This is a paid post I actually have a reason for taking. The product shown at left is ES Clear for Cat Cancer. I didn’t mention it, but the one-year anniversary of Empress Wu’s death was on January 12th. When she died, I thought the pain would never end…it went on so long. One year later, I find it is greatly diminished, but I still miss her terribly. When I was tagging old posts and I got to that point, I could barely read them to see what tags they needed.

Our little Wubie’s death was ultimately caused by lung cancer, which I don’t think is too common in cats. The immediate cause was pneumopericardium, which is air in the sac around her heart. She had breathed too fast since we got her, like she was forever trying to catch her breath; a few months before she died she was diagnosed with asthma. But it wasn’t asthma, it was lung cancer, and it took my kitty away. She was a month or two shy of seven years old, and she was the only cat in the house who always looked to me first as her mama, rather than my wife - I am usually the “backup” mama to the other cats.

ES Clear is a natural product specifically formulated for cats with cancer. I don’t know if it would have helped her or not. It seems like it’s not trying to cure the cancer, but rather give the cat a better quality of life. Wu was only really sick for a day or two, and she seemed much happier in the oxygen cage at the vet’s office, but I would have tried anything to make her more comfortable.

That’s all I can write, I’m afraid. Writing this entry was harder than I expected it would be.

I got my tattoo for Wu today. I ended up going to Fatty’s Custom Tattooz in Dupont Circle, where I was quoted a price of $200 and told the wait was about an hour. That seemed like an awful lot of money, but I remembered the advice of those who told me “quality work costs more” and I handed over my card. The entire shop was really warm - it was at least 75° out, and the air conditioning obviously hadn’t been turned on yet from winter - so I went downstairs to Starbucks and got us cold drinks. I had been nervous as we neared the shop, I was nervous as I searched for parking, I was nervous walking back to the shop…I was definitely scared, and sitting around for an hour just got me more worked up! I talked with crayon on my Sidekick; she has a number of tattoos and told me that she’s been scared before every one.
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I think I’m going to get another tattoo. I got my current one (SFW, NSFW) in December 1999 and I screamed bloody murder the whole time, so I never got it touched up. I have been considering another tattoo for a while now, but I promised I would get the original touched up before getting anything additional. I just called Dragon Moon to see if my original artist could do the touch up, but they require $100 cash before they will even make an appointment. (Because I live more than an hour away, they’d accept a $100 money order in the mail.) Also, the black they use is different now, so she would probably have to go over the whole thing to make it look even.

So I think I’m going to get my other tattoo first, because that will be small and will help prepare me for the larger project of my original tattoo getting touched up. I had originally wanted a Hello Kitty tattoo, but I discarded that idea a little while ago. Now, I know what I’m getting: a memorial tattoo for Wu. I’ve been reading an “Over the Rainbow” [Bridge] group at Catster, and I’ve been thinking about a memorial for her. Someone suggested a scrapbook, but I realized…I could really go for a tattoo. It would be like keeping her with me always - and probably about the same price as any of the cremation jewelry I looked at.

I’m planning to get a paw print, but I want a realistic one rather than a stylized silhouette, probably not more than an inch square. I’m going to get it on the outside of my thigh, up close to my hip. As my other cats cross the Rainbow Bridge, I will want to get a new paw for each of them, until there is a trail of them down my thigh. A couple of people have suggested an initial in each, or a name with them, but I don’t think I’m going to do that - I want to memorialize in the abstract. I know it’s a memorial tattoo, but nobody else has to.

I have to decide where to go. Dragon Moon is too far away, so it should be somewhere in the DC area. There are apparently a couple of places in Fairfax, and of course there are several in the city itself. Jinx Proof is reportedly very clean and reasonably good, but everyone agrees they are expensive and some people say the artists have poor “bedside” manners. Fatty’s Custom Tattooz is also supposed to be good but pricey, but I don’t think I want to tell people “Fatty’s” when they ask where I got the ink. There’s also Tattoo Paradise, and I’m curious about AX Tattoo because she’s on the LiveJournal friends lists of both preppyperv and redwaterlilly, and I could swear I recognize her. So I have to figure out where to go, and I should probably visit a few places. But I’m pretty damn sure I want this tattoo.

