Remind me, please, why we have animals?

I need to be reminded of what they add to our lives…other than pain of loss, which is what I am feeling right now. I am very sad.

Yesterday, when I got home, and immediately after letting Kira out to do her business, I saw (rather than heard) Wolfie struggling in the kitchen. He was crouched down, with his neck stretched out, and his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He was desperately struggling to breathe. I grabbed the phone and called our vet’s office to say I was watching a cat suffocate before my eyes. “Bring him in.” Usually, he meows during the drive to and from the vet, but yesterday night he couldn’t get enough air to say anything. As soon as I got him in, they took him back and started him on oxygen, which eased his breathing somewhat.

Wolfie has had asthma for the past 8 or 9 years. They suggested steroids when it started, but my research on steroids made me VERY suspect. If steroids are bad for humans, why would they be any better for cats? They weaken the kidneys and are bad for the heart. He would have to be given a pill every morning and every evening, and he absolutely HATES pills. Daily is a dream when it comes to pills, but Wolfie (as sweet as he is), fights every inch of the way. Imagine forcing a pill down that cat’s throat every day for the past 8 years…

Well, the asthma caught up with him yesterday. The vet immediately started him on oxygen and gave him albuterol and steroids and antibiotics. They wanted to keep him for observation, so I went back to see him, and when I petted him he leaned back into my hand, and looked so much more comfortable with the oxygen, which the technician was holding up to his face. Then they called me at 9:00 p.m. and said he really needed to be watched during the night and could we take him to a 24-hour facility (about 20 miles away). We paid our $300 there and took him to the emergency clinic, where they immediately put him in an oxygen cage. The vet told us that the x-ray of his chest showed a collapsed lung, and that he has a heart murmur, as well as a secondary infection along with the asthma.

But this is what is so difficult for us right now: when we were kids, vets didn’t do all these heroics to save family pets. They just said: “well, it’s time to let him go.” But now, vets have their own form of “Hippocratic oath” and will try to do anything to save an animal, regardless of the long-range outcome. This vet was really good when it came to trying to save Wolfie. She said, keep him on oxygen for three days, let the antibiotics take effect on the secondary infection, let the steroids help get rid of the asthma, and see if he doesn’t come around. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Can we inflate the collapsed lung, I ask. Well, no, it would be too dangerous. Then she adds that what actually looks like a collapsed lung may be pneumonia (which is not really as common in cats as you might think). Or, it may be blockage due to the asthma. Will he be able to come off of the oxygen in a couple of days? Well, we hope so. Will we be able to get rid of the asthma with the steroids? That is the plan and the hope. How much to leave him over night? $1500! (OMG) Three days? $4500 (Triple OMG). What happens after three days if he is not able to get off of the oxygen? We can reassess the options then.

Wow! Smack me in the face! OK, so, now we have a 15-year-old cat, with a collapsed lung, heart murmur, severe asthma, and an inability to breathe without oxygen. If we clear up the asthma, how long will do we think that will last? Unknown. So, in other words, I could come home someday and see him gasping like a fish again, or worse, find a poor little cat body with a horrific look on its face from suffocating to death. Do we leave him there, in the comfort of an oxygen cage for however long it takes, or do we take him home and try to administer an albuterol inhaler when he has trouble breathing? Well, no, you can’t take the albuterol home because it causes stress on the heart and he needs to be monitored.

In the end, we left him over night, at a negotiated much-reduced cost. This morning at 5:00, the vet tried to take him off of the oxygen for 30 minutes, and he went into breathing distress. H and I discussed the situation. Feeling like total and complete heels, we decided it was time to let him go. We phoned the emergency vet with our decision. But when H got to the emergency clinic (I simply could not accompany him, after my experience with Ziggy last March), they had Wolfie in the crate, ready to be brought home to face another day. I think they did not want to be the ones to put him to sleep…sending us a clear message of their displeasure with us, maybe? H called me when he got to the house and said Woofums was in terrible distress. Kira and Daily were very upset…they knew Wolfie was in bad shape. H said he understood what I had felt yesterday. It brought tears to his eyes. In fact, I have tears in mine right now with the memory. So he took Wolfie to our regular vet to do the sad final deed. He says that by the time he got there, Wolfie was laying on his side with his head (wet from Kira’s administrations) against the side of the carrier, struggling. The vet took one look at him and said he looked much worse than he had yesterday, before the oxygen. Personally, I think the oxygen may have helped him in the short run, but it created a dependency that made him worse in the long run.

We could have done what the emergency vet suggested: we could have spent a lot of money keeping him going in an oxygen cage for a week or so (ka-ching, ka-ching), in the hopes that we would clear up the infection, might clear up the asthma (not likely, considering that he has had it at least 8 years), perhaps address the heart murmur, maybe clear the collapsed lung (if it is pneumonia). And then who knows how long he would live after all that, my geriatric little cat?

This morning, when we were discussing all the “options,” I told H that I just could not make the decision, and would he please make it for me (you know what decision I was talking about, of course). He said “will you still love me after I do?” Heck, I think I love him even more for having done it and keeping me from having to say the obvious. I mean, I had already come to the conclusion that I wanted HIM to take responsibility for but could not bring myself to cast the deciding vote. What a wimp I am. H did it.

So, my sweet tomato-snatching Wolfgang Amadeus Sunwolf Lightfoot (named by my Elusive Offspring, and you will recognize my blog name) is gone now. At lunch, my friend Janet and I toasted our cats and their ability to give us years of great pleasure, ending with the sharp pain of loss. I enjoyed my 15 years of the Wolfman. I hope he’s breathing easy and chasing butterflies in that great kitty heaven above.