kimberlysteele | Entries tagged with kiki

This little guy came into my life about ten days ago. His name is Shadow, or more specifically Shadow Shadilay Sniffles Spazzimodo Steele. He is a formerly feral cat from my backyard. We feed and water a small colony of ferals outside my house every day. My husband built a rather elaborate heated shelter for them to get through our Illinois winters.

As you guys know, I recently had to have my beloved kitty Kiki of fifteen years put down because she had kidney and liver failure. I am still devastated and in mourning, and that's why I wasn't ready for this little dude.

I had taken a day off for my birthday and poor little Shadow was sniffling and sneezing worse than ever. He was part of a feral litter of three born to one of the kitties I have yet to Trap/Spay/Return, a girl we've named Ms. Piggy but who is known also as Blondie. Ms. Piggy had a litter of three boys this spring, one of whom was killed by the tom who sired him and left as a corpse on my porch. I named him Tiger and buried him beneath some tiger lilies in my center garden. Shadow and his brother Silhouette were the two survivors. They are both black cats.

Several of the feral cats allow me to touch/handle them. Shadow is one of them. At 2.3 pounds, he couldn't put up much of a fight when I grabbed him and put him into a cat carrier a week and a half ago. So I did and took him to the vet. Shadow was immediately sweet and friendly -- purring as he was held in my arms. He has not acted feral since Day One.

The vet prescribed a ten day course of antibiotics, a de-wormer, and eye drops. My generous friend Jackie, a fellow cat lover and rescuer, paid for his veterinary expenses and gave me some litter, a litter box, and food. I have never seen a cat take so quickly or enthusiastically to using a litter box.

Within a couple of days, he found his favorite thing: TOYS. Kiki had a big box of them, and she had gradually lost interest in 90 percent of them over the years. Shadow went absolutely crazy over the wand toys, the cat tube, the catnip fish, etc.

Shadow is a much more high energy cat than Kiki, even when she was a kitten. He's a handful. He jumped into the refrigerator on his fourth or fifth night with us and spent 7 hours in the cold! He pooped all over the shelf and the few things that were in there (we had to throw out some stuff) but was otherwise unscathed. Moral of the story: ALWAYS CHECK THE FRIDGE WHEN YOU HAVE A KITTEN. He is like the cat version of Indiana Jones with ADHD. That said, Kiki did take down her fair share of window blinds as a baby...

Another difference between Shadow and Kiki is their size. Kiki was a big cat, 21 pounds at times. She was more like a small panther. Shadow is the runt of the litter. It remains to be seen whether or not he will grow to be a normal sized cat.

I'm doing my best to make him feel welcome and happy.

He recently went to the vet again for routine vaccinations. He has gained weight: he's now 3.5 pounds. He is much healthier; the vet says he is doing well with no respiratory or other issues. I'll always miss Kiki -- there isn't a day that goes by when I don't miss her terribly. Nevertheless, I'm going to try to do my best by this little guy from my yard and give him all the love and care he deserves. I think Kiki would have wanted it that way.

My little love Kiki died this afternoon at approximately 1pm. She was fifteen years old. After a dramatic episode as described in my previous post, we found a qualified pet euthanasia specialist called Peaceful Endings for Pets. The veterinarian was discreet, kind, and most importantly, extremely skilled. Kiki's death was peaceful and smooth thanks to the veterinarian's expertise. Nevertheless, it took 45 minutes and enough anesthetic to put down a large dog to put Kiki to sleep.

The part that tortures me is how badly Kiki wanted to live. She did not want to leave me, no matter how she retched whenever she tried to relax, how bloated and constipated she felt, or how bad her thirst grew, or how her throat burned and her teeth rotted from vomiting.

Kiki was never aloof. She acted more like a dog than a cat. We had a bond that was love at first sight from the first days at the shelter. It never waned. I poured every bit of frustrated childless person mother instinct into loving her and in return, I was her sun and moon. Due to the nature of my job, my husband has always arrived home from work before I do. She regularly sensed when I was coming home 20 minutes before I arrived, despite my erratic schedule, and yowled. When I got to the door, she was usually waiting. It was only in the last year she didn't constantly greet me at the door, and that was because she was resting or sleeping. She lived on my shoulder. "Kiki is the cat you wear" was my favorite joke.

The last three days have been unmitigated hell. The buildup to today's mercy killing was heart-rending. I vacillated many times. I did not want this creature to die, despite my deep faith that she would be received by spirit guides and helped by gods throughout her death journey.

I am incredibly grateful for the prayers sent to me. I don't think I would have any peace without them. This event made me realize why atheists kill themselves. When I adopted Kiki from the shelter fifteen years ago, I was atheist. I don't know that I would have survived this event as a nihilist atheist -- basically I would be alive only because I have people who would be upset by my death.

