We have Caturday, we could have Purrsday, correct?

Okay, so I have a no-show student and I thought I’d try to squeeze in a quick blog post. Teachers, do you call or text when your students don’t come? I used to call (back in the day) but learned that by that point nothing is going to change anyway (that is, the student is either on their way or has forgotten and won’t make it in time to have the lesson—maybe it’d be different with an hour long lesson…). Maybe my student will read this and realize they missed their lesson

Anyway, pet things, as usual. Though I’ve entered the land of living once again, I’m still busy with pet things. Tomorrow is Chloe’s big test and I’m also taking Mackenzie in to try to see why she is still losing hair and super itchy all the time. Sigh.

Look at those guys. Best buds! I texted that picture to Louie the other day and tried to type “besties” but it autocorrected to “beasties” which I thought was also appropriate.

I apologize for the messed up slip cover. I’m sure some of you are dying to straighten it…I try, but then Mackenzie just jumps on it again and within a few minutes it’s a mess. That’s technically her couch anyway.

This is my old cat, Heifetz. She and the fatness used to live together until she died in 2007. I’ve been carting a cardboard box of her ashes with me ever since…and no idea what to do with them. While I was looking on Etsy the other week to decide what to do with Oistrakh’s ashes to honor her, I decided to finally get something made for Heifetz too. I had less pictures to choose from, but I think I got a nice one. I don’t think I’ll use the keychain to put keys on, but I’m just happy to finally have something nice as a keepsake…for so many years I just couldn’t even deal with her ashes. She died suddenly while I was away for the weekend, and I was sad for so long, (and surprise, I felt SUPER guilty, that she died without me, though not alone, as Oistrakh was there)…So now I have this, and I think it’ll be much nicer. I can’t believe that nearly 9 years have gone by, actually.

Other than cats, that’s mostly it I’ve been practicing and teaching and doing the freelance hustle, as always. This week has been trying but I’m making it through! We aren’t doing Taco Thursday tonight and instead I purchased salmon at Trader Joe’s, so after 3 more students I will get to have a really delicious dinner.

How is your week going?  What have you done in the past to preserve the memory of a deceased pet?

Yesterday I had to stop by the vet to pick up Fatness’s ashes. I have something on order to put them in but it’s from etsy and will be handmade so for now I just have them in a box. I have to say the vet has been really great through all of this—I’m sure they are used to it, and have lots of experience dealing with people’s grief over their pets, but still, they have made me feel better. I meant to return some of the cans of special food they’d given me that Fatness never ate but I forgot it. I find myself getting obsessed over what to do with her remaining cans of food, and figuring out what to do with them but then being seemingly unable to actually follow up on my plans.

Sometimes I forgot that the fatness is gone and I’ll see a dark shape out of the corner of my eye and think it’s her.

I’ve noticed on facebook that quite a few of my friends have lost pets recently. I’m not sure if more than usual have lost pets, or that I’ve noticed more than I did before, or if (creepy idea) facebook’s algorithms are showing me more lost pet posts. Maybe even all of the above.

I wrote a rant about snow driving but erased it. In a nutshell, bad traffic in the snow is another one of those things people from St Louis think only happens in St Louis. Oh, and I’m glad the Rams are leaving. I was tired of hearing about how much money the city had to spend on football, but not on all the things that would actually benefit the city. Sigh. It’s so easy to get angry and worked up about these things but so hard to know what to do. *insert inspirational picture with quotes*

I’m leaving this post with no picture. Next time. Enjoy the rest of your week and stay warm, friends. Thank for all of your support and kind words.

Thanks to all of you who left comments and have sent notes and messages to me about Oistrakh’s passing. It means so much to me to hear from you.

Things are getting easier, of course, but I am still full of sadness, and so many other emotions. Guilt, of course, guilt that I didn’t realize she was sick until it was too late, guilt that I didn’t give her enough attention the past few months because the other animals were having so many issues. But then sometimes I’m happy, thinking about funny things she would do, or relieved that she isn’t in pain anymore, and then guilt that I’m relieved that she isn’t hissing at Chloe anymore…it’s been a hard week. But things are getting a bit easier.

