My Old House

Yesterday was a sad, upsetting day at our house.

The time came when we felt no choice but that we had to put one of our two cats, Sammy, to sleep.

We first encountered Sammy when we came to look at this house for the first time.  He was there in front of the porch, waiting to greet us!  For that visit and the next one, we had THOUGHT he belonged to the home’s previous owners.  However, they said no, they said he was sort of a stray who liked to hang out on their porch.

We later learned that his true owner was either the landlord next door or the previous tenant.  In talking with the landlord, he said that that cat had been theirs for something like 20 years.  I kind of doubted that age-estimate at the time.  The sad thing was that for three years now, there has been nobody living next door…and therefore, nobody to care for Sammy.

Here he was, declawed, and being left to roam inside and outside that house to our north… with a dripping bath-tub as his water source.

When I started sitting out on our porch to read, I found Sammy to be…well… annoying!  He insisted on jumping up on my lap and demanding attention!  But I wanted to read!

I can’t remember if it was one October or two Octobers ago where it started getting cold outside and he continued to hang around on our porch.  He’d just sit there and look inside the house all the time until somebody came out to pet him!

On one especially cold day, when the temperatures promised to dip below freezing overnight.  He started howling.   I caved in and let him come inside with us (despite the fact that I’m allergic to cats and I still found him to be something of a pest).

We sort of “adopted” him that way.  Eventually, my wife told the landlord to the north, Steve, that we had “claimed” him… and were taking him to the vet to get his shots and handle any problems.  Steve still talked like he was their cat, but he never said anything against what we were trying to do.

In the last two months, Sammy’s health took a rapid decline.  First, he seemed to get really sluggish and sick.  In retrospect, I think that was a virus.  But we took him to the vet at about the same time our other cat was diagnosed with stomitosis, a painful disease where the cat becomes allergic to the tartar on their teeth!  The vet said Sammy had it too, plus they discovered he had arthritis, plus bone spurs in his back that were giving him pain.

During several vet visits, he was given pain medication.

But then, the last three weeks, his health really nose-dived.  He seemed to be gasping or gagging a lot.  And he stopped drinking.  He was eating less and less food.

The vet said he was dehydrated and so we started a weekly visit to the vet for painkillers and rehydration.  We noticed some signs of blood coming from his mouth, but Sammy wouldn’t let us have a look.

So the vet recommended a dental cleaning, during which time, they’d look for any teeth that needed extracting.  While we waited for that appointment day, Sammy started drooling a lot of blood mixed with saliva.  He had stopped eating, but seemed to be drinking a bit again.  I started feeding him fingers-full of Nutrical, which he seemed to love, but at the same time, its thickness seemed to impair his mouth a bit.

The day came for the dental visit and I dropped him off.  The vet soon called me, saying there was some tissue at the back and top of Sammy’s mouth that had appeared or had swelled and was now blocking Sammy’s wind-pipe to the point where they couldn’t get the tube for anesthetic into his throat.  (So, they had given him anesthetic through his nose instead, so that they might better examine his mouth.)

The vet said that the growth was probably cancer… and if so, it was inoperable.  The tissue affected actually made up the roof of Sammy’s mouth.  The vet offered to send a sample of the tissue off for biopsy, which I accepted.   Sammy had shown a remarkable amount of energy on the way to the vet (he was very nervous)… and if we wiped his crusty mouth and nose with baby-wipes, he had plenty of energy to protest.  Plus, he was still taking two flights of steps to go to his litter box.

So, we waited one day. 

Yesterday came and in the late afternoon, the vet phoned my wife and said that the growth was indeed cancer and there was nothing we could do.

My wife felt that it was time.  She said it was obvious that he was in a lot of pain, despite medication.  I knew that he was having a lot of trouble breathing, what with all the blood coming from that growth.  It was only a matter of a day or two before he probably would choke to death, either from the blood or from the fact that the growth would eventually cut off his wind-pipe completely… or both.  Plus, he still wasn’t eating more than a bit of Nutrical no larger that what you and I would put on a toothbrush… in an entire day.

Part of me is sorry I was at work and didn’t have much of a chance to say goodbye.  But I had spent some time with him the previous few days and had talked with him and God a lot. 

Sammy tried his best to not show that he had any problems until the end.  He was a strong and very affectionate cat. 

I regret that we haven’t seen Steve (the landlord to the north) in the past two weeks to warn him of this, as I know there’s at least one child relative of his who enjoyed coming to see Sammy.

Another vet once told me that part of the reason Sammy was so affectionate was that ALL of these “orange cats” are like that.  If so, then I’m sure one day we’ll take in another such cat.

But it will be a while.  My wife had become extremely attached to Sammy.  With previous cats, she always had said that they ended up loving me more than her.  They would give me a lot of attention.  And that’s somewhat true for our remaining cat, Sealy.  She thought Sammy gave her a lot of attention, more so than probably anyone else!  He made her feel special.

But that was part of the magic of Sammy.  He made EVERYONE feel that way!

He will be sorely missed.