I didn't want to leave Kiki alone for a single moment in the last 3 days. I plopped her down on some towels tub-side when I bathed, sat her on her perch while I exercised, and ate pizza in bed brought to me by my husband because she had fallen asleep on my legs.

The episode with Welcome Waggin' gave me a poisonous, fleeting hope that it would be OK if I allowed Kiki to die more naturally. Late last night, I woke up tormented by a voice that said "Why micromanage her death so much? Can't you just call it off? In a less luxurious, less industrialized age, in-home pet euthanasia wouldn't be possible. She just wants to live." This voice haunted me several times.

Kiki arrived at the point of her illness where she could no longer sleep. She stared a thousand yard stare. When she started to drift off, her gag reflex would jerk her back to consciousness. She wanted to eat the food laid out for her but she would smell it and her gag reflex would activate. Nevertheless, there was still a small hope that I could heal her with herbs, maybe subsisting off of slippery elm and chicken broth, or at least this is what I told myself. It was only because of two photos I took of Kiki yesterday that I was able to resist the voice urging me to prolong her life. The pictures were worth a thousand words. Having taken literally thousands of pictures of her in her life, I saw the defeat and sadness in the last ones. I saw pain and suffering. I saw a being who was only hanging in there because she didn't want our time together to be over. I knew then that prolonging her life was selfish. I was fortunate to schedule her veterinary appointment in time to avoid even more suffering. This experienced has been a crucible: physically, emotionally, and spiritually agonizing. I was somewhere between Maiden and Matron when I adopted Kiki, but now I am fully the Crone; Gandalf the White.

My husband buried Kiki by one of the baby oaks in the late afternoon. This fall, I will start planting a garden of black flowers around Kiki's grave and the oak.

There will never be a day that will go by when I will not miss Kiki terribly. I look forward to my own death someday because I will finally get to be with her again. There are many questions I have for the gods, such as how she will reincarnate, and if she knows how much I have second guessed my decision and how sorry I am if it was the wrong choice. Thank you for your prayers and your words of encouragement for me for Kiki. They have been my salvation.

Kiki and I when we were both much younger and thinner.

Kiki and I when we were both a lot younger and thinner.

Long story short... she is still alive and I have decided to wait and see with euthanasia. Here is photos of her taken this morning and afternoon.

Kiki, my cat, is a 15 year old domestic shorthair. My husband and I, a deliberately childless couple, got her from the local animal shelter when she was approximately 6 months old. When we got her, she had an infected spay scar and an abdominal hernia, most likely a result of the botched spay job she received. She wore an Elizabethan collar for a long time, nearly 8 months, once we sprung her from the pound by adopting her. (More correctly, she adopted me when I was sit in a room full of kittens and she came up to my leg and immediately nuzzled it.)

The day we took the collar off was thrilling, both for her and us. She was finally healed. Kiki went from a scrawny kitten to a hefty mini-panther over the span of a year. At her heaviest, she weighed nearly 22 pounds and was not obese, just big boned as they say. Kiki has been an only cat and an only pet this whole time. Though I have trained her with a clicker to do some basic tricks such as Sit and to come when her name is called, she's otherwise been a completely pampered, spoiled princess. My husband has bought and assembled two cat trees for her, modded our entire apartment out with bookshelves for her to climb in two different apartments and more recently in my office, and has bought her a small fortune's worth of toys and treats. For a long time, I was giving her raw chicken because it was recommended by a holistic vet -- I've since stopped as she doesn't care for it anymore and there is a supposedly salmonella risk to her. My husband and I are officially the world's lousiest vegans: not only do we proudly feed Kiki and her outdoor feral counterparts meat, we treated her like a rock star when she killed three mice this year.

Kiki is not a fiery personality, meaning she is usually calm and shy. She's a sweetheart who loves shoulder rides and generally must be touching me at almost all times when I am home, and if we are not touching, she prefers to be in sight range. I'm not sure if it is sad or funny or both that I've done the Sphere of Protection more than once with an approximately 20-pound kitty in my arms.

Kiki's robust health finally started to slide around three years ago. Instead of pooping the generous logs you would expect from a big kitty, she would not poop at all. I took her to a good vet in my area. The vet prescribed a few anti-constipation medications, and finally we found one that worked called Cisapride. She also got special shipments of fiber-y cat food in the mail, Royal Canin for Cats Gastrointestinal Fiber Response. Combined with pumpkin in Kiki's food, Miralax, and lots of water, Kiki was pooping again. In the last year, she feel prey to more episodes of constipation, not eating, and dry-heaving and vomiting. She went nearly four weeks without eating or pooping this Spring, and supposedly that's not possible to survive for a cat. I believe the reason she survived was slippery elm, an herb that I mixed into a thin gruel with some feline probiotics and fed to her via a plastic syringe whenever she began to gag. Elm seems to be the only thing that soothes Kiki's gag reflex.

