We said goodbye to Chloe this morning

I mentioned that she had chronic kidney disease and high blood pressure. She did pretty well the first week after she was diagnosed, although a lot of that probably had to do with the IV fluids they gave her. And initially she was all about eating the new special kidney food.

But that didn't last and by Wednesday this week, I could see that she'd dropped more weight. Since she really had nothing to lose, she looked like a bag of bones. And also on Wednesday she stopped eating her new wet food.

Now if you knew Chloe, then you'd know what a departure that was for her. That girl loved her canned food, it was the highlight of her day and she made sure we knew it was time to feed her, usually a couple of hours before it actually was time to feed her.

Then yesterday I realized she wasn't drinking either. Chloe has always loved going into the shower after I'm done and licking up the water on the floor. Only yesterday she just perched there, not drinking. And she would always come watch me fill up the cat water fountain every day and then drink up. Only she was watching but not drinking.

Honestly she was so lethargic last night that I wasn't sure she would make it through the night. Since we leave tomorrow for a family reunion, I knew we needed to do the right thing by her. I've always promised her that when it was time to go, I would be there with her and I would love her enough to make that decision.

Kent and I were with her. She was on my lap on the bright pink crocheted blanket that was always her favorite. The vet completely agreed with our assessment of where she was. In fact when he gave her the sedative to relax her before the second final injection and she didn't complain at all or even twitch, he said this was absolutely the right time and the right decision.

So she had that peaceful, painless death. We said our goodbyes, paid the bill and now we're seeing our old girl out of the corners of our eyes. I know it will be that way for a while.

Rest in peace, Chloe Kitty Cat (1999--2019).

And my old girl has chronic kidney disease plus high blood pressure

Chloe’s been screaming for a few weeks now—I wouldn’t call it yowling, and it’s definitely not her normal, very insistent and highly annoying meows for the canned food at night. She will stop wherever she is and just start wailing. But she’s been eating, the canned food at least, and drinking and according to Kent the litter boxes remain full at their normal levels.

Friday, I worked from home and her screaming sessions had definitely increased. We’ll be going on vacation in a couple of weeks and I thought we better get her in to the vet sooner rather than later. So I called and they were able to see her right away, although I knew I wouldn’t be able to stick around until they were finished since I had to beat it to my radiation treatment. Fortunately, Kent works near the vet so he got her on his way home and I made it to radiation easy peasy.

Anyway, they took her blood pressure (first time I’ve seen that done, it was pretty neat), weighed her and oh my goodness, she’s lost three pounds. She’s down to five and a half pounds now; at her heaviest, she weighed 10 pounds. The vet said she suspected kidney disease and high blood pressure, and the blood work supported that.

So now Chloe’s got special (expensive) food—we’re going through the different flavor varieties to figure out which kind she likes the best. She’ll be the only one getting the special canned food, we can separate the boys from her for that. But all three will be on the special kibble, alas (for our wallets). And she’s on a drug for the high blood pressure.

She also had an irregular heart rhythm and the vet offered to have her go see a specialist, but I declined. She’s 20 now, I want to keep her comfortable and enjoying life, but we won’t be going to heroic levels to keep her alive at any cost. We did that with our poor kitty Sammie, and never again.

October's cat (with bonus real cat)

This may be my favorite photo so far. I love how the cat's just sitting there, coolly observing the world. But that's cats for you.

Just talk to me

We're changing veterinarians and here's why.

It’s not that the cost for two of the kitties exceeded the estimate for all three by 30% (and meant that one cat—Chloe—didn’t get sedated, have an IV started, have any x-rays or have her teeth cleaned).

It’s not even that Chloe’s procedure wasn’t done. I get it that you don’t know how complicated a procedure will truly be until you’re actually in there doing it. I do appreciate that Wally and Eddie took longer than anticipated.

And it’s (sort of but not fully) not that four teeth were removed (two from each cat), instead of the one we knew about. Again ,I get that things can end up being in worse shape than preliminary exams indicated.

It’s about the utter lack of communication.

I expect to hear if something’s more complicated, going to take longer and going to cost a lot more money as it’s happening. Not at the end of the day when it’s a done deal, and not when I’m told the bill.

I expect that once it’s obvious that all three cats won’t have their procedures done that the one who’s not getting sedation would get at least water and preferably some food too.

She never does this.
She drank for a full three minutes.

