Another Loss

We lost another family member.

Pavarotti, aka Pav, was one of our 3 cats. He was 15 years old. Pav and his sister, Calamity Jane, came to our house in ’93 when they were barely 8 wks old. We went to pick them up from a co-worker who had gone to a relative’s house in TN to get them for us. Anyway, we put the two little waifs in the cat carrier and put the carrier on the back seat. Next to Zeus, our year old dog. Zeus proceeded to freak at the hissing kittens. He jumped into the front seat under Lorna’s legs and refused to come out. Lorna had to move to the back seat with the Mean Cats. Zeus and the two kittens became friends later but he never liked kittens again.

Pav and Callie became ill that winter then got better in the spring. They did the same thing the next winter. But the 3rd winter, they were fine. We finally figured out it was our kerosene heater. They were allergic/sensitive to the petroleum. Both were very healthy throughout their lives. Two years ago, Pav had a bout of bad diarhea and stopped eating. We were about to go out of town so after discussing it for several hours between ourselves and our vet, we decided to leave him at the vet’s where they could give him I.V.s and keep an eye on him. He slowly got better but ate very little. Lorna went to visit him when we got back and he snarfed down the food for her. The vet decided to let Lorna take him home, figuring he’d eat at home rather than with them. His problem was he had hyper-thyroid. He also developed a weird thing where he would “die”. His breathing would slowly stop and his heart would stop. If we picked him up and shook him and/or did mouth-to-nose breathing, it all started back up again. He’d act scared for a few seconds, then would purr like mad! He’d wiggle to get down and go on like nothing was wrong. He did this twice while he was at the vet’s place. It perplexed them as to why it was happening. We only did it once that year but in the past six months, we’ve had to do it three times.

He was on medication for a while for the thyroid but it was a major PITA to get the pill in him. It was too expensive a medication to waste. We stopped the med because of the problems with it. We expected him to get sick again. He didn’t. Then about six months ago, he started losing weight. We gave him several small meals throughout the day and he gained weight again. About two months ago, his weight started down again. But it was hot as heck here and everyone was losing weight. We got canned food, his fave, and he seemed to maintain his weight. Then he started losing weight again. Nothing we did seemed to put it back on. Thursday, we saw he was having trouble breathing. I tried to get an appt. with the vet (figured they could at least give him fluids) but couldn’t get one until Tuesday. But at that point, we realized fluids wouldn’t do anything for him. He died on his own early this morning. I went to the kitchen and found him gone. He was on his side vs in the “sphinx” position. This makes me think his heart had stopped and we weren’t there to get it going again.

At any rate, it was 2:30am. Monday is a heavy mail day at the post office and in this heat, we didn’t want to leave him outside. We decided to wrap him in a towel and put him in the freezer. It was to hot to bury him today (was in the low 90s) so we will do it tomorrow when Lorna gets home. Yeah, it’s weird to take out the ice or ice cream and see that bundle on the bottom shelf.

We thought about all that we have lost. So many critters we have known and loved. Some very briefly. Others for 16yrs.
Zeus, Jake, Sparky, Baskerville, Maggie. Skiz, Bumper, Pav, Lady, Whoopie, Willow, Worried, Stripes. Others that my brain can’t recall right now. We send them all to Zeus who waits for us on a hillside with butterflies.