shimmer

I hadn't had the heart to post about this yet, but I guess I'm ready now.

My cat, Chester, recently crossed over.

This is a (not very good) photo I took this summer, when Chester was sleeping in the dog bed with one of our dogs, Casanova.

He was 11 years old. I got him from the Humane Society when he was 4. My son, then 7, helped pick out Chester. He wasn't the first cat I considered, and we'd actually gone to the Humane Society planning to pick out a kitten. Then we got to visiting with the adult cats. When I took Chester out of his kennel, he was so relaxed and friendly. Then my little boy flung the cat over his shoulder. The cat couldn't have cared any less. He was completely mellow!

"Well," I thought, "this is obviously the cat for us." And home he came.

At first, he would wake me up each night, around 2 or 3 a.m., to pet him. If I wouldn't pet him, he would bite my hands. Not in a mean way, but just enough to say, "hey! shouldn't you be petting me?" If I hid my hands under the blankets or pillows, he would stop pestering me. Since I obviously had no hands, I suppose.

He stopped doing that after a month or two.

I have never met a sweeter cat. He was extremely affectionate and loving. Very mellow. The first time Hubby's Schnauzer (Mavis) met Chester, we weren't sure what would happen. Mavis was a cat-chaser, and would torture any cat who would run from her.

She spotted Chester, and ran headlong toward him. Chester just sat there and looked at her. Everything was fine after that.

When I got my little dog, Remy (a Yorkie-Chihuahua cross), he wanted to play with Chester, and Chester loved it! They would roll around and wrestle and have a great time. Very cute and fun to watch them together.

Chester was certainly slowing down a bit... I watched Remy try to get him to play over the last few months, and he just couldn't get Chester interested. But overall, Chester seemed fine, and 11's not that old for a cat.

Hubby always feeds the cats (we have another cat who is almost 17) in the evenings before he goes to bed. He fed the cats one Tuesday evening, and all seemed well.

Chester was walking back downstairs after eating... then I heard a noise. Chester was sitting kind of funny on the floor at the bottom of the steps. I went to pick him up, and saw that his whole back end was limp.

At first I couldn't believe it. I kept picking him back up to help him stand. I was confused... of course, my cat works! What's wrong with my cat? Why can't my cat stand? My cat can stand!

Within moments, Chester shuddered and laid down. He vomited. This was bad. Then he shit himself. Oh, fuck, this was very bad.

We wrapped him in a towel and I rushed him to the local emergency vet. They said he had saddle thrombosis, which is kind of like a stroke in humans. A blood clot breaks loose and blocks an artery somewhere. With cats, the clot likes to go to the femoral artery... all the blood to Chester's back legs and tail had been cut off. In the 15 minutes between him falling and me getting him to the vet, his legs and tail had gone cold from the lack of blood.

There was nothing to do but to put him to sleep right away. He was in pain, and worse, he was confused and frightened. In 7 years, I had NEVER seen Chester upset in the least. Now he was terrified. He couldn't understand why his legs wouldn't work either.

Chester died on November 15.

I really miss my cat.

Posted by Jean on Friday, December 02, 2005 at 5:14 PM | Permalink