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“What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss.”

Shuko 1992-2007

October 19, 2007 by John in Of a Personal Nature, Pets

I don’t tend to write about my pets. It’s a horrible blogging cliché. But today is different.

Last February or so I found out my cat was suffering from early stage kidney failure. The prognosis was anything from two months to two years. We put him on the special NF diet and he rebounded, doing quite well for several months. This Wednesday he vomited his dinner up, which isn’t uncommon, but something was different - no hairball. That was the last time he ate. He also stopped drinking and pretty much stopped moving. He would lay on my bed, something he didn’t really do unless I was in it, or underneath a step stool in my office, or in front of his water fountain, but without drinking.

I knew exactly what was going on; the vet gave me the scenario when we got the original diagnosis. It was kidney failure. Yesterday morning, when I picked him up to put him in the pet carrier for the trip to the vet, I noticed the smell. Apparently he’d been pissing himself. And not any normal piss, but the extra concentrated kind you get when you don’t drink any water for a couple days. I guess that was one of the symptoms of which the vet neglected to warn me. I dropped him off at the vet for some blood work for the sake of confirmation and went to work.

Yesterday afternoon the vet called to say that he’d lost a pound-and-a-half, which is significant for a cat. They put him on an IV to get some fluids into his system and held him overnight until the results came in. I got the results this morning and sure enough, final stage renal failure. I was at work when the doc called but I couldn’t stay there. I can’t be around people right now.

Now I have to go down there and say goodbye. I don’t know if I can do it, but I have to. I can barely type this as it is. Why do I bother? I don’t know, trying to find ways to cope and it’s too early to start drinking. But I can promise you I’m going to get messed up tonight. Update: Turns out I wasn’t in the mood to drink. Not that I didn’t try. But I’ve never been the type to drown my sorrows.