FUCK YOU 2012

Our absolutely beloved, adored cat left this planet on Thurs, Feb 16, 2012. He was the best of the best, a sweet, loving, social kitty, without a bad bone in his body. While we knew he was older, we thought we still had 3-4 more years with him, and it hurts so fucking much that we didn't.

I had taken Max into the vet in December, and he had been cleared for everything except possibly something wrong with his brain. We didn't run the tests at that time, because I didn't want to know about it if he did have something wrong with his brain, and also, he had gone blind so I contributed a lot of what he was going through to that. Well folks, guess what? He had something wrong with his brain.

I came home from work on Wednesday, and noticed that he was lying in bed, but kind of propped up on 1 leg. He's not normally an in-bed cat (unless we were all in bed together) so I immediately knew something was up. I started to pet on him and he just looked really out of it - his head wouldn't turn to follow my voice, etc. I got changed out of my work clothes and went out to ask Blondie how long Max had been acting funny. When I turned around, Max was at my feet, so I picked him.

Max let me hold him all night. We tried to get him to drink some water out of my water glass, which he normally loves to do, but he wouldn't. He put his head in the glass, but didn't drink - I don't know if he forgot what to do, or was just too tired to drink. We put some soft food out, and while normally he would go to town on it, he just drug himself in a circle in front of his food plate. I think I knew then, it would be his last night.

We also happened to notice that one of his pupils was back to normal sized. Normally both were fully dilated as he's blind. But one had shrunk back down to a normal cat sized pupil. I called my mom and she mentioned stroke, so Blondie looked up stroke, and sure as shit, we knew immediately Max had stroked. We decided to keep him comfortable (it was late at this point) and call our in-house vet in the morning as soon as she started her office hours (she works from the building and comes to your unit).

At 2:30 am, Max seized. He was still in my arms and it woke me up. It was minor, about 30 secs long, but his breathing was rapid for 5-10 minutes after. He seized again at 4 am. And at 5:50 am, he managed to pull himself out of my arms, and seized against my feet. Blondie came out early and I started crying as soon as I saw him b/c I knew in my heart that Max was going to have to be put down. Blondie held him while I showered (around 7 am) and Max seized while I was in the shower. We made the decision at that point just to go to the vet's office as we knew our in-house vet wouldn't be able to do the proper diagnostic care. We called at 9 am, the vet could see us at 10 am, and at 9:10 am Max seized one last time - it was the worst one. Every seizure was worst than the last, and at that point, we don't know when he ate/drank last. He was completely out of it, I just kept hugging on him and telling him I loved him.

We got to the vet, gave him our papers that had the seizures tracked, and the look on his face was on one of "guys, this is BAD". He sad that a cluster of seizures, getting worse in intensity, meant his brain (see the December visit) was the problem. There was nothing they could do - they could try to get the seizures to stop (no guarantee on anything), if they could get the seizures to stop they could run MRIs to see what was the problem (no guarantee on anything), and if the MRI run was successful, there was no guarantee that his problem would be curable.

Blondie and I made the agonizing decision to give our Max a peaceful send off. We stayed with him and loved on him until it was done. He had no idea what was being done to him, the only time he lifted his head from 5:50 am seizure until he died was when the put the needle into his leg to sedate him - he pulled his head up at that point and tried to look down his body and then immediately put his head back down. He died around 10:10 am.

The pain that I feel is intense. I'm absolutely heart broken. My fuzzy buddy, with his mean mother fucker face (persian cat, he always looked angry even though he wasn't), isn't here to get his loves and pets. He's not here to talk with me (he was the chatterbox of the 2 cats), or snuggle with me in bed at night. I keep thinking he's going to walk on up, and when he doesn't, it makes the heart ache even worse.

Tigga knew something was going on. He knew since December when he started keeping his distance from Max, and by default, anyone that loved on Max. On Max's last day, around 6:30 am, he sat down about 5 feet from us, and stared at Max until we left. He didn't hiss or growl (his normal thing to do to Max) but just watched. And since we came back without Max, he's been a loving caring cat, he's the one who wants the loves now (he gets them) and he's the one that constantly has to be on someone. He knows Max is gone, and he knows that Blondie and I miss him terribly. I predict Tigga is going to rapidly become the most spoiled cat in the world.

The other news from the week is that my PA friends and their 2 kids came into the city on Friday. We went out with them all day long, which helped my head a little as I couldn't cry in front of them. We saw the Intrepid Air and Space Museum - a huge aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. The boys loved it (the boys = the 2 kids and Shaun). Afterwards, we walked up to Times Square for ice cream, before catching the subway to FAO Schwarz. We saw the giant piano from Big (only $250,000), I got my picture taken with a full-sized replica of Johnny Depp from Pirates done as legos, and then I saw an old-timey Play-Doh Barber Shop set! My mom hated that set b/c you had to poke out the hair holes with a toothpick when you were done playing, and us kids always managed to "be busy" when it was time for that. After FAO Schwarz, it was back to Times Square to see M&M World, before hitting up our fav mexican joint for dinner. Then it was home to bawl my head off as I had held everything in all day. Saturday, I refused to leave our house, and then yesterday, we went to see "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark" on Broadway - 70 million dollars worth of suck. Blondie and I can't figure out how they needed 70 million to make the play, but I will say the flying scenes with Spidey and Green Goblin were pretty cool. Afterwards, we went for cajun before coming home to watch TV in bed.

I have today off, and I'm going to spend the day drinking, missing Max, and crying. If you have a pet you love, give them extra special hugs and kisses from us today. If you don't have a pet, then give someone you love extra special hugs and kisses from us today. And if everyone can just tell 2012 to go fuck itself, I would be really grateful.

To my buddy Max - wherever you are - I miss you so fucking much. I hope that you have no breathing problems where you are, that it's full of milk and tuna juice, and that you've found Murphy, Bianca, Bad Cat, Baby, Geechy Toes, Bee, Harry, Sassy, Bella and all the other pets that have gone before you to play with. I love you.

--K