The Cat Who Lived: A Tribute to Witch, 1988-2007

This morning, I lost a very dear friend of mine. I mentioned Witch in my previous post. Although her health continued to decline over the past couple of months since the stroke, she continued to eat and drink (although very little at the end) and to enjoy attention until the past day or two. We scheduled euthanasia for this morning, but Witch died on her own sometime in the wee hours before we awoke.

In some sense, I was relieved by this: first, because her suffering was at an end, and second, because I know I would have felt guilty by the decision to euthanize, even though it seemed like the right decision. We euthanized our dog Pooche, who was 16 1/2, in the throws of kidney failure back in 1999, and I agonized and tortured myself over that decision long after it was made.

You might wonder, why the title, when Witch has now passed on. Witch was The Cat Who Lived because she was such a fighter. Every time we thought it was the end, she managed to pull through. You see, six years or so ago, when my son was just a toddler, Witch was diagnosed with feline lymphoma. She underwent surgery and radiation treatments and went into complete remission. In the remainder of her lifespan, we saw no recurrences of the cancer. She had little on and off things, such as infections, and a bit of arthritis, but she always kept plugging. Even after she had the stroke, when we were sure she was almost done for, she managed to stay alive and reasonably happy for four additional months. Our vet called her "amazing" on more than one occasion.

I am eternally grateful to my husband, who kept her close by in his office, endured the smells, and cleaned her and cared for her most of the time while I was busy with the kids.

I'd like to share some of my best memories of Witch, a cat who was near and dear to not just myself, but to many who knew her:

How Witch Came Into Our Lives

When I was 16, I lived at home with my mother, my 25-year old sister, and her small son. One morning, in the wee hours, my sister got up fuming about a loud cat outside on our front porch that had been keeping her awake. She got a glass of water, and fully intending to soak the adult cat on the porch and scare it off, she pulled open the door, arm fully cocked. I was standing behind her when I saw her face instantly change the minute she saw the cute little (loud) black kitten with one lame front paw on the porch: "AWWWWWW!!" She was smitten and so was I. I searched the neighborhood to make sure she didn't belong to anyone, and I was very happy that we were able to keep her and give her a good home. She was my cat from then on, although I was happy to share her with my family and later my husband and children. That day was December 2, 1988.

Coconspirators

Witch always did prefer the company of humans to that of other animals, but she would tolerate them when she had to. Among the others that she shared house with that have since gone on include Pooche, our little white mutt; Jessie, one of my sister's cats; and Xander, the first cat/pet that DH and I adopted together. Witch was a sneaky thing who would get behind Pooche, for example, and give her a nip just to show "I really don't like you too much" and then later crawl into bed with her. I guess the warmth was worth sharing a bed with a dog. Her latest, and still living, companions include Bronte kitty and Bucky and Satchel, our long haired young mutts.

Quirks

When she was young, Witch loved to use her appropriately shaped bum paw as a hockey stick to knock coins off my dresser, one by one, like hocky pucks.

She also used that same paw to play on people's sympathy and beg for food. Nothing like one good kitty paw on your leg and the other gently tapping you, like saying "Look at me, poor kitty; I need food!" You'll never believe how many fell for that one, despite the more than adequate belly.

She loved to go outside and lay in the sun and roll in the dirt. As she was an indoor cat, this was always done supervised and/or on a leash (I met my college roommates on one such outing). In later years, she didn't get to go out as much, partially because if you let her out once, she'd spend the next week sitting at the door yowling, begging to be let out again. That and fear of her getting worms and/or fleas, which did happen on occasion.

We used to spoil her rotten. In college, I often fed her yogurt right off my spoon, and DH would feed her ice cream right off the top of his pint. This kitty loved to eat. At one point, she weighed in at a hefty 17 pounds. We managed to keep her weight a little lower in later years, but she still loved eating.

Witch shared vent duty in our current house with Bucky. In hot summers, Bucky lays up next to the vent to cool off. In winter, the spot belonged to Witch.


In short, Witch was with me a very long time. She put up with my teenage angst, my struggles for identity, and later, a house filling up with kids and other pets. She wasn't always happy about things (and she'd let you know if she wasn't), but she always had a purr for me and a warm presence. We'll miss her very much, and she'll be in my heart forever.

Feline Calamity

As some of you know, my home is filled with life. Not only do we have two kids; we also have 2 cats, 2 dogs, and 8 or so hermit crabs (you can never tell with them). I have a great bouquet of flowers from a local farm on my table and even a couple of struggling plants in my bedroom (woe to them being in my house!).

The kids are 7 years and almost 11 months old. The dogs are 2 years old. Who knows how old the crabs are? And the cats are 19 and 8 years old.

Let me tell you a little bit about these two cats. My sister and I found Witch on our front porch when I was 16, so many years ago. She was just a tiny kitten with a broken paw that had healed wrong and a mighty voice. We adopted Bronte, a much more laid back cat, many years and a marriage and child later, when a friend moved to Hawaii and couldn't deal with putting her in quarantine.

In the past month or so, things have been starting to look bad for our poor kitties, and I don't know what to do about it other than take one step at a time and hope my heart doesn't simply break.

