Farewell, Bonnie

Our cat, Bonnie, has been sick for a while.  She's been hyperthyroid (at this point I'm actually happy to hear that diagnosis if something has to be wrong), her kidneys have been losing their function, she's gone mostly - if not completely by now - deaf, and she started to get wobbly in her hind legs.

Before we left on our trip, I started to notice that she was deteriorating.  She was still her cranky self, though, and continued to wake Rick up at ungodly hours yelling for her medication as well as being his cuddle bug.  I silently begged her not to die while Anne-Marie was cat sitting, and we set off.

When we got back, she was the same that night.  The next morning, however, she started to really go downhill.  Her nose (which had been a little sniffly at times for a while) had gotten worse, as had her balance, and she started to make an odd grinding noise when she ate.  She also lost interest in yelling at or snuggling with Rick.  Nothing was left in her face but quiet misery, and she just kept pulling herself into a huddled loaf rather like a cat stuck out in the rain.

She saw the vet Tuesday morning, she got a shot of antibiotics for her sniffles, we found that she had lost more weight, that we could no longer give her Adequan injections in her scruff because there was no fat left there, and they did blood work.  It came back that her thyroid was way low.  WTH?  So we were to stop medicating immediately.  Her kidney values had doubled - when we last had it done a couple months ago she had about 25% left.  Phosphorous was very up to the point where we were to start her on a phosphorous binder.

Thursday morning she didn't want to eat breakfast.  I pulled out the flavor she loved more than anything, put a plate next to her, and she ate some of it.  When I came home, bearing cans of tuna and a tin of sardines (and feeling oddly like a criminal for buying them at the co-op), she wanted nothing to do with the sardines.  Alex and Renard were falling over themselves for a morsel.  Her breathing was coming in hisses, and you could see her sides work from the effort.  Her walk was worse than ever.  When walking in the kitchen, she'd drag her feet enough where you could hear her claws scrape across the linoleum.  With each step she would tilt her entire pelvis as she moved the leg up, like she couldn't just plain walk anymore, and the legs themselves moved as little as possible.  She was also terribly gaunt.

I called Rick, who was on his way for a much needed allergy shot, and told him what was going on.  He came right home.  After trying to cuddle her, which she wanted nothing to do with and during which he felt how she had really no muscle in her legs anymore or anything at all behind her rib cage other than a spine, he called the vet.  She called back and they discussed things, and she agreed that it was probably time.

He took her downstairs to the man cave where they always hung out together to watch sci-fi, and ended up letting her out into the backyard.  She came back to life there, but was still wobbly.

I cracked open a can of tuna, poured out the water into a bowl, and put it in front of her.  She immediately perked up and started lapping it up greedily.

I left the final decision to Rick, as she was always his little girl and no one else's, and after the perk-ups he decided to wait until the next day.

Last night we put an airbed in the living room since she hadn't been climbing the steps to the bedroom anymore, and camped out.  Around 3 am I believe that Rick made the decision, said staying down there was pointless as she kept huddled in one spot under some furniture in a corner, and we went to real bed.

The deed is most likely done by now, and about 20 minutes ago I had a wave of peace wash over me.

Goodbye, Boo-bear.