If you didn’t know by now, I had my sweet baby fluff, MacGyver put to sleep on Thursday afternoon.

Her last afternoon at my apartment

I know its been almost a week now, but I’m realizing that I didn’t actually post here and put out the news and some people are out there still wondering. I told a few people on the phone, posted a twitter update, and posted a few lines at connick.com, but I just didn’t feel like writing it out. As though writing it here made it more real or something. *shrug*

It was her time and she went quickly and quietly while I held her in my arms. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I sat and sobbed and sobbed in the room at the vet. Then I drove her to Bussey one last time where my mom helped me bury her in our back yard, next to my other beloved pets that went before: Luv, Sunshine, Blizzard, Scamper, and Flutter (my parakeet, we buried him in a checkbox). My mom was such a great support through it all. She’d already dug the hole. That’s a good mom.

I then drove back to my place and just sat. I pretty much just sat around for the next four days. Had lunch with the Steele’s and Heather on Friday and that was good. But all I wanted to do was sit and knit and watch ‘The X-Files.’ I don’t know why I found that soothing, but I did. Actually, I still am.

Its actually harder to leave my apartment than to be in it because coming home to the place being empty is the worst part. I instinctively look for her the minute I get home, because that’s what I’ve done for the last eight years. Once I’m home and am over her not being there, I’m mostly ok.

I’m still sleeping on my side of my bed. I got the bigger bed like five or six years ago, but I’ve always just slept on the right side because the left side is Mac’s. I realized two nights ago that I’m still just sleeping on that side of the bed. I know I should move towards the middle, but I’m not there yet.

I realize that I’m lucky to have had her as long as I did, she didn’t quite make it to 20, but she was very close. And lucky that she was pretty darn healthy up until only about 6 months ago. I have so many great memories of her, all the way back to the day I picked her out of the box of kittens in Jackie and Don Vanderhorst’s garage in 1988.

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words and phone calls, cards, emails, etc. They mean more than you’ll ever know.

It’s 3:20AM and I’m still awake post ‘Indy 4.’ The movie was fun and I enjoyed it a lot. It was kind of ridiculous at points, but still a great way to revist one of the best movie characters ever. Harrison Ford beats up a lot of people and that never ceases to amuse. I drank some pop at the show which got out almost an hour and a half ago which I think is partly the reason I’m still pretty wide awake.

The other reason is that I think this may be the last night I spend with MacGyver. I brought her home after work with a vast assortment of medications and instructions for monitoring and she’s just fading. She won’t eat at all, she drank once and then threw up the water. It was so sad. She’s stumbling when she tries to walk and basically is just laying on the floor quietly. I feel like she’s telling me it may be her time. :( She sat on my lap for awhile and slept on her favorite chair. Now she’s just on the floor in front of my TV. I think she’s just worn out.

I’m going to stay up with her as long as I can with her tonight and then see if she’ll sleep on her pillow on my bed one last time. I’ll re-evaluate the situation in the morning but it might be time for her to go gently into that good night. I’ll never be ready, but I feel more at peace with it than I did two days ago.

Again, thanks for all the kind words and thoughts.

There is bad news and good news since I last updated.

Yesterday morning when I called the clinic for an update, the news wasn’t promising. The vet techs said that she still wasn’t eating and that she didn’t seem to have the spunk she’d had before. I started slowly falling to pieces at this point. Dr. Brown called me back around 10am to say that things were not improving and we needed to make a decision about how to proceed; to do the biopsy or not. I drove over to the clinic, alternately crying and talking on the phone to my mom and Lisa as I went. Trying to figure out what I should do.

Upon arrival at the clinic, they brought Mac into an exam room so I could visit with her. I brought her favorite brush and gave her some good brushing. She seemed less lively than the previous evening.

Dr. Brown came in and talked to me about what my options were. As she was still not eating on her own, they did not want me to just take her home, as she would most likely just dehydrate and slowly starve to death and it would be painful. Not wanted. They had ruled out everything they could with blood work and the thought now was that it was probably either a lymphoma in her digestive track or irritable bowel disease, both would require a surgical biopsy to confirm. But I just didn’t want to put her through surgery, especially with her heart condition. I was a mess trying to make a decision. The vet did tell me there were still medical options for treatment, but they were more just a guess and a hope without the tests to confirm anything. Prednisone was the suggested treatment, for if it is irritable bowel disease, that would be the treatment, and if it is lymphoma, it would at least improve her condition for a few weeks before becoming ineffective. I had already decided I wasn’t going to treat a lymphoma. I’m not putting a 19 year old cat through chemo.

But I still wasn’t sure what to do. The rational part of me wanted to do the biopsy because I wanted to know I was choosing the correct course of treatment or that I knew there was nothing more to be done. Since my vet clinic has multiple vets who have all seen MacGyver before, I asked if I could get a second opinion, which was gladly given to me by Dr. Conant. I trust her a lot as she is very straight-forward. In the end she said she wouldn’t do the surgery if it was her cat and then asked who I was doing this for; me or Mac. Obviously, mostly for me at this point. But my main goal was for her not to suffer needlessly. I decided on the Prednisone treatment in the end. They let me stay and sit with her for as long as I wanted. I stayed another half an hour or so and then left.

I stopped into my office to check a couple of things, but I didn’t stay as I was really just distraught. I spent the afternoon at home furiously knitting. It seemed to occupy my mind the most easily. I was slowly beginning to come to terms with the fact that she probably wasn’t going to come home again.

I went back to the vet clinic last evening for another visit. She still wasn’t eating on her own, but we had another nice visit with brushing and some sunbathing.

After that visit, I thought I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that she really wasn’t coming home, because if she won’t eat on her own, that’s a sign that she is just done.

Of course, nothing is easy to come to terms with. The vet called me about a half an hour ago as I was starting this post to say that she has started eating some on her own now and that if I want, I can take her home today and continue treatment at home. I’m going to go over to the clinic on my lunch break to talk with the vet and see what the full details are. So its good news in the short term and I will enjoy her for as long as she’s able to be with me.

Thanks for all the encouragement and good wishes. I’ll continue to keep you all posted.