We lost our sweet Mimi cat yesterday. She was 19 years old and her kidneys had shut
down. She was so very sick, and, despite
the vet’s best efforts, the kindest choice was to let her go.
Mimi was full grown when she came to us at age 12. She had lived in one home from her
kittenhood, but her owner was going into an assisted living facility and was
afraid that she wouldn’t be able to care for Mimi there, so Mimi came to
us. She was frightened and confused at
first; I put her carrier in the powder room with a litter box and a food dish,
and it was probably 3 days before she ventured out. She was also coming into a home where another
cat – Timothy – had already established himself, so she had that to deal with
as well. But she got used to her new
place, she and Timothy became best friends, and she decided that my husband had
the best lap to snooze in.
She was diagnosed with kidney failure a little over a year
ago. I’ve been feeding her the
prescription kidney diet cat food, and she had been doing quite well. We’d noticed some weight loss recently, and
she’s been thin almost to the point of emaciation, although she was still
eating and drinking. Then, just in the
last couple of weeks, her health took a downward turn. With no muscle mass, she was getting more and
more frail, then she lost interest in food.
She was lethargic on Monday, and could barely stand, so we took her to
the vet that evening when my husband got home from work.
They kept her overnight to give her IV fluids and to do
blood work. I talked to the vet on
Tuesday morning; Mimi’s kidney values were off the chart and not in a good way,
and they had her in an incubator to try to regulate her temperature. We went to see her Tuesday afternoon, and she
didn’t respond when I slid open the incubator door and rubbed her head. We agreed to try one more night of fluids and
blood work. Yesterday afternoon we went
to see her, and after talking with the vet, we realized that we had to let her
go. They brought her in to us and she
didn’t seem to even be aware that we were there. We petted her and talked to her and she
finally did twitch her tail a little. I
held her while the vet gave her the injections that would take away her
suffering; she was so sick and so frail that it took only a very few seconds
for her to pass.
It’s hard to let a beloved pet go. I’ll miss seeing her waiting at the top of
the stairs when I come in from work. I’ll
miss seeing her play with Timothy, and climb into Greg’s lap, and snooze under
the dining room table. I’ve read a
little saying that pets leave pawprints on our hearts. You’ll get no argument from me.
She loved shoes. She didn't chew them or play with them; she just hung out with the shoes.
Best buds, keeping an eye on things from the top of the stairs.
Favorite thing to do: drink out of the faucet in the hall bathroom.
