I needed a new vet...

The last vet had missed two broken ribs and misdiagnosed Buttercup's problem as asthma. A friend recommended a vet -- or two. I took the one that was the closer. With five other cats, time and traffic is the consideration.

The young woman assistant mused over Crybaby. She agreed Crybaby was too sick for a rabies booster. She disappeared into the back with my cat and returned with an estimate and consent for bloodwork, which I agreed to, but questioned the rabies shot. "Oh, we can take it off," she flipped. But when the big bill came due, it was on there. I not only got a bill, but I got an actual vet with it, in person, who had done God-knows-what to my cat, only she explained it all very nicely. Crybaby was constipated and dehydrated. It could be her kidneys...it could be her liver...she had been given subcutaneous fluids and all that was explained nicely. Even the reason she went ahead and gave the rabies shot without my permission was nicely explained as "the law."

"To a cat that is dying?"

I had myself clear. I was not here to save her. I was here so that she might not suffer. I had five other cats. I needed reassurance that she was not infectious...But the vet was determined to save kitty, to the tune of $283.73 and rising.

I left with Crybaby in carrier. For two days, I thought maybe the vet was right. Crybaby was picking up. I followed her assiduously when she wanted out to her little poop-and-pee pile. Being a nurse, I have no qualms about probing poop. It was hard and dry and thereafter soft and moist. Maybe thIS vet had worked wonders. Crybaby was crying for chicken livers and shrimp again. So there I was on Saturday morning, going between the ShopRite and PathMark looking for fresh chicken livers that had not been frozen. She won't eat them if they've been frozen, which the first container was, sending me back out again at the price of gas. For the next two days it was noisy around the house. No problem, as long as she was eating and drinking the broth I made her and putting on water weight...

And then I noticed her cries were getting weak and she was refusing water. I back-tracked to the vet for the lab work to take for a second opinion to the first vet my friend had recommended. At 4:00p Crybaby threw up her shrimp. And that was it. She could not be tempted again. I watched her make a last trip to her litter box on wobbly back legs that would barely sustain her. Then she retreated under the coffee table where I hoped she wanted to sleep. Cats sleep all day, right? Except for Crybaby. She preferred to eat all day and sleep on my feet all night.

At 8:00p I roused her to my lap for her meds and another 30mls of H2O. She accepted the meds but she fought me over the water, as weak as she was. It seemed to gag her. Patients have rights, so I desisted. "OK, OK," She and I were always good at eye contact. She watched me in her quiet way, then reached up with her paw and touched my face. And then I knew. She was telling me goodbye.

I lovingly put her back under the coffee table, and checked on her several times before I retired. I attempted to take her to bed with me but moving her caused a protesting whimper. Then around 4:00a, I heard her caling out for me. She was halfway to me in a dead crawl, her body stretched and back arched in agony. "Oh, God, dear God, this is just what I did not want!" I called the 24 hour hospital. They could hear her. "Bring her in." I checked her. Her little body was stiffening. I called them back. "It's too late. She's gone." But then she opened her eyes from half-slits to wide. I called the animal hospital back. "I'm coming in. I need to put her down."

It was going to be too hard on her to fit her into a carrier, so Crybaby went quietly in an open mail basket. All the time, I talked to her. I never told her it was going to be all right. I told her it wasn't going to hurt anymore.

A very young woman was waiting. "We're ready for you," she told me. Poor little Crybaby. She was such a sorry little pretty sight, whisked away with a backward look: "We'll put that catheter in and then do you want to be with her?" I said, "When you put her to sleep but not when you stop her heart." But then I thought, "I was with her when she was born. I can be there when she dies."

I was shown where the box of tissues was and left alone in a cubicle room with time to think, time to prepare, time to reminisce about that night her MommyCat came to me with round worried eyes.

I had been at the computer in the office and she wanted up on my lap. Fine, she's hungry and carried the little-mother who was eating for how many? Five? Six? But that was not it. She was right back up on my lap with wide, worried eyes. Then I noticed my jeans were wet. Her time had come and she didn't know what to do.

I had her birthing box ready, equipped with gloves and saline water, sterilized scissors and sterile gauze...Her little vulva was so tiny that I had concerns. I worked her first kitten out while MommyCat turned and twisted and let out a scream. I cut the first cord. By then she had caught on to what was happening to her. She chewed the next cord herself. Purring, she was so proud of herself between five screams in all. One of those screams produced a little calico!

And now that little calico was grown and was leaving behind offspring of her own.

The young male vet was so kind and compassionate. Under his gentle hands, it was the sweetest thing to see her secretly pass from sleep to forever slumber. "Is she gone?" You could not tell, "Yes."

I cried when the young assistant handed me a white bound box. It was the four paw prints on two cards that set the tears off. The night shift receptionist handed a folded paper with the names of support groups through the glass window. "People on the outside won't understand. But these people understand." I drove home through blurry green lights.

It was morning by now. I had a private cup of coffee and then went out to my little woods and dug up a sassafras tree where I wanted her to be. Not far from Butternut, who had been too friendly, even to cars. I felt better, knowing how cats have souls and Butternut no longer had to play alone.

It was very quiet around the house that first day without Crybaby. I put my cat album more in order. Going over her pictures helped. In all the pictures but one, she is being affectionate. To her mother, her uncle, her brother, her sisters...It's true. What goes around, comes around. She was surrounded with loving strangers on that day when she needed her closest friend. When the young woman handed me her white cardboard coffin, she said simply: "There's no charge."

It's day two now. Snowflake is beginning to miss her mother. The other cats went with me when I buried her, so they could investigate the bound white box and know. I haven't called those understanding people yet. But I will. I'm being hard on myself. I know it was that rabie shot I didn't stop...