Chloe, the only cat now, is having a lot of issues. She’s been peeing inappropriately for nearly a year now, and we’d hoped that when she got diagnosed with diabetes and started getting shots that it would get better. We mostly have managed to get her to pee on puppy pads or occasionally in the litter box, but two nights ago we realized she had peed on the bed. And then Mackenzie escaped from the yard, over the fence I guess, two nights in the past week. She’s been on steroids for an issue and been really hungry, so we aren’t sure, did she go off looking for food, or did she go off looking for Oistrakh?

And we’re trying to decide what to do with Chloe, she is having all kinds of skin problems that we’d initially thought were overgrooming but instead seems to be fragile skin, and the vet wants to test her for Cushing’s Disease, but we’re just not sure if that matters, or if we just need to resign ourselves that she will be in the cone the rest of her life and try to make the best of it and give her the best life we can, and stop taking her to the vet. Or do the tests, and then we’d know, whether or not we pursued further treatment. Pet decisions are hard, and I’m glad, in a way, that the decisions for Fatness were easier. I chose to give her fluids on an IV, and while maybe it wasn’t the best that she had to spend two days at the vet, the chances were good that it could have extended her life. It didn’t, but I don’t look back and wonder what if. And then I took her home, and then we knew things weren’t good. For Chloe, she is in good spirits, though the cone makes things hard, and she’s got staples on her side from the latest wound, and I just don’t know. She’s Louie’s cat though, so luckily for me he has to make the important decisions, and I just get to support him.

This was during the fatness’s last night. She was curled up on her pillow and Chloe came to sit with her. (I’d put that ponytail there in the hopes that she’d be interested, because she had always loved them.)

This was from yesterday’s Timehop, which is a fun app. Things were different this time last year, it was pre-diabetes, and pre-kidney disease, and just two cats struggling to work out their issues.

This is Chloe’s good side. Her old cone was really beat up so we bought her a new one the other day.

And her bad side. You can see the staples holding her skin together as she heals from the latest wound.

I discovered there are definitely a few more pictures of Chloe on my camera roll these days. At least now there are two of us handling two pets with some issues (Mackenzie is mostly doing okay, but is having some fur loss and allergies, along with an ongoing thyroid problem which just requires a little pill twice a day…it’s no big deal, but these things add up) rather than three pets with issues. It does make life easier, which makes me feel guilty, and sad…I think, what if we’d caught Fatness’s kidney problems earlier, then what, would it have been months of subcutaneous fluids? How would we have managed? But I miss her, I miss how soft and squishy and warm she is, and I miss her the most in the mornings.

My mom sent some old pictures of Fatness—this is from when she was a few months old, maybe even just two months, and very playful. I had a cheap fishing pole toy that I recall she (or with Heifetz) destroyed. That’s my sister Carrie in the picture.

It looks like even as a kitten she didn’t really enjoy being petted. It was a trouble she had—she was very soft so everybody wanted to pet her.

And there she is, on top of kitchen cabinets in an old place of mine.

I suppose I won’t stop sharing pictures for awhile. I’d thought after my last post that that might be it for fatness pictures, but I doubt it. I’m not sorry either

Today I had to put down my cat, Oistrakh, also known, at various points in her life, as Little Kitty, Fatty, the Fatness, and Dr. Oysterman, along with countless other nicknames and terms of endearment, and a hashtag (#fatcat).

I’m devastated.

She had kidney failure.  It happened quickly, and by the time I realized something was horribly wrong, it was too late. We tried by putting her on an IV with fluids for a few days, but her levels never came back down. I took her home for a few days, but she was never okay again, and we decided it was time to let her go.

I’d never had to make that decision for a pet, or any of these end of life decisions, what treatment to pursue, how long to let her suffer. It was really difficult, but in the end I think I did as good as I could, and that I didn’t make her suffer too long (hopefully) and that I gave her a wonderful life. The vet said several times that this was the right thing to do, that we had done all we could and that really helped.

