The World According To Anne Arky

I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that my 20-year-old cat, O’Malley, had to be put to sleep on Saturday, August 9th. He had been sick with chronic kidney problems for over a year, and summer of 2007, I started having to give him subcutaneous fluids intravenously twice a week. In April 2008, after I got back from a trip to North Carolina, he got sick again and was given about two months max to live, and the IVs had to be stepped up to being a daily event. Throughout, I had always made sure with the doctors that even with this chronic illness, O’Malley would still have quality of life, and that we were nowhere near the stage of having to consider mercy.
He outlived the vet’s prediction by two months, but during the last month of his life, I could see he was slowing down, and his reaction and reflex time slowed down considerably, as well. During what turned out to be the last week of his life, he was so weak and so thin, it was criminal. That Saturday night, I hadn’t seen him all day and went downstairs looking for him. I found him lying under the bed, whimpering in pain, and I grabbed him up and hied off to the emergency vet clinic, knowing this was probably the last time he would be coming home alive. When I got there, they told me they could treat him aggressively and maybe keep him alive for a little while, but the treatment would only cause him more pain, and his quality of life would be minimal at best, horrible at worst. I knew I was going to miss him terribly – he had been my best friend and companion for eight of his last 20 years – but I knew that to keep him alive would be the most selfish thing I could do. Mercy was the only thing I had left to give him. I cried like a baby throughout the whole procedure, and then got in my car and went home alone, numb and in shock.
I went through the next few days as usual, albeit still in shock, and Thursday night, when the numbness wore off on my way home from work, I had a meltdown. If anyone had asked me before O’Malley died if I would get another cat when he was gone, I would have said absolutely not. During the week after he died, I backed off to a “well, maybe”. Thursday night, I started looking on Craig’s List to find another one. This house was awfully empty and lonely without O’Malley.