Mister
There’s a Mister-shaped hole in our hearts today.
Although it was mentioned as only a slight possibility at the beginning, it turns out that Mister’s diabetes was caused by a combination of pancreatic and liver cancer.
When I got up at 11 this morning and was going to give him his insulin shot, I found him lying on the bathroom rug, awake, but unable to get up. In fact he couldn’t even raise his head.
I went ahead and gave him his shot, and then bundled him up, and left for the vet. With tears in both our eyes, I told Jan when I left that I might not be bringing him back. But I was encouraged on the 15 minute drive to see Mister perk up a little and look over at me, with silent meow.
But the news at the vet was all bad. His blood sugar was down to 31, way too low from last week’s 416, which was way too high, and he had lost another pound, down to 7.2. That’s less than a third of what he weighed six months ago. And once he was in a good light, it was easy to see how jaundiced he was, on his ears, gums, and even his eyes.
The vet said that they could give him glucose and IV fluids, and maybe get him back on his feet for a day or so, but he’d probably be back in this condition by Sunday or Monday. She said the severe jaundice was an indication that his liver had pretty much shutdown, and there was really nothing else that could be done.
Driving back to the rig . . . alone, was probably the longest 15 minute drive I’ve ever made.
At least I was there to hold him.
fgsfg
We’ve had Mister since the fall of 2006. I was at a client’s office, waiting to see the doctor about some computer problems he was having, and it was such a nice Fall day, their door was propped open.
Suddenly this cat pokes his head in the door and looks around. Then seeing me, he walks over, jumps up in my lap and starts nuzzling me.
I was hooked.
The office secretary said he been around for a month or so, and she thought he stayed behind the Chinese restaurant on the next block. I always joked that he was lucky he didn’t end up on the menu.
Anyway, that night at supper I was going on and on about this cat, and finally Jan said, “Greg, do you want to bring this cat home?”
“Un-huh.”
So that’s how Mister came into our lives, and quickly made himself at home. In fact, he never went back outside for over a year. I guess he figured he was done with living outside and wasn’t going back.
He had obviously been somebody’s pet, since he had been fixed and knew what a litterbox was. He quickly made himself the Alpha animal in the house, letting Emma, our other cat, and Tullie, our border collie mix, know who was boss now.
When we hit the road in our RV a little over a year later, Mister made himself right at home. He either slept on the dash, or in Jan’s arms as we traveled, and was always the first one out the door when we arrived at a new park.
He was the only cat we’ve ever had who would walk on a leash. In fact he seemed to like being on the leash. When he went outside the rig, he would stop at the bottom of the step and wait for me to snap it on his collar.
He became so popular on some of our gates that truck drivers would stop and have their picture taken with him.
This is about all I can do right now. I’ll probably have more Mister anecdotes later.
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Thought for the Day:
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