Witch apparently had a stroke about a month or so ago. She was having trouble walking already, but one morning, DH found her in her bed with vomit and so on. She seemed to be having real troubles this time and couldn't walk or stand up. At the vet, she was so freaked out, he was certain something had gotten to her brain. Later that day, at home, she calmed down, and we adopted a wait and see attitude. The second day, she hardly ate, and we worried. She seemed to be having trouble just orienting her head to get a drink of water. Then, she started eating again and enjoying attention as well, so we waited and just took care of her as best we could. Her orientation was getting better. Then, the other day, a real beam of hope. My husband was down near her bed cleaning up a toilet overflow when she got up and actually walked a few stumbling steps toward him! Maybe she's recovering, maybe not. The most she's done since then is try to get up. Research is slim to none in telling us how to help a cat recover from a possible stroke, especially when she's 19.

Now on to Bronte, a mere 8 years old. I noticed a while back that she seemed to be throwing up a lot, but she's a cat--they do this all the time. Heck, Witch practically made a habit of throwing up for much of her life. However, I realized soon that she was throwing up nearly every single day, so off to the vet we went. He started treating her for irritable bowel, which cats apparently get a lot. No help, and Bronte started eating less and less until she basically is not eating except for a bite here and there. None of the medicines were helping, and an X-ray showed nothing, so today, I hauled the kids to another vet about an hour from home for an ultrasound. Abdominal masses, several of them. We now have an appointment for Friday for possible surgery and biopsy. I have no idea what her prognosis is at this point, but I can't say I'm not worried.

Is it something in the water?

Now, here's the kicker. If this turns out to be lymphoma, which is very likely, this will be the THIRD cat of ours who has had it. Witch first (she recovered after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation), then Xander (who did not make it after complications after his tumor had cleared up after chemotherapy), and now poor Bronte! I'm a little scared because I wonder if something in our old house or something we brought to this one (we lived in another house when Witch had lymphoma) could be causing this? Is it still here? Is it affecting us? Our dogs? Our kids?

I can only say that I hope not, but the causes of feline lymphoma, outside of feline leukemia virus (ruled out) and cigarette smoke (not a factor), are "obscure," as one site told me.

Anyway, if you're a cat lover like me, please keep Miss Bronte in your thoughts. I hope we can afford to do whatever it is that needs to be done or at least keep her as happy as she can be if there's nothing to be done.

I've been trying so hard to explain this to DS (because he's asked) and hope I am not providing too much information. He seems to want to know, though, and so far, he seems to appreciate honesty from me. To be honest here, I don't know how to fudge it or to "kidify" my explanations to him. He always asks too many questions and ferrets out the details anyway. His birthday is next week; I just hope it isn't ruined by all this. We'll try to highlight the positive as best we can.

Social Substitution

As I watch my kids grow up, I often think about how different they are because of the simple existence of their siblings. For example, DS spent the first 6 years of his life as an only child, whereas DD will have always had her big brother around, from day 1. Their very presence affects each other in so many ways, in effect making them different people than they might have been were they born without siblings or in a different birth order.

So, all this is kind of musingly and affectionately going through my mind, and I think to myself that even if something happened to one of them, their lives would still be forever changed. That got me to feeling sorry for poor Mohinder Suresh, who lost his sister so young in life that he didn't even remember her...wait, I say to myself. Oh, boy. He's not even a real guy! He's a character from NBC's Heroes, of which I was a complete addict last season.

So, my question is this: In this age of separation, where touch is discouraged, fear is prevalent, and most people barely know their neighbors, has TV and other media come in to fill the gaps? Do they fulfill desires we have as humans to connect with other people, to know all the lurid details of their intimate lives, to feel a part of them, to gossip about them, even if they only exist in stories? It's an interesting thought to ponder. Is this new, or have we always done this in one way or another (like in books), even when we were closer with our neighbors?

Natural Infant Hygiene

We've been learning about Elimination Communication (EC)/Natural Infant Hygiene/Infant Potty Training lately, and I've been trying it with DD (now 7 months old). How I wish I had read about this and been more open to the idea when DS (now 6 1/2 years) had been a baby. I think things could have been different for him in some respects. He still has issues with bedwetting, even now.

I can say that in the search for a good potty training method for DS, nothing ever seemed quite right. Rewards, punishments, praise, encouragement. The closest thing to "working" was just letting whatever happened happen. I was never satisfied and felt like we were always sending him mixed signals in our attempt to teach him what he needed to know. We were all frustrated. He's a very bright kid, but head smarts don't always equal body smarts, especially when we unwittingly "taught" him to go in his diapers. I knew he signaled when he was peeing and pooping as a newborn. I just didn't know I could do anything about it. These signals eventually faded, as I believe, he learned that the place to go was his diaper.

Now, like with anything, some kids can take the changes in stride and say, "Oh, okay, I'm big enough now; time to toss the diapers and use the potty." However, for him it was not as easy, with lots of back and forth. I wonder if EC might have been easier on us all.

However, I also know that parenthood, like life, is a journey. It all started with my decision to breastfeed. Later came the decision to carry/wear my baby, then to cosleep, etc. I don't know if I could have handled any more "new" stuff then. Learning to trust your heart and instincts can be a process, especially when those feelings go against the mainstream. Maybe now is the time, when the idea really resonates with me because of my own experiences with DS.

DD is doing well. We "catch" some and miss others. She's even already dry some nights. When I'm tired or don't feel like I can handle it right now, I put a diaper on her. Just in a month or so of part-time EC, however, she's made her preference known. She fusses as soon as her diaper/training pants/floor she's sitting on is wet and usually fusses when I put a diaper on her. What baby doesn't prefer lots of naked time or at least light clothing in this nice warm summer weather?

Yet another outpost on our family journey together :) On we go...