It’s been two weeks since my kitty girl had to leave us. I am doing much better but looking at this Catster thread still brings tears to my eyes. Recently we were driving on Route 29 near Fairfax Circle, near some condos or townhouses (something residential), and we saw several cars pulled over to the side of the road and a group of people standing in a circle around something in the middle of the road. As we drove by we saw it was someone’s golden retriever (or another large dog) who had been struck. That really wrenched my heart. I’m so glad we got to be with her, that we got to say goodbye, that she died peacefully. My torn heart just went out to the owners of that poor dog.

Wu is still in her little white box, and her picture is propped up in front of it right next to the TV in our bedroom so we see her all the time. (We had kept her in her favorite basket, but Toadstool only let us do that for a couple of days before reclaiming it.) Her urn is on top of the TV, and two of her favorite toys - the ring from around a milk jug and a thick little piece of black cord - are on top of her box. I don’t know when we’re going to put her in her last home. I can still see her in front of me on the table, see her fall as the drug went into her veins. Sigh…it seems I have mostly pushed the grief aside in favor of things like birthdays and legal drama, but when I think about her it just keeps hurting me. So I’m crying at the moment. I haven’t been able to look at her final picture lately, but this one is on my laptop’s wallpaper and this one is on A’s laptop wallpaper.

Oh, I miss my kitty girl.

Hi everybody. I’m hanging in there okay. I was very sad at home this morning, and when I got to work I was looking at cremation jewelry so I was still kind of mopey, but I’ve been goofing off for a while so I’m doing okay now. Wu is always somewhere in my thoughts, but I find that I am able to relax at least and not get stressed out. We received the UPS tracking number for the urn this morning, and A brought her to the crematory. They were done with her by a little after 12:30 so A will bring her home tonight. I assume they give us a little box temporarily. I want to keep her up in the bedroom with us for now because that’s where she spent most of her time. I couldn’t do it last night because there was still a cat in the box, but I want her close. I’m so glad I made this decision, I’m glad we’re keeping her in our home. Part of the reason is that she was never allowed outside (she was already declawed in front when we got her) so it would have been weird to put her out there, and eventually she would have been gone. We have buried a couple of chinchillas and a hamster out in the yard, but that spot has been grown over now, and that was several years ago so I doubt there’s even anything left. I don’t want that to happen to my Wubie.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet what the hardest part was. When I brought her to the vet Wednesday night, she looked very ill. But they had her in an oxygen cage, so she was breathing much better. When we went to visit with her before they did it, she looked fine. She was alert, she recognized us, she gave me that wonderful picture. Even when they brought her out of the cage and put her on the table, she wanted to jump down from there. It was unbelievably painful to put her to sleep because she looked healthy. If she had been droopy and sick, it might have been a little easier, but she looked like she was ready to come home with us. It just about broke my heart, and I’m going to stop this paragraph before I cry.

I’ve had a stomachache for most of the day and I’m not sure why. It’s not quite nausea, just discomfort. I have been playing online pretty much the whole day. I do have to stay until the end of the day, though, because I can’t pick up my food until 5:00. I used to leave a little early on Fridays but I can’t do that anymore because of the food. By the way, I’m proud of myself for sticking to my diet yesterday - I really wanted to eat crap just for something to do, but I didn’t do it. Also, I lost four pounds last week, but so far this week I’ve only lost half of one. Quicklinks will probably return tomorrow; they auto-posted yesterday but I took them down because it didn’t feel right. Obviously nothing new was added yesterday, so I’ll put the ones that posted yesterday into the auto-post for tomorrow.

I’ve had a rush of thoughts in my head, of course. We have watched some TV, I took a nap for about an hour, and we cried together. I cried a lot, especially after reading a 9/11 edition of the rainbow bridge story. Every time I look out onto the landing from our bedroom, I want to see her there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a cat sitting in the bedroom doorway just as she did, but it was Truffle. I have so many thoughts that have passed through my mind and I thought about writing them down but I just couldn’t collect them all.

