He's still with us...

Yesterday, Justin and I made the incredibly difficult decision to have Kitty put down. The appointment was for today at 12:30. I was going to take him because as we all know, it's the women who do the heavy lifting in this world. That, and because Justin is 50 million times closer to the cat than I am.

The problem with Kitty is he's crazy. He spends a good part of his day chasing his tail; growling and hissing at it. It sounds like a vicious cat fight, only it's just him. It used to be annoying and kind of funny but now he's doing it several times a day and throughout the night. I can not tell you how many times we've been awoken at 1 AM (and 3AM and 5 AM) to shrieking on our bed. It's terrible to wake up that way. At first your mind goes to very ugly places and then you realize it's your dumb cat attacking himself again. Eleanor does a spot-on impression. If she sees a picture of a cat she'll go "rrrrrrrrrrr, hsssssssssssssssss". Henry has learned to just open the door and push him out. He'll also say very condescendingly, "Kitty, it's just your tail. Stop that." Other Henryisms are "Kitty's a jerk." and "Kitty's crazy".

E is very fond of him too, of course. He likes to nap on her changing table pad while she is napping. "Kitty" was one of her first words. She gets a HUGE smile when he comes near her and she pets him very gently. Then she tries to stick her finger in his mouth.

I told my boss yesterday what was going on and she recommended a second opinion (actually, it's a 3rd opinion since Amira's dad is a vet and told us the diagnosis and treatment in the first place). The reason why Kitty is still alive right now is my boss told me her vet makes house calls. The downside of getting Kitty on Prozac is we'd have to bring him in for an examination and that's an absolute nightmare. Everything about that would be hell for Kitty (and me). The car ride, going in the carrier, being held down, etc. He's an incredibly neurotic cat. So I called the guy, he said he would just come over, weigh Kitty so he could get the dose right, and then call us in the script. He said there's no reason to do an exam because if it doesn't work we'll know in six weeks and we'll go with plan A which is put the cat out of his misery.

We were pretty set on not doing Prozac b/c of the exam (this was before knowing this vet would hook us up w/o blood-work) so we've been telling Henry that Kitty is sick and that he will die soon. Everything I've read and studied about grief and especially grief in children says that we should not lie. We should talk about death as if it is a totally normal part of life (b/c it is) and that it's our culture of obscuring death that causes people such complicated reactions to grief. I wanted to lie though. I really really wanted to tell him Kitty was going to live on a farm. He LOVES Kitty. He snuggles with him. He loves to pet him and kiss him. He always includes Kitty in conversations about our family. I knew this was going to be hard. Justin and I told him a few days ago and his immediate reaction was to fall to the floor, like a sack of potatoes. He had a very sad face. He asked some questions that I don't remember and then he asked to go in the back and watch TV. Then he seemed to forget about it and hasn't brought it up since.

Today when I went to pick him up I saw they had a bulletin board up for Valentines Day. It had all of the kids names and then listed the thing that they love. I think I would have fallen to pieces right there in the hall way had we gone though with our 12:30 plan today.