Now I Lay My Cat To Sleep.

First, I must share with you something quite personal
and devastating for both Gary and myself.
Katie has been struggling lately and Gary and I have
been desperately trying to get to the bottom of it all
so that we can move forward. However, every test would
come back fine...normal...nothing alarming.

That was until I talked with Dr. Jarvis yesterday morning
(she's awesome by the way!). Dr. Jarvis was involved in
a lot of Hobie's illness too so we have a history with
her and most of the staff at MVRS .
When she arrived yesterday morning she discovered that
Katie was not responding to the IV fluids, not rallying
like we'd all hoped, was having trouble walking, still
was not interested in eating (that made 5 days in a row!)
and to top it off...she'd gone blind and had lost her sense
of smell as well.
All very sudden, all very tragic, everything pointed to
something neurological....perhaps even a stroke of some sort.

So here we are, just 10 weeks out from having lost Hobie
and now we have to say goodbye to his sister, Katie. :\

I called and made arrangements for Gary and I to come up
for her euthanizing. Dr. Jarvis would not be available
but the young man in her place was wonderful.
We spent some time alone with her first and invited the
Dr. to come in. He was calm and explained it all as if it
were the first time. He was empathetic and had a great
"paw side" manner about him.

Katie was in my lap where I wanted her to stay for the
procedure so the Dr. moved the chairs so that Gary and I
could sit and face one another.
The Dr. first tested the line with saline and then we
gave him the okay to begin the "anaesthesia overdose".
Swiftly, and painlessly (for Katie that is) she fell asleep...
in my lap. She is now with Hobie who she has been mourning
for the past 10 weeks. That makes me so happy. That's my
silver lining in all of this.
Well, that and the fact that we have Boo. He's a bit
baffled by it all too. I let him smell Katie on my hands
and arms when we returned home. He is so sweet. You know
what? I was sitting on the sofa on the porch and he came
out and sat on the ottoman like he always does. He looked
back at me and I said "Boo, come and sit with me, I'm sad
and I need you." and he got up and came right over and
crawled into my lap and laid down. I looked over at Gary
and we were like...he NEVER does that! WOW! I understand
that animals have a sense about these things but that was
pretty cool.
The other day a client asked me, as she picked Boo up and
snuggled him to her face, "where did you GET him?"
I smiled and said..."my sister made him for me." :)

We will miss Katie and Hobie. They are together now and
that gives me some peace.

Second, I registered my blog on the "Blog Action Day" site
as a participator like I did last year. This year's topic is
"Poverty". Today, more than a million blogs, world wide,
will blog on the subject of Poverty...pretty powerful really.
However, in that the timing here is lousy..... I only have
this to say...That sucks too!