five cats purr softly while their hooman is weeping for your loss...
fourcats wrote in message
om...
Hello all - pardon if this is a double-post, my usual newsfeed seems
to be down. Also, I don't feel up to having Panda write just now, but
my three girl-kitties are all purring along. Most of the below is
from the email to friends and family I send last evening:

I just had to say goodbye to my wonderful Lenny-cat, who closed his
big
blue Meezer eyes for the last time late this afternoon, with a little
gentle help from his Dr. Bonnie at the cat hospital. Lenny was 16 and
had
been with me for 11 years since he and his pal Lucy were adopted from
the
Guelph Humane Society after a 3.5 month stay there in 1992. I'd taken
him
in for surgery today to see if we could do anything - we were pretty
sure
there was a tumour of some sort - but it was as bad as we feared and I
had
agreed with Bonnie ahead of time that if he couldn't come back to a
reasonable length and quality of life with us that we should let him
go
without waking him up.

She called me shortly after I got home from leaving him there to let
me
know. It was obvious right away that there was advanced tumour
progression all through his abdomen.

My only regret is that the choice to try and do all we could meant I
couldn't stay with him until the very end, but I had to try, and I
know he
was in caring hands all the way. He actually had an enjoyable last
afternoon. He was already on some pain medication as we knew he was
hurting a couple weeks back. We had a purr and cuddle on the bed
before
we left, and as the surgeon was late getting to the clinic, I stayed
with
him and he spent some time curled in a basket in the clinic's gigantic
cat
tree installation watching a squirrel outside the window. The three
cats
who live in the clinic were very kind about sharing their bed and
water
bowl.

If you knew Lenny, you know his only fault was a predisposition to be
barfy, though in his last two weeks he wasn't able to eat enough to
throw
up. In an ironically fitting memorial, my Panda, who in 7 years I
have
not known to do worse than a hiccup, barfed the biggest hairball I've
ever
seen in my office just minutes after we got the news. I can't see
straight between the tears, slightly hysterical laughter, and carpet
cleaner fumes.

Peace, everyone. I'm going to finish cleaning the Lenny Memorial
Hairball,
then Lucy, Panda, Sprout and I are going to go curl up with a cup of
tea
and a book.

Johanna
Ms. Lucy
Panda-ov-Mourning-Toes
an' da Sprout!