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.