Nice day

I will definitely post about Zoe again, as I work through my grief over her, but I thought I'd do a random post today.  It's a lovely day outside and that always raises my spirits.  Yesterday it rained all day.  I was happy for the 1.5 inches of rain, but gloomy days still depress me - right now more than usual.  So I'm happy with the sun and cool temperatures.

This first picture is Addy chilling outside.  I'm using this picture not only because I almost always post pictures of the cat-kids, but because I also wanted to show that the little pine tree was once again doing pretty well.  Because the next picture down is that little tree this morning!  I don't think it's the type of pine that normally loses all it's pine needles in the winter, although all pines shed some needles in the winter.  But it looks like it's going to lose them all this year.  I'm guessing that's because I tortured it this year.  It has nice buds covering it, at the branch tips and all the nodes along each one, so I think it will winter over and grow again in the Spring.  That last week of below freezing temps we've had has made it decide to shed it's needles for this year though.  

The peach trees' leaves are finally beginning to turn color also.  The freezing temps caused a massive color change this last week to all the leaves that normally change, including the Bradford pears and the maples in the area. A few good storms will probably take most of those leaves down.  The peaches have been hanging on to their green leaves though.  This morning finally I'm seeing some change beginning in them too. 

I also wanted to post a picture of the plant that my work colleagues sent me when Zoe died.  It's so cool that they understood what she meant to me and sent me a plant.  This is a peace lily I believe.  It has really unusual blooms, as you can see.  I hope I can keep it alive since my track record with plants isn't the greatest.  I brought in the spider plant, so it's doing okay.  The wandering Jew, I just took three cuttings from and put in water and left the rest outside.  It was really too big to bring in - and I say "was" because that big plant is DEAD.  The multiple days of freeze did it in.  

Most of my birds have left the area also.  I'm only filling the bird feeders about every 5-6 days rather than daily.  I see mostly doves out there, with a few sparrows now and then. I hear cardinals occasionally too.   

Every month or so, especially in the winter, I grow grass for the girls to chew on.  Zoe really loved it, but Addy likes it too.  This last batch I noticed that the grass was respiring and producing water!  I don't know how well the picture shows it, but there is a droplet of water at the tip of each blade of grass.  Kind of cool.  Maybe that's one of the reasons the cats like to chew on it.  

I found an album of pictures of Zoe and Addy when Zoe was a tiny kitten.  I'm working on scanning those into the computer, so I when I do the next post on Zoe I'll have kitten pictures for it.  16 years ago I didn't have a digital camera, so I have many pictures that need scanning.  So I probably won't do my next Zoe post until I get a good portion of those in.

Anyway, that's it for today.  See ya next time. 

Zoe

My sweet Zoe is gone.   My big, clumsy, soft, incredibly sweet, fat cat is gone.   I’m struggling to deal with a massive hole in my heart – a huge pain that rises up at random times when I see the spot she loved to sleep, or turn, expecting to see her waiting to be fed.  And of course, there’s all the second guessing, what ifs, if only's . . . it’s endless.  These are some of my favorite pictures of her - while I tell you what happened.

Three weeks ago, I saw that Zoe was working hard to breathe.  This wasn’t the first time.  For nearly a month I’ve randomly thought – is she breathing hard?  But the next time I looked she would seem fine.  So I ignored that fact that her purr seemed liquid.  Until that Saturday morning, when I saw her working just to breathe and unable to get comfortable.

I took her to the vet and they had to put her in an oxygen box.  Fluid on her lungs and heart disease.  Of course that wasn’t an immediate diagnosis.  Her breathing was so bad that they couldn’t take her out of oxygen long enough to get x-rays or a sonogram of the heart.   I had to leave her in that oxygen cage and go home without her.

If I had known then what she would go through for the next week, I would have had her put to sleep then, but you can’t know.   I couldn’t stop hoping there was something we could do.  And to give them credit, the vets tried hard – and so did Zoe.

She had both heart disease and kidney disease.  I’ve known for a long time that her kidney function was iffy.  But the two diseases together are pretty much the worst combination you can get.  They restricted her fluid, so her breathing improved as fluid left her lungs, and her kidneys tried to shut down.  They increased her fluids to help her kidneys and her lungs filled back up with fluid.  For a week, my girl lived in an oxygen cage while we tried everything, so many medications and fluid regimens, to try to balance the needs of the kidneys and heart. 

In the end, we couldn’t achieve it.  Nothing worked to balance her.  So they tapped the fluid off her lungs, weaned her off the oxygen as her breathing improved, and sent her home with me with the combination of meds most likely to succeed. 

We had 24 wonderful hours together.  She slept in her favorite place – so peaceful, breathing so easily, sleeping so well.  I let her sleep as much as possible, and stroked her when she was awake.  She tried to purr.  But she wouldn’t eat or drink, and finally she began to struggle to breathe again as the fluid came back. 

I took her back to the vet and held and stroked her as they put her to sleep.  It was very quick.  They gave her a little sedative to start, but as soon as it kicked in, she was gone.  As soon as she wasn’t actively fighting to live, she was gone.  Everything shut down.  I think they didn’t need the other drug although they used it.

The vet said there were no right or wrong answers at the stage Zoe was in.  But I can’t help wondering.  If I had taken her a month earlier would her chances for living longer been better?  Or would she just have spent more time in misery while we tried to give her medications and fluids and treatments.  As it was I wish I could have spared her that week of misery, but I had to know that we had tried everything.  I think in the end, I waited so long to take her in because I knew in my heart that she was a 16 year old cat and she would not survive once her precarious health balance was upset.  I wanted to give her a peaceful life at home as long as I could. 

I suppose I’ll never really stop wondering, what if.  But we had 16 wonderful years of companionship and love, and I am working now to actively recall all those great memories and times – to actively replace memories of her struggling and suffering with the memories of her during the million great times.  This post is part of that struggle.

Goodbye, Zoe, my love.