Parting with a Pet

Boo Boo Kitty is no more. In the end, the end was quite sudden. In the few months since I had written the medical saga of Boo Boo Kitty (his real name was Sam but somehow the ridiculous nickname stuck), he had seemed to be doing well, although there were some troubling issues that I recognize now in retrospect.

My move to another home in early August hadn't sat well with him, and more recently I had noticed that he was no longer jumping with the alacrity and grace he once had. But he had seemed well enough. And at a party Saturday for a handful of friends he purred and rolled around affectionately as the guests oohed and ahed over his exotic coloring and his sweet demeanor.

But when I came home after dinner that night, it was immediately clear that Boo Boo was not all right. He did not greet me at the door as he invariably did, standing on his hind legs waiting to be picked up under his front legs and stretched out, a nightly ritual. Instead, he was crouching on a shelf in my desk. He patiently took the two pills I gave him-another nightly ritual—but he declined to eat and walked away. When I picked him up, he emitted a low growl of discomfort. His breathing had begun to pick up.

Last year, Boo Boo was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, a most unpleasant condition for both him and me. But medication and a change in diet helped control it. He was also suffering from some sort of heart disease, which caused fluid to build up in his chest cavity, compressing his lungs. And he had an overactive thyroid. In all, he took up to six pills a day to control his various maladies. In the dark days last fall, when he was constantly at his veterinarian's office or when we had gone to a pricey specialty center for further diagnoses and exploratory treatment, I had often wondered if I was doing it for me or for him. When did the treatment diminish his quality of life to such a degree that it was cruel to continue?

Boo Boo's decline Saturday night was rapid and all the more surprising because he had seemed in such good spirits early in the evening. By early Sunday morning, his breathing was extremely shallow and rapid. Raising his head when I spoke to him or petted him seemed to require enormous exertion. In the darkened early hours, I took him to an emergency animal clinic. I knew, even then, that he would not be returning home.

The doctor put him in an enclosed cage designed to provide oxygen to his struggling system. After he stabilized a bit, X-rays were taken and they showed, once again, a large amount of fluid surrounding and compressing his lungs. The doctor performed a procedure to drain the fluid, but Boo Boo was too weak to tolerate much physical intervention. Other drugs were administered to try to help relieve the pressure. They worked, at least to the extent that the fluid decreased. But his breathing, if anything, worsened. By now my regular veterinarian, who had seen Boo Boo through previous crises, had arrived. She suspected that his quick and catastrophic decline may have been caused by a clot in his lung. Both she and the clinic doctor gently began to prepare me for the worst-and for the decision I would have to make.