Achilles – the Final Days Part 2

Achilles after his sonogram

Almost all of the last three months with Achilles was “normal” – if you consider an eating machine normal. I hid the tiny steroid inside a Pill Pocket so we didn’t have to push it down his throat and make us both miserable. The appetite stimulant was something else: a tube of medicine that was placed on my rubber gloved finger, measured against a line on the box and then rubbed in the inside of alternating left/right ears that didn’t get any reaction out of him at all.

I had to use rubber gloves as the medicine is “trans-dermal” meaning it is absorbed through the skin. She told me that if I didn’t use the gloves it would have a similar affect on me.

All went well until December of 2019 when suddenly his meows changed to what I can only describe as a contralto. Cat’s are hard to diagnose as far as pain is concerned as they intuitively “know” from their eons in the wild that showing any weakness would get them eaten; however, these cries were so plaintive and long lasting, we knew the end was coming.

Other changes: his voracious appetite was failing him and some days he wouldn’t eat his bed-time “snack.” Then he stopped eating the pill pocket or much else except to lick the sauce off the canned food. He ate Fancy Feast for a few days, then that diminished and all through this he got thinner and thinner.

Achilles

All this didn’t change his behavior tremendously except he spent most of the day under the covers in our bed coming down when Shirley called him in the evening. At that point he was drinking huge amounts of water, then spent the rest of the night on our laps. He had lost so much weight that he personified the phrase “skin and bone” to the extent it almost pained me to pet him as each bone stuck out but I knew that he was on my lap for comfort in his pain.

He could barely jump on the broad windowsill in our office where he and his sister had spent hours a day in the sunlight so I put a two-step stool in front of the sill so he could make it.

Finally, came last Friday night. He was in bed with us as always, but around 3:00 in the morning his began to wail such that any human with even half a heart would feel his pain. In the dark I felt him get up to go to “his bathroom” (this was something we had in common) but he fell over on his side. I turned the light on and there he was, sitting in a big wet spot on the throw. We new this was it as anyone who has any experience with cats knows it just doesn’t happen.

I realized he had probably emptied his bladder but gently picked him up and carried him to his litter box where the little guy tried valiantly to, as my mother used to say, “Do his business.” Nothing much happened except the wailing when I picked him up.

Shirley suggested I get his basket, put it beside our bed and place him in it.

I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t so I went down stairs until 7:00am then came back up and Shirley told me that he had quietly wailed a little bit during the time and I noticed his tail was in the exact position it was when I placed him in the basked and his head at an odd, uncomfortable looking angle, his breathing shallow, almost panting.

We new we couldn’t let him go on any longer like this so I waited until the local vet opened on Saturday to call where he and his sister used to get their shots before Persephone developed her bone problem. I had called a few months ago to make sure they still used the method we had used on Oscar, years ago, vs the CO2 chamber Hickory used to put Persephone to sleep. This was so horrible, so detached, that we resolved then and there we would never let a pet of ours go out like that.

I held Achilles on my lap for much of the time before 1:00 when we could take him. He wailed quietly off and on but I found that if I petted him, it seemed to sooth him, all while I had to constantly wipe the tears out of my eyes.

Finally, Shirley drove the short distance to the vet as Achilles and I were in the back seat. I ‘d been told to call when we were in their parking lot as they were not permitting more than two people in at a time because of the “self distancing” during the coronovirus outbreak. When we were given the Ok, I quickly carried him in his basket, covered by a light blanket to shield him from the misty rain.

The vet was in semi-PPE garb with a face mask. I filled in the paperwork, paid the fee and we went into the exam room. He explained the procedure to us again as he prepared the sedative. It was hard to tell if Achilles was actually asleep as his eyes never closed but his breathing became less irregular. Then, in order to to inject the euthanizing drug, the vet had to shave the fur on the inside of Achilles’ hind leg but he had difficulty finding a vein round enough to get the needle in as our guy was pretty dehydrated. Finally, he found a useful vein, injected the drug and almost instantly, his breathing stopped.

Shirley asked if he was gone as the vet got his stethoscope and checked for a heartbeat, then looked up at us and said that Achilles was gone. We thanked him and walked out, alone, catless for the first time in 14 years.

The next day it fell to me to put away the evidence that we once shared our home with a cat: The liter was cleaned out, the remainder placed in plastic bags and discarded, HIS bathroom rearranged to be a “normal” bathroom, the pan put in the garage for we KNOW we’ll be getting someone new soon to live with us. The 3 scratch pads were put in the utility room with all his toys.

There are some semi-odd things going on with both of us as we seem to see Achilles in the corner of our eyes occasionally, when I go to bed I think I have to fill his water bowl in our bedroom – we certainly didn’t expect our guys to have to walk all the way downstairs just to get a drink! When I’m getting a spoon out to make my morning coffee, several times I’ve taken that EXTRA spoon out as I’ve done every morning to give him his food. Each time these things happen I feel another twinge of sadness.

It’s terrible to be alone, especially during this time of Plague.