Within the last few months, Kiki has had two different trips to the vet, both times to have her bowels manually de-constipated by her veterinarian. She returned from both trips only slightly better off. The latest trip, which happened a month ago, happened immediately after her month-long bout of not eating. This weekend, her health took a steep decline. She was gagging and/or throwing up every few hours. She had not had a significant poop for a month. Four days ago, this led us to try a Pet-ema brand enema, which is a special sodium mixture designed for cats and dogs. The Pet-ema worked too well. She pooped, but the violence of it caused diarrhea and more vomiting. At that point, I stopped giving her Gabapentin (painkiller) and gave her elm plus pro-biotic every few hours. I am still doing that now.

Late Sunday night, I decided to have Kiki euthanized. My husband was and is 100% for euthanasia. We had both done research on in-home pet euthanasia, and after a few investigative calls, we decided on the Welcome Waggin', a local mobile veterinarian. I scheduled the appointment for 1pm today. After crying my eyes out yesterday and spending the entire Monday, which I have off from work, cuddling Kiki and eating pizza from bed with her in my lap, and then snuggling with her all night, this morning, she rallied. She squatted for a while in her litter box and had the first normal, non-enema-related poop she has had in months. I called the Welcome Waggin' in the early morning and left a message that I was cancelling the euthanasia.

My husband reminded me of just how bad Kiki has been and that her quality of life has been awful for the last month. I waffled on my morning decision and decided to go through with the euthanasia. I then looked at the email the Welcome Waggin' had sent to me. I had expected the vet and her technician would wear masks as they euthanized my cat. I did not expect the ridiculousness of their COVID policy.

The Welcome Waggin' Pandemic Protocols: Due to the pandemic, we are unable to go inside of the homes for appointments. When we arrive the day of the appointment, we will call to let you know we are there and we will have you bring your pets outside to us secured by a leash, carrier, or wrapped in a towel. We can perform veterinary services in the yard, on a deck/porch/patio, or in the garage with the door open. We may also be able to take some animals back to our vehicle for veterinary services. We will be wearing personal protective gear and request for everyone to be wearing masks and maintain 6 feet of social distancing during the appointment. We are unable to allow pet parents to assist in restraining at this time. Please call our office if anyone in the house shows any signs of illness, tests positive for the virus, has contact with anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus, or traveled outside of the state of Illinois in the 14 days prior to the appointment.

Only masks and social distancing were mentioned when I initially called Welcome Waggin' to schedule the appointment. As I sat in bed with my cat on my lap a mere two hours before her date with death, I read the email in disbelief. The Welcome Waggin' website is spattered with false promises that owners and pets can be together in their favorite place during the procedure. Nowhere on their site at the time I read it was there any reference to having to perform services in the yard. What about pet-owners who live in apartments and condominiums with no private yard?

A call came in from the Welcome Waggin'. I asked her if they were serious about the protocols in the email or if it was just placating talk for the authorities. She said they absolutely were serious. I told her they were a deal-breaker. I said that either the service went down with me holding Kiki the entire time, and that I would not be wearing a mask in my own house, or no deal. She insisted that COVID protocols had to be followed and that I would hand Kiki, a cat who has never stepped onto our enclosed front porch, to a stranger who would then stick her with a needle in a van.

After a night of fitful sleep with my ailing cat, unfortunately I completely lost patience with the socially-conditioned corporate idiot on the other end of the line. I said, "Human to human, do you realize that far more people, including children, are dying of the jab than they are of COVID?" I did not use profanity, but I did unleash my frustration -- I told her that parents were fighting to get their children out of masks and winning in local school districts, and that the Plandemic was engineered to collapse small businesses in the name of luxury communism, and a host of other topics I have covered over the past year and a half on this blog. I said that I ran a group of 3400 people on Facebook dedicated to re-building the businesses the globalist Plandemic set out to destroy. She stated that she wasn't about to change her mind about Corona. I then told her that her karma for this was coming, and that by participating in mask and distancing theater, she had gotten herself all sorts of bad karma. I said "This is your karma for nurses who danced on TikTok while elders died. This is your karma for a billion lost rites of passage." She accused me of threatening her, to which I replied, "I'm not threatening you; karma is mere cause and effect. You did this to yourself."

Though I don't imagine my screed in her general direction was effective, I do know it will burrow under her skin. I have always had a talent for weaponizing subconscious Achille's heels.

Back to what is important, that being Kiki. She is doing OK today. So-so. Still not eating. Still gagging every few hours, which stops when I give her 5 mL of the elm mixture. Drinking water from the sink. Chilling by the open window. I'm not rescheduling the euthanasia despite having found a group of doctors that will come into the home without masks or COVID theater. They offered to come on Thursday and I have declined. Please pray for Kiki. Pray that I am not only bound from doing anything that harms her, but also that her life's end is exactly as it should be and free from human bumbling on my part and everyone else's. Thank you.