We followed directions and picked up the food and water at 9 PM Wednesday night. That means that Chloe, who is 17, was without food or water for over 18 hours. It shouldn’t take a phone call from me asking if she’s had water for veterinary health care providers to think, gosh, she might need water.

And it’s about the lack of partnership. Eddie had one blood test come back in July with a slightly unusual value. We weren’t interested in tracking it down, but Thursday when we picked up the cats, the vet told us she’d run that test. No touching base with us, no “hey remember that one blood value, I’d like to run another test,” nothing.

I want any health care provider (whether for animals or humans) to work with me, tell me what’s going on, what to expect, any alternatives and then let me make an educated decision. It’s clear from our two experiences with this vet that we won’t get a collaborative partnership.

That’s fine. I’m voting with my wallet and my feet (paws?) and looking through the recommendations I got from my friends.

Feeling tense?

Just look at these two snoozing away last night. Really, I could have said today and it would be nearly as accurate. The only difference is that Wally is asleep on our bed instead of in one of the cat beds on our desks.

In this case, Chloe was off camera on the other side of my desk (which is just to the left of Eddie in the green and brown bed) and also asleep.

This morning's snores are making it hard for me to get going.

Oops, they noticed

As part of our “keep kitties well hydrated” process, we split a can of cat food three ways each night and add in about the same amount of canned pumpkin. That way, they all get more moisture and Eddie—our boy who’s had some issues with his behind—also gets fiber. The cats love the pumpkin and we’ve often joked that we could probably just give them pumpkin and they wouldn’t even notice the absence of their normal Gravy Lovers food.

We’d have been wrong.

Last night, Kent groped around in the box of canned food under the sink only to come up empty. He thought there was another, unopened box under the sink but nope—we were completely out. So we figured what the heck, now we’ll find out if they even miss the Gravy Lovers and gave them plain ol’ pumpkin.

They noticed. In fact, they all almost immediately switched bowls probably to see if someone else had the good stuff. And then they all huffed off and left their bowls looking like this:

Kent ran out and got some food. Eddie was very excited, Wally and Chloe couldn't be bothered and had to be carried out but once there, devoured their dinner.

It's freezing here today

We had a little snow last night, maybe two inches, but it's too cold to actually snow much. Our high today is supposed to be 12F but I don't think we're going to make it. Tonight, we drop to 0 so it's time to add extra blankets to the bed.

When it's cold like this, our kitties tend to snooze and snooze. Wally, being as photogenic as he is, gets in some pretty cute poses.

Even Chloe snoozes more, and that's saying something for my sweet old girl. Pay no attention to what appears to be a grumpy face. She's quite happy on top of the blanket throne, and it even goes well with her fur.

Our house today

It's cold here in the Midwest and even though the snow was a bust yesterday, it's been looking and feeling  as though it might snow all weekend long. Here's what our cats do when it's cold and gloomy:

Admit it, you're sleepy now.

Chloe has a spot

I have a cat bed on my desk. The boy kitties take turns sleeping in it, or to be honest sometimes they fight over it. Then there's a cushion on the short file cabinet between mine and Kent's desk. That's where you'll find Chloe until the boy kitty who lost out on the cat bed comes and crowds her out.

We have a built in book case in our office and this weekend it occurred to me that if we moved a shelf up just a bit, we could fit in a cushion and maybe, just maybe a kitty would claim that spot as their own.

And she did. In fact, she's the only one who's gotten in there. Pretty sweet, eh?

The grey kitties

Chloe and Eddie both nap on our bed during the day. Chloe usually curls up on the pink blanket a friend made for us as a housewarming gift, but not always. Sometimes she curls up on one of the two folded beach towels at the foot of the bed. Yes, we have two folded beach towels on our bed . . . doesn't everyone? No really, we have them there to help keep the cat fur off the duvet cover. Of course that just means the fur is on the towels, and they have to be washed but somehow it seems like a good idea.

Anyway.

The day I took this picture, Eddie had managed to get very close to Chloe for his own nap. She wasn't completely unaware and what you can't see here is how her tail was whipping back and forth. Eddie finally just put his heavy paw on her tail and made her stop.

Wild child

I haven’t posted much about the kitties recently, and realized it’s because the boys have settled down for the most part and don’t tend to do so many crazy things. Oh they’re still quite playful and have their little idiosyncrasies but neither one is out and out wild any more. That’s a relief, especially at night. Nowadays we’re more likely to be woken up by one of the boys crying in our ears rather than breaking things in another room. Even Wally has mellowed.