There are several things I want to remember about Wu. How she liked to lick plastic - bags, cellophane, anything. How she wasn’t interested in a toy on the end of a string, but she was quite interested in the string itself. The sound of her wiping her paws on the plastic placemat before taking a drink of water from the bowl. She did that just the other night, and I can still hear it. She was declawed, so she wasn’t allowed outside, but she would sometimes hang around the cat door as if she were threatening to go out. She only got outside on a couple of occasions, and it scared her and she ran right back inside. How she used to demand love RIGHT NOW and would stand on our chests as we sat up in bed, making sure she was all we could see. How she would hide under the stereo table when she didn’t want to be found. How she would meow with great concern when we took a bath with the door closed, and if she was let in how she’d put her paws up on the edge of the tub to make sure we weren’t bathing in poison or something. And her voice - she was such a talker.

I’m so glad I have pictures and video, but I wish I had more pictures. I didn’t realize I had so few.

We brought her home with us from the hospital, and I think we were planning to bury her in the yard. I came to realize, though, that I would rather have her cremated and keep her with us. The hospital had given us the option of collective cremation for $60 or individual cremation for $239, but we ended up finding a place very close to A’s work that will cremate her alone for $140. We bought this urn on eBay for $40 including shipping; we had been torn between that one and this one because her name was Empress Wu, but we decided to go with the more neutral one that was also larger. We have five other cats, you see, and while the idea of collective cremation horrifies me, I can envision all of my cats playing together in there. I am also thinking of getting some jewelry to keep part of Wu with me.

I’m going to go to work tomorrow, because Fridays are my easy day anyway. I’m hoping I won’t have to use vacation pay for the six hours I took off today. We’re still planning to go to a play Saturday afternoon, and I’m still planning to interpret with fairerhiannon at MAL this weekend. But I still feel terrible right now. I don’t even know how to end this so I’ll just leave it at that.

We’re going to have to do it. I am on my way to the hospital where I will meet A. This was so fast. Turns out she has air in her pericardia, the membrane around the heart. The root cause though is cancer, not heart disease or asthma. I doubt I’ll go back to work today. Please keep the e-hugs coming.

The prognosis is not good for Wubie. When A got to work she called to speak to the doctor and it seems the outlook is not so rosy. So A was calling to ask about that choice we didn’t want to make. Do we put her through the cardiology exam, or just let her go quietly now? I decided that if there was any chance she might get to come home with us again, I would hate to have put her down. She is first on the cardiologist’s schedule now. Hopefully we will find out soon. If her heart disease is severe we will both leave work to be there as she is put to sleep. If it isn’t too severe, they will try her on heart drugs and see how she responds over 24 hours. But it’s not good. I am finding myself looking at pet loss websites. For now I think I am numb until we hear something further.

Added: Okay, no more looking at pet loss websites. I was reading the rainbow bridge story and now I’m in tears.

The doctor called at 1:45am, right as I was falling asleep after posting my video blog entry. She said that Wu’s breathing had “declined,” and that she seemed to be dehydrated. Of additional concern was her low blood pressure. It was 65, and normal is apparently 100-120 like a human’s. The doctor explained that she was torn between giving her fluids to improve her b.p. and hydration, and not giving them because they would cause further heart problems. The doctor didn’t think she seemed to have an overly large heart, but the cat obviously hadn’t seen the cardiologist. Additionally, Wu was on oxygen because it seemed to be making her more comfortable.

We couldn’t sleep after that, of course, so we cried for a little while and then watched TV for the distraction. A got to sleep before I did; I think I finally fell asleep around 3:30. This morning I called for a progress report. The nurse said her breathing seemed about the same, so she was still in the oxygen cage. She noted that her blood pressure had improved (didn’t say how much) and she seemed a little bit more responsive although still quiet. She’s going to be fit into the on-site cardiologist’s schedule as soon as possible, and if we haven’t heard anything by noon we are welcome to call back for another progress report.

We are trying to accept that Wu is dying. She was born in February 1999, so she’s still young. I don’t think I’ve had a cat die before that I really remember, so I’m taking it pretty hard. Visiting hours end at 5:00 today so I am thinking of asking to leave work early so I can get there in time to see her.