Goodbye, Sweet Oliver

Amongst the many events that have occurred since my last post, I have to start with the worst. We unexpectedly lost our beautiful Oliver cat.  He had not been ill, and we had no warning or time to prepare.  I woke up on Weds., 5/23, and was working on slathering the makeup that makes me look less dead.  I could see him in the mirror, looking cute, but when he tried to get up and move, I noticed a problem. He was dragging his back end and seemed quite confused by it.

My heart sank, but I assumed that he had some nerve or muscle issue, and we would go in and get some pain meds and anti-inflammatories. I called my mom for a ride/support, because I was shaking and crying and wanted to focus on comforting Ollie. He didn't seem painful, but was very confused. He kept trying to walk and jump and just looking back at his legs in a very puzzled way.

I was horrified to get the diagnosis:  saddle thrombus. It's fatal and would quickly become horribly painful.  There was about a 10% chance that if he went through 2-3 weeks of excruciating pain, it could possibly pass through. The odds were not good enough to put that precious boy through that kind of suffering!  He is one of the best, sweetest cats I've ever had the pleasure to know, and I could not make his go through that for a 10% chance.  He was starting to get painful at that point, so I made the quick decision to sedate him, so he didn't get worse. We stayed with him, giving him the face kisses he always loved, until he passed.  My heart is still broken.  He's lived with us for 12 years, and was about 3 (very rough estimate as he was a street kitty), when he came into our lives. I was not prepared for him to go so soon.

He had the most beautiful green eyes.  He slept in bed, along my right side (and in Mark's spot, whenever Mark wasn't in it) every single night. I routinely petted him as I was going to sleep and often woke with my hand on his back. Every morning when I opened my eyes, I loved looking into his gorgeous green eyes. We loved our morning cuddles, and I miss him in our bed so much!

As miserable as it's been for me to lose Oliver, it's been even worse watching his friends mourn him. I've mentioned before that he was the social glue of the cat clowder. He got along with every single animal in the house. He was always kind and was the first cat I would introduce new cats to. That way they always had at least one buddy who was happy to cuddle and groom them. With Oliver gone, his two best friends, Jasper and Petey, have been a little lost. For some of the others, he was their only friend/grooming buddy.  He has left such a huge hole in our household.

The next morning, I found our sweet cockatiel, Briar, dead. She also had not been ill at all.  I have no idea of her age or history prior to my adoption a couple of months ago. She had been very healthy and normal and was preparing to lay an egg (they all do this time of year--we don't breed them), so she could have become egg bound, but I saw no indication when I put them to bed that she was in distress.  Her partner Acacia was very sad, and has since been hanging out with Poppy, Calla, Azalea, and Begonia.

It was a super shitty week.

We've had a lot of good things happen, and I'm feeling quite positive overall these days, but I needed to get my very sad post done, so I can move on to happier topics in future posts.