Goodbye, Max It was not a very auspicious weekend. Not at all. I�ve written about Max before. Max, my Methusalah kitty, the 21 year-old wonder of fluff, had to be put down on Saturday. He�s been sick for a long time. He�s steadily been progressing with renal failure to the point of total incontinence. He�s arthritic to the point of not being able to jump on the couch anymore. He slept 23 hours a day and was cranky the remaining hour. He didn�t like to eat anymore, and had dropped in weight from a solid 20 pounds to a saggy 10. I hadn�t really seen him for the past couple of days, except in passing from one sleep spot to another. He had been like that for so long I had just accepted it as normal behavior. Then on Saturday, I saw him staggering down the hall. Staggering. He squatted for a moment to pee on the carpet, and he didn�t respond at all to my calling him. His head was oddly misshapen and his eyes were swollen nearly shut. He then turned and went to the office and plopped on the floor. I sat next to him and made him look at me. He mewled one of the most pitiful sounds ever and his face was swollen. He wouldn�t even look at me. Gary found an open vet, in fact, it was a vet that he used to take his cats to when he first adopted them. We bundled Max into the carrier and he still had enough fight in him to do the four-paw-you-ain�t-putting-me-in-there resistance move. Gary drove. I wasn�t able to see anymore. Max mewled quietly the whole way. They got us into a room very quickly, despite being a walk-in. A technician came in and did a once over and said that the doctor would be in in a while to talk about treatment options. I was scratching Max�s chin and he looked up at me. I said that we really should be talking about putting Max to sleep. I burst into tears. The technician left to fetch a doctor and Gary and I sat with Max in my lap. I thought we would have to wait a long time, due to being a walk-in, but I suppose that when people bring in their sick pets to be euthanized they tend to move quicker. The vet came in and confirmed that Max was very very sick. The swelling in his face was probably due to a bad infection that may have to do with his teeth. His kidneys were essentially failed. They could do some aggressive treatment, but . . .? I said no, I didn�t want to put him through that. The vet had me sign some paperwork that authorized Max�s euthanasia and asked if I wanted to be with him during the injection. I said no, that I would say goodbye now. The vet nodded and left for a while, and a technician came in with a bill. Sigh. Gary paid the bill (always wanting that damned pound of flesh) and we scratched Max and I cried. Then the vet came back in after several minutes and held my hand for a moment and said how sorry he was and then he scooped up Max and carried him out. Max�s tail flicked once as he was carried out. Then he was gone.
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