Farewell Dexter

The Wonderspouse came back to the bedroom with scary news. Dexter was breathing fast and his legs seemed to be collapsing beneath him. We had a vet appointment at 8.40 in the morning, so we got up quickly, managed to tempt our poorly boy with a breakfast of prawns, defrosted and warmed ever so slightly in the microwave, and ham, before putting him into his box very gently and taking him in to the vets.

It was obvious when we arrived that nothing more could be done for him. We've had several vet appointments over the last few weeks, as we noticed that he's not been himself since we settled into the New Year. We've been deliberately not saying anything online, since we're both friends with the lovely lady from whom we rehomed him in September 2010. Right from the start, he had an underlying hormone imbalance (probably the result of overbreeding, since he's a pedigree silver tabby), and was already on medication to treat this. However, he'd been fine and settled until recently, when he started to get ill.

Below is an extract from a message I sent to Hattie, from whom we rehomed him:

*******

This morning we had to have our darling Dex put to sleep. We noticed shortly after the Christmas break that something was amiss. He was responding less well to his medication and had started to pull at his fur, which was going thin in places. He was also starting to drink a lot more water than usual, and had been sick a couple of times, which, as you know, was previously almost unknown for him.

There have been several trips to the vets, and we had hoped that he would improve. The vet tried to take bloods last week, but Dex was too feisty to let him, so we agreed to leave him to calm down, and then bring him in, possibly to be sedated so bloods could be taken. We've been deliberately quiet about him online in order not to worry you, as it seemed, at first, as though a solution might be found.

However, this week his condition worsened consistently and rapidly, and when we spoke to the vets, they left us in no doubt that we might have to consider having him put to sleep as it was likely that his condition was going to continue to deteriorate more and more quickly, and we suspect that he was feisty with the vet last week because he was in pain.

By this morning it was clear we had to do something at once - he was breathing quickly and was wobbly on his feet when we went downstairs. We were, however, still able to tempt him with a breakfast of prawns and ham (this week we got him the best ham we could find, which he very much enjoyed), and the vets were absolutely wonderful, so his last memories were of cuddles and his favourite foods. The vets were also able to sedate him so he was calm in his last moments and we were both with him, stroking him and telling him how much he was loved.

In the end it seems that whatever the underlying hormonal problems were that he had and years of the medication he needed in order to counteract them were more than his body could take and his systems were starting to shut down.

He has been an absolute delight and has had many months of happiness and love and puddingishness with us and has been loved as much as any cat could ever be loved, and we are so grateful that he has been a part of our lives. We're going to miss him so very very much. Thank you for entrusting him to us, and we're only sorry that he was so ill that we didn't have longer with him.

*******

So, the decision was finally made that, in order to end his suffering, our beautiful boy would have to be put to sleep. The vet first gave him a sedative, so that he would be calm and peaceful. We walked round town for 15 minutes while the sedative took effect (the Wonderspouse was very very anxious, unable to sit down to wait), then went back and stroked his lovely soft fur while the vet gave him an injection of pentobarbital (I asked what it was - the scientist in me ever curious, and besides, I cope with difficult things by being "interested"). The Wonderspouse sobbed into his fur, and took a small amount with scissors, for a keepsake. I spoke to the vet nurse arranging cremation, and, when we'd said our final farewells, we were allowed to leave from the back of the surgery.

We then sat in the car for a while. The Wonderspouse cried some more (he's a much more emotional person than I am), then went into town to get a bus to work. I came home and dealt with it in the way I usually deal with death - hard physical work and hoovering (when my stepfather died I hoovered the house until the carpet was nearly bald). I cleaned the bedroom, then set about my study, until it was all immaculate, sorted all the rat paraphernalia that was hanging around the house, and tidied up my desk.

Mid afternoon, once the Wonderspouse was able, we sent a message to Hattie, telling her what had happened, then I posted this picture of the gorgeous boy on my facebook wall in order to let people know what had happened. Beyond letting Hattie know, I didn't much feel like doing any more.

I spent the afternoon practising my viola and talking to the ratties.

It was an odd evening. The Wonderspouse came home from work and put out five bowls on the utility side, then went to cut a pill in half for Dexter. Then had to stop himself. No more pills, only four bowls. It's remarkable how different the house feels without him, although, knowing how ill he had become, and how quickly he was deteriorating, I feel a sort of "relief on his behalf" that he's now at peace. If I believed in spirits and so on (I don't) then I'd say that his was probably breathing a huge sigh of relief right now.

We went to bed early, and quietly. It had been a long sad day, and we were emotionally exhausted.

The picture is of the Wonderspouse and Dexter having their last cuddle at home this morning before we took him in to the surgery. I also took a couple of pictures of Dex in the vet's, both before and after he slipped away but I liked this one, since it shows the love between man and cat - the Wonderspouse was Dex's human of choice - I don't know how cats make these decisions, but that was the way it was, just as I was Athena's primary human.

*******

I will just add a note here about cats. When Athena died, we were inundated with messages about cats who needed new homes from people perceiving a "vacancy" for a cat at our residence - in fact, we did take two of those cats, Smudge, and (of course) Dexter himself, and have never regretted having either of them, even though it took us up to 5 cats (one more than the maximum we set ourselves) and both of them had health problems.

However, this time we have made the decision not to rehome any more cats for the time being. This is partly because Dexter required a huge amount of love and attention to keep him well and happy and so some of our other cats have received rather less attention (particularly in the last month while we've been trying to help him so much) and we'd like to spend a little time with them.

Furthermore, Smudge is also quite ill (with an untreatable thyroid condition) and Pebbles is now almost 20, so we'd like to spend a lot of time with both of them while they're still around, not to mention the fact that I now have 7 (soon to be 9) rodents to care for and am planning on going back to work in the very near future.

But we'll be noticing a Dexter-sized hole in our lives for quite some time I expect.

R.I.P. Dexter 23/08/04 - 26/01/12