February 19th, 2005, I had Thanta put to sleep. He had gastrointestinal cancer. The same disease that has been gnawing away Grizzley’s health and life.
Thanta was one of Grizzley’s litter mates. Grizzley was the second one to be born out of a litter of four and Thanta was the last to be born. Thanta was the runt of the litter, he was always left alone by himself, and my friends told me not to take him because they thought he would soon die. I took him home anyway along with Grizzley.
Thanta loved eating. He absolutely lived to eat. At first, he would spend 30 minutes and upwards, several times a day, at the food dish making all kind of noise indicating he’s eating ravenously, accompanied by very loud purring. His paws would be in the food dish kneading the food while he’s sucking the juice out of it with his entire face buried in it. So after he’s done, all the food would still remain there. I attributed this to the fact that he was the runt and didn’t get to suck on his mommy’s teats as much. Whatever the reason, that was how he used to eat in the first couple of months with me, and after each meal, I would have to hurry up and wash his face clean because otherwise the juice from the food would dry up quickly and since his eyes were closed while his face was buried in the food, he would be very uncomfortable with his eyes looking like two slits no matter how hard he would paw at it.
Oh and did I mention he loved eating? He used to wake me up at four in the morning to be fed. First, he just sat down on my chest and stared at me, which used to wake me up for a short time, but I got used to it pretty fast. When that stopped working in getting his early breakfast, he started putting one paw on my face sitting on my chest. That worked a little longer than just sitting and staring. But I got used to it fast enough because don’t you know I love sleeping? But Thanta’s early breakfast would not be denied for long because he would sit on my chest, put his paw on my face, let his claws out and put a little pressure on them. Just some harmless threat. It took some time for me to get used to it and he employed this method for a while. But then my love for sleep finally overcame it, I called him on his bluff and was able to sleep through it. But Thanta was prepared. The next time he sat on my chest, put his paw on my face, let his claws out, put a little pressure and started running his claws down my face slowly. Oh, he didn’t scratch me. He was careful so that he didn’t scratch me. And he won. I never did get used to that. And I grudgingly but faithfully fed him at four in the morning every single day.
Once, when my friend was cat-sitting Grizzley and Thanta (I didn’t have my dogs back then), Thanta tried the same method to wake up my friend even though Thanta hated people other than myself and he avoided my friend all day everyday except to get fed. One day my friend did not want to get up, so he put the bed sheet over his face to prevent Thanta’s paw from reaching his face. A couple of minutes later, he saw a paw pushed underneath the sheet and then the paw started feeling around, just as he saw in the cartoons like Tom and Jerry or Silvester and Tweety. He started laughing so hard, he was wide awake in no time and Thanta was fed promptly.
I miss him. I miss his little paw on my face every morning.
Why? Because I did it AGAIN! For the third AND the fourth time!!!!! After forgetting Brandy’s and Foster’s gotcha days, you’d think I’d pay more attention, right? But noooooo. I forgot about the fourteenth birthday of Grizzley AND Georgia’s gotcha day. Yup, I suck.
This one is for Grizzley.
My friend Lefty used to live in a basement apartment 14 years ago and he “had” a cat. She wasn’t really his cat, who strayed into his basement window one day and made herself comfortable. She came and went as she pleased and one day gave birth to a litter of four in Lefty’s apartment. I know, it was a time when I was ignorant of pet overpopulation problem.
I went over to pick a kitty to bring home, and there were one huge off-white colored kitty, big gray kitty, smaller black kitty and a teeny orange kitty. I was struck by the orange one because he was sitting all by himself and looked so sad. I picked the orange one, and Lefty and Nick told me I’d better not because he’s the runt and mostly likely not survive. So I went ahead and picked the gray one as well, and that’s my Grizzley. The orange kitty was my Thanta, who passed 3 years ago. I will blog about him later sometime.
So I took them home one day. Grizzley, as I mentioned before, is a big framed cat and was extremely athletic and exceptionally smart. The only place I forbade them to go was the kitchen counter, so he used to jump up on top of the refrigerator to see what I was doing whenever I was doing something in the kitchen. He was so nosy he usually had to see everything I did. Whenever I cleaned the kitty litter, he would jump up on top of my back, since I would bend my back to scoop it, to keep on eye on what I was doing with his bathroom. Then one day, something happened while I was at work. I don’t know what happened exactly, but it resulted in two femur head surgeries, one on each side, to relieve the pain. Ever since then he stopped being athletic.
Grizzley’s absolute favorite pastime is to make himself comfortable around my neck and shoulder area and knead on my hair – he could do this for hours if left alone. He likes opening doors; cabinet, closet, any door, just to open it. His favorite snack is the soft part of a bagel. He is the only one who bothers me when I eat, trying to pull my hand holding the forkful of food away from my mouth to his every single time. It would be kind of funny actually, arm wrestling with Grizzley for every single bite, if I’m not in a hurry, which is really a rare occurrence. He doesn’t like dogs getting unruly and he always shows them he’s the boss whenever Brandy, Foster or Georgia looks like to him as out of order. Brooklyn, of course, he’s very afraid of, since she almost killed him once, and he vanishes to somewhere whenever I take Brooklyn out of the room.
Despite Grizzley’s latest struggle, no matter it’s cancer or just IBS, he still rules his domain and doesn’t seem to be wiling to lower the level of his grumpiness or pushy behavior. He turned fourteen last Saturday, and I’m cautiously optimistic that he still have a few more years left in him. Please say a little prayer for him on account of his belated birthday.
Happy Birthday, Griz! Love ya!
And I have a scratch on my right thumb around the nail bed, that looks like a razor cut, made by Grizzley’s tooth, and a scratch on my right wrist by his nails. I’ve forgotten what a pain it is to pill a cat, not to mention how to do it period. Grizzley had always been somewhat easy to pill compared to Thanta (RIP), but after getting used to the easy routines of pilling Brandy everyday (and before that pilling Georiga everyday), he presented himself to be a tough customer.
When I went to pick him up yesterday, my vet told me that prednisone is working, he ate ravenously, and even groomed himself. When he was brought out, I could see he did feel much better than the day before – he voiced his objections on having been in the hospital out loud. I should take him in 2 weeks to do a round of tests. The vet is very optimistic that it’s not cancer since Grizzley’s responding too well for it to be cancer. I’ve decided not to go for chemo on him even if it is cancer. The vet also agreed that gastrointestinal cancers are very unresponsive to chemo, which made it much easier for me to decide chemo or not. So even if his condition regresses after reducing prednisone dosage, I’d opt not to have biopsy done unless the vet gives me another compelling reason to have it done anyway.
I was kinda bummed yesterday after learning about the ultrasound result, and cried a couple of times – had to stay in the bathroom for a while because it’s not such a good thing to cry at work so much. But now, I feel better about it since Grizzley seems to be really happy about being back home and able to terrorize the dogs again.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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