On November 8, 2006, Jeff brought home a stray cat he'd found while golfing with a friend at their country club home. The cat had been hanging around their property for a few days/nights, and when he went to leave, she jumped into his car. He stopped at the pet store on his way home to purchase the necessities, and when he got here, the girls had a pet!
I must admit, a cat wasn't my first choice--I'd always wanted another Siberian Husky, or a German Shepard when the girls got old enough to take care of another living creature. But our new addition stole my heart immediately. We named her Bella--that's Italian for beautiful--and she truly was.
Within a few days of her arrival here, her first visit to the Vet, she was adapting well to her new surroundings. (They approximated her age at 18 months old-barely out of kitten stage!) We attempted to find her owners, but no calls were answered. On the third day, she suffered a gran mal seizure and subsequently, another nearly one month to the day of the first. More talks with our Vet, and we deduced that she was epileptic, a rare condition for cats.
My immediate thought was that someone had let this beauty out their back door because of her affliction, with no regard to her safety and well-being. It broke my heart. I think I grew to love her all the more, knowing that she was in need of daily medication--which she obviously had gone without until we learned of her condition--and that she once had a home where she was loved by someone, somewhere. They let her down, and I couldn't do that.
Over the next year or so, it was a constant battle to find the right dosage of phenobarbital to keep her from seizing. Too much medication, and she was lethargic & lazy, too little, and the seizures returned. Much to my dismay, the attacks always came when I was alone with her--which in hindsight allowed the girls to have been spared the horror of the event. It was not a pretty sight to see.
Much communication with Dr. Paul, trial and error with dosing her, and always feeling like she had to be contained to one area of the house when we were gone for any length of time--I was at my wits end in terms of being certain she was comfortable. The seizures kept occurring, more frequently, and the administration of a tiny little tablet 2x daily was taking its toll on all of us. She was gaining weight, alot of weight, and the strain on her heart was apparent. I had to make a decision that was not an easy one to make.
Dr. Paul had offered me comfort in that we had done all we could to give Bella a warm and wonderful home in the time that we had her. But sometimes, our pets just don't have the strength or stamina to get on with their lives with a condition that hampered her every waking moment. I was reminded by the girls that we could continue dosing her, yet there were issues that they couldn't understand and the reality of letting her go was not one they could comprehend at 7 & 8 years old, either.
Yesterday, we made our last visit to the Animal Care Clinic and to Dr. Paul. I was confident in my ability to do the right thing by her, but the emotion crept up on me as we signed in at the reception desk. My baby in the carrier hanging on my shoulder was not going to be coming home with me ever again.
The staff there was extremely warm & kind. They understood exactly what I was going through as I'm sure they see these things regularly. My only problem was that this was not regular for me, and I was losing my composure, rapidly. We immediately were escorted into an exam room and the next half hour or so will live with me forever.
I held my large and sedate Bella in my arms as Dr. Paul induced the injection, and within a matter of a second, she was gone. My self control was shot and I cradled her, reminding both of us that she was now running and playing with others just like her, never to be traumatized by those awful moments here on earth again. I stroked her neck as she used to like, and I spoke to her in the low tones that always got her to purr with delight. I put her back on the table and folded her front paws in her most comfortable position and said good-bye.
My God, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done, until I got home and realized that in only one short hour, the girls would be home from school, and I'd have to break the news to them. I struggled with how to put it, and my mind raced with the variety of their potential reactions. This was honestly worse than the earlier moments I'd faced alone with her.
As I expected, the girls were broken hearted. They immediately burst into tears of loss, and I into tears of compassion. This reality was not what they wanted to know about, they simply wanted their Bella back with them. We cried tears together, and gradually they began to reminisce of playing with and caring for our Bella. Over the next few hours, I kept them very busy and with the help of some of their wonderful friends, they were occupied mentally from the torment of their loss. Then we got home from dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise, and the tears started all over again. It was going to be a long night...
Over the course of sleep, Monika woke and was in tears at 2:00 am. She must have been dreaming of Bella-Pie and was visibly shaken. Jennifer tossed and turned over and over--she slept next to me on the couch and I was up most of the night. But they awoke this morning and while dishing out cereal and powdered sugaring waffles, we talked more about our loss. They each have a paw print of Bella's that was provided by the Vet just before she left us. And I reminded the girls that Dr. Paul said he was proud to know that these two young girls loved and cared so much for a very sick cat.
Off to the bus stop, and on to school. I'm sure at the end of their busy day, they will be emotionally drained. It will be a few days before the pain eases, and their memories become soft comfort. Our newly adopted stray, Bianca, will be of great strength in their grief, she had already stolen their hearts as the cat who could do all of the things that Bella couldn't. My choice to bring a new animal into our lives a month ago was one of the smartest things I'd ever done. We saved another lost animal from a life of uncertainty in a shelter, and she is thriving with us all.
Sadness, memories, recall of the torture Bella endured and how we desperately tried to help her all flood my heart now. As the Vet told me, we gave her a year and a half longer than she would've had on her own. And certainly, she was loved in a way that someone else wasn't capable of providing for her. Bella opened my heart to the world of cats, and she will forever be etched in my heart for the beauty that she brought into our lives.
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