Extra Attention for Tiger Lily

Today is the 12^th birthday of our two kitties, Tiger Lily and The Flash. Last year at this time, we didn’t know that Scrumpy (The Flash’s common name) would only have a month and a half left, passing suddenly post-surgery after removal of a cancerous tumor. His departure was sharp, painful, nearly debilitating, and we still cry about him nearly a year later.

Our tears have been mixed over the past few months, however, as we know that today will likely be Tiger Lily’s final birthday. The pancreatitis and kidney issues that started early last year continue their inexorable march to the sea, slowly deteriorating her health and her weight. We do what we can, giving her subcutaneous fluids every other day and force-feeding her a much-hated combination of pills every day to keep her feeling mostly good on a regular basis.

None of us like the pilling process. After trying pretty much everything recommended for cats (pill pockets, pill shooter, butter or cheese coated pills, etc.) the best thing we’ve found with this wily kitty is to grind the pills, mix them with a bit of soft food and water, then give them to her as quickly as possible through a needle-free syringe squirt in her mouth.

At least giving her fluids – “juicing Lily” as we call it – is an easy and usually calm experience for us all in which I hold Lily in my arms on a blanket on the counter, and Dana preps the IV and administers the needle between her shoulder blades for a five-minute juicing. This helps keep her hydrated to counteract the failing kidneys.

However, all that is just a holding action as her vets said that as a kidney/pancreatitis cat Lily probably has six to twelve months left, and that was four months ago. We don’t know if she’ll make it to summer or the end of summer or even longer, but she’s now under 8 pounds after being a solid 13 pounds in July of last year and this train ain’t slowing down.

That’s why I call it the long goodbye – we get to see Lily everyday as she slowly pulls away.

Birthday condo

Lily’s a cat, so she does the cat thing and sleeps most of the day under the quilt on our bed or in a little cozy fabric ball beside our bed, coming out occasionally for love and a teensy bit of food.

For her birthday, we bought a swanky three-level cat condo on which she can perch in the sun and watch people and cars go by down below. We know she won’t have it long relatively speaking, but the fact that she’s actually used it over the past week has made it totally worth the investment.

Eventually, once she’s gone to join her brother on that f*cking rainbow bridge amazing journey to whatever is next, we’ll find a new set of kitties to inherit the condo. Is it right to pass along their old kitty toys as well, or should we get brand new toys for brand new kitties? If we do that, should we hold on to Tiger Lily and Scrumpy’s favorite toys as keepsakes?

That’s where my mind goes, and then I look down and see Lily is still here, not dead yet, sitting at my feet waiting to purr when I pet her.

Of Course I Still Love You

After Scrumpy died I went to a therapist for a while to talk through my feelings. Perhaps biggest of all is the morning he died, I had to chase him around and finally corner him in the kitchen to get him into the cat carrier and take him to what would turn out to be his death. When I had him cornered he hissed at me, perhaps mystically knowing that his thread was growing short but more likely knowing nothing fun ensued from getting in that damn bag. And that’s my last experience of him as a free cat… looking up at me and hissing, perhaps the rarest thing he ever said in his 11 years.

As I told the therapist about that incredible guilt, I mentioned how when I was a child my mother had to literally chase me around the kitchen table to catch me and take me to the dentist. One time this chase went on for an extended period and when she finally caught me, stuffed me in the car, and dragged me up into the dentist’s office running at least 30 minutes late, it turned out the appointment had actually been the week before.

Walking out of the dentist’s office free and easy just two minutes after walking in served as a personal win as a child, and my brilliant therapist easily connected it to my experience with Scrumpy. “When your mom took you to the dentist, did you hate her for it,” she asked, “or did you know it was something she did because of her love for you?”

Well, of course I didn’t hate her. I hated going to the dentist, not her.

“Well, Scrumpy did not and does not hate you for taking him to the vet. Of course he still loves you.”

Oh. Well, that really helped.

Pilling her softly

And yet here we are with Tiger Lily, pilling her softly, with our love, pilling her softly. I know she still loves me even though we have to squirt and juice her, but that look she gets occasionally when I call her over – the look of “I’m not sure I trust you” – she’s not hissing at me, but it hurts anyway.

She scoots under the bed when she thinks we might be preparing her medicinal treatments, so then we have to pretend we’re doing something else until she finally figures it must have been a false alarm until NOOOOOO I grab her THE HUMANITY and we juice her WELL THAT’S NOT SO BAD and then we squirt her AGHHH THAT’S AWFUL and then she runs off to a corner of the room to lick her wounds. And then five minutes later she’s back to loving us.

And if I think that will give me some kind of lasting mental and emotional scars, I know it’s nothing compared to what I will feel when we have to help Lily onto the rainbow bridge. We’re really hoping she just goes quietly and peacefully in her sleep, but we’re also steeling ourselves for the hard likelihood that we will have to make that decision for her to keep her from living in pain.

After that, we’ll simply have to deal with the pain of separation that all people experience from losing someone they love. I’ll probably make some porcelain plates featuring Lily as I did with Scrumpy; we eat off of Scrumpy’s plates every day and it’s become a happy ritual to skritch his little white belly on a plate as I prepare dinner.

I wish there were a way to tie a pretty bow on this that would make sense of life and death and everything in between, but this isn’t that kind of story. We’re just thrilled that Tiger Lily enjoys her final birthday gift and thankful for every additional moment we get to spend with her during this long goodbye.