The Beginning of the End.

Hello & Welcome to my blog!

 I'll be writing mostly about the misadventures of my life with my husband and our 4 cats.  As you may or may not know, I'm totally obsessed with my cats and I take photos of them almost every single day.  Yes, totally obsessed!  I may also be putting up recipes, doing reviews on books or movies, and sharing tons of memories.

For my first entry, I wanted to actually review a book I finished 2 days ago - Jackson Galaxy's 'Cat Daddy'.  If you have never seen the show MY CAT FROM HELL on Animal Planet, you should get to it! It's great. Jackson has an amazing way of helping people and cats who are at their whits end.

This beautiful & inspirational memoir by Jackson Galaxy about his life came at a very difficult time in my own life. My husband & I have 4 gorgeous adopted cats, ranging from just a year old to 3 and a half years.  Our young, 2 yr old boy 'Boogie Down Bronx' or Boogie for short, was diagnosed in early May 2012 with a destructive cancer called Ameloblastoma. He had surgery to remove the rapidly growing mass only to find out that it actually broke part of his facial bone! Several teeth and part of his gum had to be removed along with the mass. The cancer is pretty rare in felines, more common in canines. Either way, a terrible disease. Tests, x-rays, surgery and several hundred dollars later, we had 2 opinions, the final from an veterinary oncologist who said the prognosis wasn't good. He told us we probably had 6 or 8 months time to say goodbye to our beloved boy.

This brings me to the main reason for reviewing this great read. Toward the end of Jackson's book you find out about the last few days of 'Benny', one of Jackson's house cats who has a lot of different mental and physical issues. At one point, Jackson is so distraught and upset with himself for not being able to 'figure out' Benny's problems that he finally asks the cat to just give him a sign when he has had enough and when Jackson should let him go. The sign comes in a middle-of-the-night head butt, something Benny has never done before. Jackson says he just knew right then that this was it.  It was time.

Boogie has been very restless and head butting me a lot in the night over the course of the last 3-4 weeks. I just assumed he was hungry (at almost 15 lbs, my big boy is ALWAYS wanting more food). But after a serious head butting session Monday night, I reached up to touch his face and pet him and my hand came away wet. I took him into the bathroom to inspect his face and found his eye was watering...a lot!  I peered into it and could see massive swelling on that whole left side of his face, where the cancer has been slowly growing back. It looks like it has spread to his eye which is something our local vet was thankful it hadn't done 4.5 months before. But it looks like the cancer has indeed spread and we have an appt. to have Boogie euthanized this Friday. I cant put him through anymore traumatic, long car rides to strange vets, to be poked, prodded, cut on.. he deserves the best and that is to be comfortable and to finally rest in peace. I finished Jackson's book Monday night, just a few hours before I found Boogie's eye issue.  I have never been a big believer in signs. But Jackson's book was so touching and honest, I just knew he was right.  It's might be a sign that I have to let Boogie go, like Jackson had to let Benny go.

I have a hard time making people understand where I'm coming from when I say how devastated I am that I am about to lose one of my babies.  Kevin & I don't have children.  Who knows if we ever will. But we do have these 4 tiny creatures living with us who need & depend on us. We give them nourishment, clean up after them, take them to the doctor, give them lots of love, watch them learn to do things and grow up.  Isn't that the very epitome of what having a child is like?  Kevin & I both feel like we are losing part of our hearts, and I just wish that those who cannot or are just not willing to understand, would get that look off their faces long enough to let us grieve.

Was all the head butting and restlessness Boogie's way of telling us that he was ready? Maybe. But I know it's whats best and I thank Jackson from the bottom of my heart for sharing his amazing story and helping us see beyond our own sadness in order to let our little boy go when the time is right.

xoxo,
kittygirl