These days I have two cushions on my desk—there’s a cut down brown cushion left over from an old Poyang chair from Ikea on the left side that Eddie claims, and an actual pet bed (dog, to be specific but don’t tell the cats) on the right side (that’s mostly all Wally’s). I didn’t want to give up that much real estate to the cats but found that if they didn’t have a cushion, they tended to sprawl and then push things off my desk with their paws. That gets dangerous when what’s pushed is a full cup of coffee which then spills on electronics nearby like cell phones, keyboards or tablets.

Chloe remains firmly ensconced either on the second Poyang cushion (which is on top of the two drawer file cabinet between our desks) or on the pink knitted blanket our friend made for us. She still gets huffy if I don’t make the bed quickly enough in the mornings; she will wait and cry or grump until I get the blanket folded and into its proper spot so she can knead it and then curl up to sleep most of the day. She’s 14 or 15 years old now, so she sleeps a lot.

Eddie still loves, loves, loves his pumpkin with his canned food. He’s slimmed down a bit but let’s face it—that cat is always going to be a big boy.

And Wally is still the complicated, slightly high strung, easily bored cat he always was. This picture is pretty unusual. Normally you don’t see him that relaxed unless he’s on the pet (dog) bed on my desk.

Of cats and litter

We'd had a litter that we liked, well sort of. It's this one, only unscented. What we liked about it is that it clumped solid with no odor. But there’s also a big negative too: it’s super dusty. And when I say dusty, I mean the dust goes everywhere. That’s not good for our lungs, the kitties’ lungs nor our computers (which are in the same room as the litter boxes.

So I scouted around online and read up on the various litters out there to see if we could find a better alternative. The World’s Best Cat Litter had a lot of positive reviews, although a few did say the odor control wasn’t the best – but it didn’t have dust. We were cautiously optimistic and got some.

The switch-over seemed to be going well, with all cats acting normal and not upset. But then – and at the same time as when I started this consulting job a few weeks ago – someone started pooping in the dining room on the rug.

We knew that cats don’t actually just start going outside their boxes for no reason so we figured it was due to one of the following:

• He (based on the size of the chocolate Lincoln logs, it was almost certainly one of the boy kitties) was upset that I wasn't around all day anymore
• He didn’t like the litter
• Or he had something else going on

We tried a couple of things. First, we got a much bigger container to use as a litter box because both boy kitties are very long and we’d read about how much cats hate to feel confined in their boxes. But he still pooped outside the box. Then we noticed that Eddie was crying more and I could feel tiny hard lumps again on either side of his butt, the same as when he had the anal gland issue a few months ago.

So tomorrow he goes to the vet’s to be checked. In the meantime, we changed out the litter in the big box and put in the dusty stuff again. And you know what? All three of them are using that box exclusively. Clearly The World’s Best isn’t our best option. We’ll be trying Precious Cat Ultra Premium next. Fingers/paws crossed and all that.

Cat fail

They should be ashamed, our kitties.

Last night I heard one of the cats playing with what I thought was a toy. Only it wasn’t a toy – this morning when I was moving a small blanket from the door stopper (I use the blanket to keep cats from making that boing! boing! sound at night), I saw what I thought was the toy. Then the “toy” moved.

Yes, we had a mouse.

I confess I shrieked like a little girl and then it scurried under the closet door. We had to empty the closet to catch that thing – it was fast.

Once caught, Kent took it out to the back of our yard and tossed it toward a tree. He said that thing landed on a branch perfectly, like a little acrobat.

We had a mouse in our garage last fall. Hopefully this was the same mouse. If so, I’m sure it will probably be back in the garage and looking for the route into the house again by noon. I just hope we aren’t thoroughly infested with the critters. I haven’t seen mouse droppings and there are no signs of chewing in any of our food packages so maybe we had just the one.

In the meantime, we've been telling our cats how much they failed in their duty as cats. They don't seem to care. 

Two out of three pumpkin heads agree

Adding pumpkin to their food is helping with the weight control:

This is GREAT progress. Between the Science Diet Lite (thank you, Jeanne!) and the pumpkin, they are drifting down to good, healthy weights.

