Monday, January 02, 2006
R.I.P: Pookie the Fearless 1996-2005
I regret to inform you, the four readers of this blog, that on December 31, 2005, I had to put my cat Pookie to sleep.
Those of you who met Pookie knew him to be a rotund feline, a cat who liked his vittles as well as 8-hour naps. When I sent him out to Connecticut this summer, it was to keep him cool in the sweltering, New York City heat. My apartment was getting very warm during the day and Pooks wasn't happy at all. So off to the country he went.
He stayed on through the fall since I was out of town most weekends. He and La Madre got attached. About two weeks ago La Madre called and told me that Pookie looked thin. I figured running around the house in Connecticut would have made him thinner. Two days later she called and told me he was dragging his lags behind him and couldn't make it into his litter box. I started to worry, big time.
After many tests it was deduced that Pooks had pancreatic cancer. The tumor was pushing up against his spine and thus he couldn't use his legs. Strangely, he didn't seem to be in any pain. Nevertheless, if a human can't survive pancreatic cancer, a cat sure isn't. I was told I had to put him to sleep, otherwise he would start to be in pain, and very quickly.
Saturday afternoon at high noon I found myself in a vet's office, holding Pookie up on a table. Even without his legs he squirmed around, but in no way was he the same cat that I sent off to Connecticut in August. Pooks, who was usually fluffy and round, was thin and angular. As sick as he was he still purred and still loved his brush.
The vet assured me I was doing the right thing. She seemed very emotional as she gave Pooks a shot to sedate him. Apparently he had charmed the whole staff as they took blood and ran tests on him. Once he fell asleep and stopped purring, the vet gave him another shot and within a minute was gone. I held his big white paw the whole time.
Losing a cat is no fun. Here is an article from The Black Table about dealing with the loss of a furry comrade.
And an essay by Will Leitch about his old cat, Wu-Tang.
