Someday you’ll read on Facebook or in this blog spot that we had to say good-bye to our cat, Molly, but not today!
In April we lost our cat Beau to cancer. I still wake up in the morning missing him. In May, Molly was diagnosed with kidney disease. (Note to self: Don’t have two cats the same age.) We noticed she wasn’t eating and was losing weight. The blood test the vet ran revealed that she was in serious need of immediate fluid injections and recommended an emergency vet for overnight IV treatment. You don’t want to know what that cost.
For the next couple of weeks we alternated infusions in the vet’s office and at home (and no, we aren’t medically trained!) with blood tests to see how she was responding. This meant additional expenses and many trips in the dreaded cat carrier for Molly.
She did respond to treatment and started eating again. Still, after a weekend of praying and crying (me) about what to do for her, we decided that we didn’t believe in extending her life beyond its natural conclusion, especially since we’re not signing up for extreme measures when our time comes. If that was it for her, we would just love her and let her go when it was time. A hard decision, but one that gave us and her peace.
We informed the vet that Molly would now be in palliative care. We would watch her to make sure she wasn’t experiencing any discomfort, and hope to bring her in for her final trip to the vet before she suffered any dire consequences from the disease.
For about a week we watched her closely. She sat and stared at us with a “cat stink eye” as if to say, “Why’s everyone staring at me all the time?” Given that we thought she only had a few days left, we relaxed the cat “house rules” for her. I let her wander out with me when I watered the pots on the downstairs patio, and you’d think she’d gone through the wardrobe into Narnia so thrilled was she to be sniffing around in forbidden territory. We also left the bedroom door open all night so she could come and go at will, because after all, the poor dear didn’t have long to be with us.
That was three months ago and Molly will celebrate her 15th birthday this week! In style, I might add, because it didn’t take long for her to not only appreciate her new privileges, but to actually expect and demand them! How dare I try to sneak out to water pots without her. She protests loudly from the other side of the glass door if not allowed to accompany me. And not only is she in our bedroom all night, she jumps on the bed in the early morning light, meowing and poking at me until I get up to feed her the soft kidney-care food she’s come to love. We are enjoying her in spite of her newfound diva status, however, and she’s reveling in our extra attention.
Who knows why we have all been given this sweet time together? I prayed, “Lord, please heal her or take her.” I didn’t want to have to make another one of those painful last trips to the vet so soon after taking Beau. It may be a miraculous answer to prayer that she’s still here.
And we don’t know if this will make any feline medical journals, but we’re pretty sure some cats have at least 10 lives. We’re enjoying Molly’s 10th, and we’re glad we don’t have to say good-bye just yet.
Happy Birthday, Miracle Molly!