My Cat

I had to put my cat, Lewis, to sleep today and it was an awful experience. It was just so fast - I had been holding him and he was purring. Then the vet put him on the table and pushed in an injection of an anesthetic. Lewis tried to pull his foot away, and then toppled slowly over. He was gone. And not to sleep. Putting an animal to sleep is a dishonest euphemism.

I came home last Wednesday from Costa Rica to find that Lewis had not eaten while I was away, and wouldn't eat anything I tried to entice him with. I took him to the vet's yesterday and he had blood taken. This morning the vet told me that the blood work was perfectly normal. I took Lewis back over for x-rays, which showed large lesions in his lungs. There was also a lot of fluid in his lungs. He had lost four pounds in about a month, so whatever was going on had caused him to stop eating. The vet explained that there was no humane treatment for the lesions, and we decided to do the kind thing and put him to sleep.

Lewis showed up in our back yard in 1997 and was insistent that he live with us. Our dog had just died and we were pet-less. He was a very civilized cat and so I think he must have been lost or dropped off. We put up signs and called local vets, but no one claimed him.

I loved that cat (past all reason, according to my family) but that's the way it was; he was my cat; I was his person; and I miss him.