Wherever I go

There they are. At least lately. They follow me to the bedroom when I am just going to read, they curl up with me on the couch (and leave me practically no room), and if I sit on the floor when we watch TV, well they swarm me then too. Crazy kitties.

They put out serious sleep vibes, I was
about to pass out here

Kitty weigh-in

Well there's no good progress to report. They are either holding steady at their weights (which the vet said ought to come down) or in the case of Eddie, just outright gaining.

Warm and cozy

Last night, even though it wasn't really cold out, we turned on the fire (it's gas). We take turns sitting on the hearth, soaking up the warmth. Toward the end of the evening, we realized we weren't the only ones enjoying the fire:

Chloe is around 13 or 14 years old. I got her in October 2001 and the rescue place estimated that she was one or two years old then. I always suspected she was closer to one because she was still so kittenish in her behaviors. Either way, she's getting up in years now and I think the warmth of the fire is soothing. I sometimes think she's getting arthritis, and if so then I'm sure the fire really feels good to her.

You're one of my kind

One of the blogs I read is written by a collection of veterinarians who specialize in cats (yes, I do love kitties). There’ve been a lot of interesting articles on the blog but one in particular got me thinking about my own three cats.

The article discusses the nature of social groupings in cats and asks readers how many exist in their own home. Naturally enough, that got me to consider Wally, Eddie and Chloe.

Chloe has never been interested in other cats; in fact, for a long time she was downright hostile toward her own species. Little Sammie tried to kitty pile with her but she was having nothing to do with him. After he died and we got Wally and Eddie, they too tried to kitty pile with her. Age had not softened her solitary ways but the boys did not care. They still played with her and tried to snooze with her. The playing often got out of hand because she’d get angry with them and the kitty pile naps were a non-starter. Sometimes Wally could sleep near her after she was asleep but that was about as far as things got.

A long time ago!

The boys were a different story. They are litter mates and for the first few years, they slept in piles around the house, groomed each other and just generally behaved as though they were one cat in two bodies.

I’m not sure when things changed but certainly by the time we flooded the first time, they were no longer quite so cozy with each other. By then, we’d stuffed them in their carriers for a cross country move, and made them live for a couple of months in a teeny, tiny place that didn’t allow cats and certainly didn’t have any room for kitty romping. And then we flooded. All three were in the apartment with me when the water started coming in, and I’m sure they picked up on my own fear and uncertainty as I shoved them none too gently into their carriers. And of course who can forget the first night in the crack house hotel, followed by living for three weeks in the basement of a very generous friend and then moving again to a temporary apartment . . . yeah, that was a lot for the cats.

After reading that article, though, I realized we do have social groupings. It’s just that I’m at the center of these groupings. There’s Wally and me, Eddie and me, and Chloe and me. Wally and Chloe have a tiny bit of warmth to their relationship but I’m still in the middle of that. And I get in the middle of the Eddie/Chloe relationship because that’s still not a very friendly environment.

I didn’t put Kent in this diagram because I wasn’t sure how to depict his status. When he’s home during the day, Eddie sleeps on his lap almost all day long. That's hard to show in a diagram, wouldn't you agree? And I aligned the cats the way I did because Wally does mostly interact in a positive way with the other two. But they all swarm me.

But I was here first!

Kent's renting some camera equipment to try out before he (maybe) buys any. All the stuff arrived yesterday and he's been like a little kid at Christmas ever since. I can't begin to tell you what all he's rented, although I do know one lens is a wide angle lens. So now I have a lot of wide angle lens pictures of all sorts of things and cats and creatures.

I like this one a lot and there's a bit of a story behind it. Last night I kept hearing what I thought was Eddie rattling our closet doors. I got up probably half a dozen times shooing him away from the doors but he kept going back. I put a blanket at the bottom, then a pillow, then another pillow all to no avail. Finally I said screw it and opened one of the doors. I figured if he wanted in there so badly then he could have the closet.

As I got back in bed, I realized I hadn't seen Chloe all night. She is almost always perched by my shoulder but not last night. Yes, you guessed it, she was in the closet but she didn't meow. She just kept rattling the door. Once she got out, she made a quick pit stop at the litter box and then curled up where you see her in this picture. But that's normally Eddie's place and he was not happy. In typical Eddie fashion, he just barged in and took over her spot.

Doesn't she look as though she's saying she got there first?

Glorious weather

And the cats are loving the doors and windows being open. They don't often congregate together like this; usually they are more solitary in their outdoor viewing.