Chief died today. On a day like any other. A day filled with hope, and joy, and good news. But a day that we will now remember for losing our precious cat.
I made an appointment to bring Chief in and get looked at on Thursday. He has struggled with stomach issues for a few years, maybe longer, but we were told he just had a sensitive stomach. This time however....something inside me told me it was different. Chief throws up a lot. I mean,
a lot. It seems like he is constantly sick over something. Throwing up from eating plastic, or swallowing a rubber toy of the girls, getting diarrhea, the poor guy was just always getting sick. Because of his long history of having a "sensitive" stomach, we never thought that something else might be going on inside him.
But this week he became increasingly more isolated. He stopped sleeping with me, which for Chief says a great deal. He normally sleeps on my pillow above me, or on my chest every night. But this week, he stayed and slept on the couch downstairs. He was less active and less interested in his normal daily activities. Not eating and drinking as much. And he was going to the bathroom all over the place. Throwing up. Blood in his stools and vomit. Which at first glance isn't that unusual for him. When he eats something disagreeable he usually gets sick like this for a couple days and then bounces back and is fine. But something that I can only chalk up to the Holy Spirit, made me think it was different this time. I couldn't shake the feeling that something serious was going on inside him.
Turns out there was.
When we brought him into the vet they weighed him and he was down to 8 pounds. He normally sits around 10 or 11lbs, so he was clearly losing weight. And then the vet started feeling his abdomen and right away felt something that shouldn't be there. He got a second opinion for another vet there, and she too felt an abnormality inside of him.
They did x-rays and blood work. The blood work came back off, showing he was anemic and his white blood cell count was high. The x-ray showed something...but they couldn't distinguish what that something was. It could of been a tissue mass, or a foreign object, but the only way to tell for sure was to do exploratory surgery. We could have done some additional less invasive tests, but the end result still would of been surgery. Because whatever was there...couldn't stay there.
So...before we left him in the hands of the loving care takers at the animal hospital, I took Isaak's phone and captured what turned out to be our last hugs and kisses and goodbyes with Chief while he was awake to receive them.
And then we left, and waited for the doctor's call, and I couldn't shake the feeling that this was it....but praying all the while that it wasn't.
At 3:06 while I sat in front of Sydaleigh's school waiting to pick her up, I got a call from the doctor while he was in surgery. They put me on speaker phone, and I listened as he told me what he saw....
....Chief's intestines were ravaged with lesions. His bowels and intestines were severely thickened. One of his kidney's was slightly deformed. He had developed GI Lymphoma. The doctor could have cut out one of the larger lesions on his intestines and reconstructed it, but it would do nothing for the other areas that could not be salvaged. We could attempt to do chemo therapy or steroids, but that would prolong his life by a matter of months, maybe. If we left him as is, he would have a matter of weeks, maybe. Either way, the prognosis wasn't good. This disease was going to kill him, and soon.
I struggled to make sense of his words, fighting back tears. I hung up the phone and called Isaak, and through heavy tears told him what I had learned. Isaak knew what we had to do. I called back the doctor and told him we were on our way, and to wait, so we could discuss what to do next in person. With the whole family in the car we rode five long minutes to the hospital....but there was really only one thing to do when we got there. There was only one, humane thing left to do.....and that was say goodbye to our dear Chief of over ten years, and send him off to Jesus' lap.
We talked to the girls how Chief had a big owie in his belly and the doctors couldn't fix it. And that Chief had died. We talked to them through tears how he was not going to wake up and come home with us. We told the girls that he was going to wake up in Heaven, and Jesus would take care of him until we got there.
When they brought him in, he had a blue towel covering his body with only his head and paw viewable. He had a tube in his mouth so his tiny tongue was sticking out a little bit and one eye was still kind of opened. We stroked and kissed his head, and said goodbye one more time.
The doctor gave us a few minutes to spend with him, and then he came in and administered his injection, sending him away from us and off to Jesus. He listened to his heart. And he told us it had indeed, stopped. I will never forget that moment.
We all cried deep, heavy, sorrowful tears. There is never an easy time or a right time to say goodbye to someone you love so much. Even an animal. Because he wasn't just an animal to us. He was part of our family.
I am so deeply thankful for the two hours we had with him in the office before his surgery. He was able to cuddle up under my chin and into my hair one more time. He was able to spend time in Isaak's lap and feel Marvelly's little hands gently stroking his head. And the day before he was feeling well enough to frolic outside one last time, going to all his favorite spots. And then that morning he laid on top of me on the couch for thirty minutes while I did my bible study. He had a good life, he was well loved, and these past ten years with him have certainly left us with more memories than we can count.....
