Nocturnal Queen: July 2018

Sadie May

April 2002 - July 3, 2018

I almost wrote this last week, but I wasn't quite ready.

Sadie was diagnosed with kidney failure last August when I brought her to the vet for a urinary tract infection. The vet said it could be months or years before she passes. It moves at a different pace for each cat.

As the months went by, Sadie got thinner, but still seemed happy. But then she stopped grooming herself a few months ago and began to smell bad. I thought maybe I'd have to risk bathing her. (She would not have liked that at all and I probably would've ended up bleeding. lol) But I didn't work up the courage to do that before it was too late.

Around the third week of June, Sadie started eating even less than she was before, so I gave her some canned cat food, which she's had before, and she liked it, but it took her a week to eat one small can of it. By the last few days of June, she stopped eating completely. The vet had said that when Sadie stops eating, we'll know it's time. Poor Sadie was a bag of bones by the end.

On July 2nd, she was still showing no interest in food (she'd walk away if I put it in front of her) and began wandering from room to room meowing for no reason. (The kind of meow she would do whenever she was looking for me.) She had been peeing on the floor next to the litter box for about a week by this point and hadn't had a bowel movement in weeks. (Maybe because she was eating next to nothing.) She was also starting to wobble a little bit when she walked. That night, she began meowing and wandering even more (I believe she was looking for a place to die) and if she got on a table or my desk and then jumped down, she would nearly fall. At one point she jumped down from the dining room table, lost her balance, and then laid down.

When she began pawing at the front door and the blinds on the living room window as if she wanted to go outside (something she never did before), I knew that she was probably wanting to go off by herself to die.

I sat here at my desk crying about making the decision to have her put down. I didn't want to rush into that decision, but I also didn't want her to suffer any longer than she had to. She had been slowly getting worse since late last year and it seemed like all of a sudden she was quickly getting much worse. Like in those last days of June and first couple days of July her disease was speeding up, racing downhill towards death. It seemed to happen so fast, get worse so quickly, that I felt like I was being pushed into making the decision to have her put to sleep without much time to think about it.

I had read that as death approached, her symptoms would get worse - seizures, coma, painful death. I really didn't want her to go through that. I didn't want her to suffer all night (not to mention, I couldn't have slept with the loud meowing and knowing she was probably in pain), so I had Sean call the emergency vet, tell them her symptoms, and ask if we could bring Sadie in to be put to sleep. They agreed that it was time and that they would put her to sleep.

Sean went with me to the emergency vet. It was around 1:30 AM or so when we got there. They asked about her symptoms, wrote it all down, and said that, yes, it's time. They let us spend some time alone with her to say our goodbyes. I didn't spend a lot of time doing that because of her suffering, but I petted her, cried, told her I loved her, and that I was sorry she had gotten so sick and sorry that we had to do this.

Sean left the room we were in to let them know we were ready (though not really ready) and a vet came to take her away. I cried some more and then went to the front desk to pay for the procedure. I asked if they do it right away or if there are other things they do first and the lady at the front desk said that as soon as they bring a pet to the back to put them to sleep, one person will hold them and pet them while another person puts them to sleep. So, Sadie was probably already gone while I was talking to the receptionist. So, sometime after 2:00 AM on July 3rd.

It's been strange not having her here. We had her almost 16 years. (It would've been 16 years on September 19th.) There will never be another cat like Sadie. She was one of a kind. Started off so silly, like most kittens, then became kind of evil. lol I called her Beast, Evil One, Evilest One, and Satan for a reason. lol (Though, truthfully, I've heard of much meaner cats.) But she was also really sweet. I learned to read her pretty well and could tell when she didn't want to be messed with and when she'd had enough when you were petting her. lol She was still kind of feisty last summer and fall (the vet even said that she was, but that she liked her spirit and attitude lol), but mellowed quite a bit in her last few months and wanted attention from me all the time. She would lie or sit near me on the couch or sit in front of me on my desk when I was on the computer. I loved when she'd put the top of her head against me and purr.

As sad as this has been, it hasn't been as hard to deal with as Evie and Sam dying. With them, we thought there was a chance they could get better and be okay, but then Evie died (July 3, 2016) on the way to the emergency vet and Sam wouldn't get better and we had to put him to sleep (January 2, 2017). Their deaths were more unexpected, more of a shock. But we had time to prepare for Sadie's death. Nearly every week I'd wonder if this was the week or month we'd lose her. We knew that there was no getting better for her, so we weren't holding on to false hope. It's like those last months of her life were her saying goodbye to us and us saying goodbye to her. It felt like a relief when I had her put to sleep, though it broke my heart. Not a relief that she's gone, but that she's no longer sick and suffering.

I will miss my Beast. She was mean, she was sweet, she was funny, she had serious cattitude.

I will miss her chirping meows, the crazy throaty meows on the rare occasion when she'd have a running fit, the meows where no sound came out lol, and the meows that sounded like a question when she was looking for me.

I will miss her putting the top of her head against me, wanting to love me and be petted by me, and purring.

I will miss seeing her drink with her paw.

I will miss her sitting in front of me on my desk and purring. Sometimes looking away, sometimes looking me right in the face. lol

I will miss her occasionally giving me kisses on my hands.

I will miss how, even when she got really skinny, she would look all puffy and fluffy sometimes when she sat down on the coffee table.

I will miss her beautiful, shiny black fur and beautiful, yellow-green eyes.

Other nicknames I had for her other than Beast, Evil One, Evilest One, and Satan: Beasty Butt, Beast from the East, Beast of Burden, Beaster, Sader(s) Tomater(s), Maters, Sader. I may be forgetting a couple.

This has been hard to write. I had to stop and cry a few times.

I will end this blog entry with pictures of Sadie.