I woke up this morning knowing we had decided today was the day and I had already arranged my work schedule, and still, I was hesitant. It was so hard. She was still warm, still soft, and still breathing. She was drinking a little water and using the litter box. But that was really all she was doing. She wasn’t doing all the things she loved. She was just lying on a pillow.  It helped hearing from a friend who said that “for all the joy she brought you, you can now repay her a bit by letting her pass peacefully.”

It was so horribly sad at the vet, but I think she was ready, and it was like she just fell asleep—she passed as peacefully as any of us could hope to. Louie and I stayed with her until the very end and then they let us stay as long as we wanted afterwards and I covered her body with the blanket before we left. Writing about it makes me cry, but I want to share my feelings and get my thoughts down here before I forget. She deserves my sadness because she helped so much with mine over the years. She was also a wonderful photography subject and…I don’t know what I will do without her…

She was such a sweet cat. She had the softest fur, and was really squashy under her skin. Cuddling with her was one of my biggest joys. Even though she didn’t really like cuddling or being picked up, she would tolerate it for awhile. She loved eating, playing with pony tail holders, sitting in windows in the sun, or sitting on my legs or near me. She always hated violin and other noise, was shy around people until she got to know them, and didn’t care for Louie’s dog and cat at all. I think they miss her, and knew she was sick. Last night Chloe came and sat by her, and I felt like that was a reassurance that she wouldn’t be sick all alone while I was trying to sleep.

Letting go of my beloved cat has made the past few days really hard. She’d lost a lot of weight and was really bony. She didn’t like being picked up, and didn’t really respond to petting. She didn’t look up anymore either.

I have so many “end of life” thoughts, in regards to my pet…most pet owners will or have gone through something similar. The other night Louie reminded me that it wasn’t a tragedy, though, this was just a dear friend dying of a disease due to being old. She had (I hope) a wonderful life and was greatly loved.

I got Oistrakh while living in Charlotte, NC playing with the Charlotte Symphony. I had another cat at the time, Heifetz, who I’d gotten around Christmas of 2001, and Heifetz was really sad and needy when I wasn’t around, so my friends suggested I get her a friend. Sometime in April of May of 2002 (not sure) a colleague had a rescue kitten that needed a home.  I was able to take her in, and though she was never the companion for Heifetz that I’d hoped for, she did keep her from being quite so sad, and for several years they lived in (relative) harmony together.

That’s Heifetz, the black and white cat.

This was one of the only times she was cuddly with Heifetz. Usually she preferred a bit of space.

Heifetz died (suddenly) in 2007 and left me alone with Oistrakh. It wasn’t until after then that I really became attached to her. She had always been a sweet kitty, but when you have two it’s a little different. Or at least for me it was. I did a lot of moving, I got married, I got divorced, I met Louie…throughout all that I had my kitty by my side, and she was warm and soft and cuddly, and always there for me.

She had the saddest eyes. She always looked sad, but I hope she wasn’t and just looked that way.

Because sitting on the couch wasn’t soft enough, she needed a pillow on the couch for true comfort.

She loved boxes, the smaller the better.

And she loved sitting in windows.

That’s a box Louie made for her in the fall. It has foam from an egg crate mattress on the bottom. We put it on a table next to a window that she loved because it got a ton of sunlight.

This is the last picture I took of her sitting on my legs. Maybe it was even the last time she sat there, I don’t know. I can’t remember.

I took a bunch of pictures over the last few days, but I don’t want to share them. I want this post to be full of good memories, of a happy fatness. She was the best, and I told her that so many times. I loved her more than I should have, and I’m sadder that I could have imagined, but I’m so grateful for all our years together. I’m probably ridiculous right now for being so sad, but that’s how it goes when the best cat ever dies. And a special thanks to Louie for being supportive and wonderful throughout the whole ordeal. I couldn’t have done it alone, and I’m glad I had him to help me through it.

RIP Fatness. You will be missed. You already are. April 2002-January 11, 2016.