Our first family picture, December 2001. Chief was one year old.
Isaak picked him out from a litter while we were living in Texas. His mother was an outdoor Siamese cat that mated with some kinda tri-colored stray. When he was just a kitten Isaak accidentally stepped on his tail, and broke it. And ever since the tip of his tail has been bent.
We already had Anna for a year when we got Chief. The two hit it off right away and became best buds. Chief was always so good about cleaning Anna's head and ears. But despite there love, Chief was quite a bit more spunky than her, and would antagonize her to no end. I would frequently find the two of them in the middle of what Chief thought was a fun game of "let me chase you and bite you because it's fun" while Anna tried unsuccessfully to get away, all the time making the most hideous angry meows I've ever heard. I usually let them have at it until I knew Anna couldn't take it anymore, and then I'd brake them up. I'd have to lock Chief in the bathroom until he calmed down. :~)
He loved the outside so much. He'd spend a good many hours out in our screened in patio in Florida hunting for lizards. And then in recent months here, he started bolting out the door whenever I opened it to run to the pine trees lining our back yard to hunt for mice. For an "indoor" neutered cat with no front claws....the boy could hunt. I found a fair share of dead mice in his favorite spots in the yard, sometimes whole, sometimes not.
The girls loved him SO much. They were always finding creative ways to torture him....picking him up under the arms and spinning him around, walking him on a leash, trapping him under a clothes basket...and for the most part, Chief didn't seem to mind. He put up with their antics. And every now and then he'd try to pick at them too, but in the way of biting them, which they never found the humor in.
Chief was the most cuddly cat I've ever had. Ever since he was a kitten he loved to nuzzle in my hair, and then when we had girls, he would climb on their chests and nuzzle his nose into their hair too.
He was so so so affectionate. He'd just bury his face in my hair and sit there and purr. Completely content. Trying to be as close as physically possible.
He never had any hiding places that he would go to during the day like other cats. He liked to always be around us. Always. If we were at the dining room table, he'd sleep on the table just to be close to us. If Isaak was playing video games, he'd come and sleep on his arms. He would lay across any book you were trying to read or paper you were attempting to write on. He slept on my pillow or my chest nearly every night. I'm gonna miss that little guy. I will not miss being woken up by the sound of him getting ready to vomit on my head in the middle of the night and having only seconds to get him on the floor....but the cuddling, yes, I will miss my little cuddle bug.
He had a very weird plastic fetish. He would shred and devour any plastic bag we left out. And once we started keeping everything plastic out of reach from him, he turned his attention to rubber, chewing on and eventually devouring the girls rubber toys, shoes, he tried eating our plastic blinds, computer keys....I don't know what he saw in the stuff.
And then there was Isaak. As much as he loved me and the girls....there was something particularly special about his bond with Isaak. Maybe it was a guy thing...being the only two dudes in the house. All I know is that whenever Isaak was away, deployed or TDY, away from the house for any long amount of time, Chief was different. He wouldn't sleep on my pillow or even nuzzle in my hair. He stopped being affectionate almost completely. But as soon as Isaak came back home, Chief was back to being himself again. He loved Isaak so much. He loved him in such a different way than the rest of us.
He was his very special person.
We had Chief for over ten years. That's a long time to live with someone, and then not have them in your life anymore. I know I gave Chief a hard time. I was constantly upset with him. He was constantly makin' a mess all over the floors and there were a good many times I wanted to strangle him. We definitely had a love hate relationship. I loved him. I hated his messes. But I loved him more. I love him more than I hated his messes. And the house feels a little bit emptier now without him. I keep expecting him to come into the kitchen at lunch time and harass me until I give him turkey. I keep watching where I step around the oven because he always laid in front of the stove while I cooked. I keep waiting for him to jump onto the sink waiting to be given a drink from the faucet. He always stood guard when Isaak was gone at night. He would lay on the edge of the bed and sleep with one ear open, in case he heard anything that needed inspecting. Even with Isaak gone, I could feel safer with Chief close by knowing he would alert me if something was wrong. Whenever I would whistle he would jump on me and bite my face. I have no idea why...maybe I was a bad whistler. But I found it so odd and funny I'd whistle just to see him do it. He was afraid of nothing. He was not skiddish in the least bit. He would lay on the floor while I vacuumed around him, and loud noises in general didn't seem to bother him. He was just such a fun and loving cat. And a faithful companion. And we are going to miss our Chiefy-Chiefy, or Chub Chubs, considerably. Chief carved an unfillable spot into our hearts, and we will miss him considerably, and always remember him.
(artwork by Sydaleigh that she drew when we got home. To remember her friend.)
So long buddy. We'll never forget you.
