Sunday, September 26, 2004
The Big Girl is not doing well.
She is, it has been determined, diabetic and has apparently been so long enough so that she is experiencing severe ketosis. This affects both her liver and her pancreas, but is not the only problem. They remain inflamed, she remains very, very ill and in the hospital, is beginning to vomit up even the forced feedings and the by-pill antibiotics with which the vet attempted to dose her this morning and continues to do far better on IV fluids than forced hydration by mouth. She is officially jaundiced. If she survives this she will need a feeding tube, most likely esophageal, for the rest of her life. If she were to return home she would also need to be kept separate from The Little Girl, our other cat, for the rest of her life and the only way we'd be able to accomplish this is by constructing a living cage somewhere in the house, thus, my feeling is that if she recovers she will not be able to return home to us. This contingency creates another problem, that of finding someone who will fall in love with The Big Girl and provide a home that suits her. Aside from what will be her medical requirements, she is a "difficult" cat in the sense that she is not just a one family cat but a one person cat. As a cat who now needs a feeding tube she would have to be the only pet in the home.
I've always been pleased that our vet is not a fan of putting animals down if treatment and a change in living conditions can allow them a satisfactory quality of life. Now that The Big Girl is in the hot seat, though, because of the peculiarities of her character, the fact that she can no longer live with us (unless we find another home for The Little Girl and that is out of the question) and, as the vet more or less admitted, the difficulty we will probably have finding another home and love for her, I'm leaning toward putting her down while our vet is going to almost bizarre extremes to try to avoid this. I'm giving the decision time, hour by hour, as I would like to think that The Big Girl, after this particular experience, may be amenable to changing her extremely strong character and decide she is able to bond easily with just the right person (assuming the right person can be found). When I visited The Big Girl today, though, I got the distinct impression that she is tired and would like an end to all the illness and the troublesome medical care. Luckily, when she is sick she is docile and will let anyone pet her and care for her. When she is well, though, she does not even let me hold her and I am her polestar. She is, at least before she became ill, not at all interested in other people coming into our life, either briefly or long term. She loves to be petted, brushed and loves to snuggle but absolutely hates being fussed over. Not a good prognosis for an alternate existence in this system.
Although it would seem beside the point to be writing about The Big Girl in a journal about my mother and me, The Big Girl's illness has affected my mother. She continues to "see" The Big Girl in her peripheral vision (as do I). She also thinks that The Big Girl is visiting someone other than the vet and has to be reminded that she is ill and in the animal hospital. Throughout the day my mother continues to ask, as is her habit when one of The Girls is sequestered in a Sacred Nap, "Where's The Big Girl?" I have reminded her more than I care to count of all the details of The Big Girl's whereabouts and whyabouts. Each time I do yet another pall descends over our home and we find ourselves reliving, afresh, The Big Girl's predicament and its affect on us. In order to get a fresh personal perspective on what would be best for The Big Girl I've avoided telling her that my belief is that it would be best for her to put her down. As it turns out, my mother, for reasons identical to mine, also believes putting The Big Girl Down would be best. Once she expressed this, sadly and with a display of emotion I rarely see from her, I reminded her that the other option, if she appears to begin to recover from what is happening within her body, is to try to find someone who would fall in love with The Big Girl and convince her to reciprocally fall in love.
"I don't think that would work for The Big Girl. It would for The Little Girl, she's sociable and adaptable (marginally, anyway). The Big Girl isn't. Passing her on to someone else would be torture before the inevitable."
Exactly my feeling. I'd like to think I'm wrong, that The Big Girl would adapt, but it is becoming successively harder for me to believe this, especially now that my mother has expressed the same impression I have of The Big Girl's chances for a quality of life acceptable to her.
So we are plodding a bit today. Tomorrow is Move the Goods Day. We'll be in Mesa most of the day busily emptying our Mesa house and meditating on The Big Girl.
I've always been pleased that our vet is not a fan of putting animals down if treatment and a change in living conditions can allow them a satisfactory quality of life. Now that The Big Girl is in the hot seat, though, because of the peculiarities of her character, the fact that she can no longer live with us (unless we find another home for The Little Girl and that is out of the question) and, as the vet more or less admitted, the difficulty we will probably have finding another home and love for her, I'm leaning toward putting her down while our vet is going to almost bizarre extremes to try to avoid this. I'm giving the decision time, hour by hour, as I would like to think that The Big Girl, after this particular experience, may be amenable to changing her extremely strong character and decide she is able to bond easily with just the right person (assuming the right person can be found). When I visited The Big Girl today, though, I got the distinct impression that she is tired and would like an end to all the illness and the troublesome medical care. Luckily, when she is sick she is docile and will let anyone pet her and care for her. When she is well, though, she does not even let me hold her and I am her polestar. She is, at least before she became ill, not at all interested in other people coming into our life, either briefly or long term. She loves to be petted, brushed and loves to snuggle but absolutely hates being fussed over. Not a good prognosis for an alternate existence in this system.
Although it would seem beside the point to be writing about The Big Girl in a journal about my mother and me, The Big Girl's illness has affected my mother. She continues to "see" The Big Girl in her peripheral vision (as do I). She also thinks that The Big Girl is visiting someone other than the vet and has to be reminded that she is ill and in the animal hospital. Throughout the day my mother continues to ask, as is her habit when one of The Girls is sequestered in a Sacred Nap, "Where's The Big Girl?" I have reminded her more than I care to count of all the details of The Big Girl's whereabouts and whyabouts. Each time I do yet another pall descends over our home and we find ourselves reliving, afresh, The Big Girl's predicament and its affect on us. In order to get a fresh personal perspective on what would be best for The Big Girl I've avoided telling her that my belief is that it would be best for her to put her down. As it turns out, my mother, for reasons identical to mine, also believes putting The Big Girl Down would be best. Once she expressed this, sadly and with a display of emotion I rarely see from her, I reminded her that the other option, if she appears to begin to recover from what is happening within her body, is to try to find someone who would fall in love with The Big Girl and convince her to reciprocally fall in love.
"I don't think that would work for The Big Girl. It would for The Little Girl, she's sociable and adaptable (marginally, anyway). The Big Girl isn't. Passing her on to someone else would be torture before the inevitable."
Exactly my feeling. I'd like to think I'm wrong, that The Big Girl would adapt, but it is becoming successively harder for me to believe this, especially now that my mother has expressed the same impression I have of The Big Girl's chances for a quality of life acceptable to her.
So we are plodding a bit today. Tomorrow is Move the Goods Day. We'll be in Mesa most of the day busily emptying our Mesa house and meditating on The Big Girl.
