knows we have a farms worth of animals. One of the farm favorites is Precious the cat. He is not an ordinary cat. He is like a little dog. He comes to you when called and loves everyone. One of his favorite people past his dad and my sister. He will come out and sit and purr for hours for anyone who will love on him.
Unfortunately he has been sick for the last month. I have been having to make sure he eats everyday (I used to have to shoo him away from the food). He has been hiding a lot more and only coming out to sit on David. He would occasionally come out of hiding and cry for a couple seconds and then try to throw up. So I treated him for hairballs. He had started acting better so I thought he was getting better.
This morning David got up and went out to check on the puppy and make sure he hadn't ate our house. Precious was hiding in the laundry room next to his food bowl. When David came out Precious started crying so David picked him up and set him in the hallway. Precious staggered all over and couldn't walk so David called me to come check on him. I watched him walk and then decided we had better get him to the vet. I thought he may have had a stroke.
When the vet checked him she said that his liver had totally failed and he had a seizure or a stroke. She also told us there was nothing we could do. So we chose to have him put to sleep. This a decision that is breaking both David and my heart.
Disclaimer: Graphic description of animal euthanasia.
They took Precious out of the room and set him up with an IV. They brought him back in for David and I to hold until it was over. We sat for a long time holding Precious and loving on him. The vet was very nice and gave us some time to say our goodbyes. We then placed him on the table and she told us how it would work. They would give him a very large overdose of sodium pentathol and he would stop breathing and his heart would stop. She said it would be just like he went to sleep.
In all truth it wasn't like he just went to sleep. It was horrific. (Keep in mind that I have dissected human bodies and seen some horrific things so I am not a pansy.) She started injecting the sodium pentathol and about three quarters of the way through the injection his head flopped off to one side suddenly. I lost it. I thought that he really would just lay his head down and go to sleep. The suddenness of his death was horrific. Apparently he died that quickly because he was already dying. I took off out of the room with David still holding Precious. I went out to the car and screamed and cried. I threw up next to the car.
Seeing a helpless little animal die is the very worst thing to me. I finally gathered myself and went back in to hold precious until they got a little casket box for him. I was horrified that his eyes were still open. He had the most beautiful big yellow eyes. We paid the two hundred dollars and took him with us. We ran home and grabbed two shovels and walked out to the mesa. We buried him on the mesa where he can find his way home.
Precious was the best cat I have ever had. He was so friendly and happy to be on this earth. David was blessed to have him for 11 years and I was blessed to know him for the last 3 years. He loved to sit on me and David and watch TV. He would help David corner and catch the live mice Monkey would bring in. He always had to be the clown of the house when we had visitors. He made sure that anyone who professed to not like cats loved him. He made sure all of the dogs walked the line. He was the best cat ever.
We are heart broken because we believed Precious had at least another good five years left. May God bless him and keep him.
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