Bye Bye Baby, Baby Goodbye

It is the end of an era, and I'm finally drunk enough to write about it.

This will probably be the last blog post ever about how codependent my animals are, because the most codependent of them all has passed on.

I lost Percy yesterday. And I'm shocked at the pain, at how much it hurts. At how wrong the house feels without him in it.

When the week started I didn't think, didn't realize that I would be finishing it without him. Last week, both he and Puckett went to the vet for different issues, and the diagnosis for both ended up being surgery. Puckett had a few bad teeth that needed to be pulled, and Percy somehow ended up with hyperthyroidism. I didn't understand everything the vet said to me, but what did sink in is that hyperthyroidism was the reason he couldn't settle down, the reason he was bouncing off the walls and tearing through the house, the reason he would dig to China in his litter box, the reason he ate and drank like it was going out of style, and then would pee a lake three times a day.

I thought he was just being an asshole.

He was sick.

I was the asshole. And I'm still the asshole. I've been in a terrible mood the last two years, much of which I took out on my animals, and that's on me. My last relationship did it to me - it's never good to get involved with an alcoholic - but I'm not blaming him. It's not his fault I didn't see the red flags and just fell headlong into a relationship anyway, even though that damned little voice kept warning me away.

And the animals hated the relationship. They were under constant stress during that relationship, Percy included.

You know when they weren't under constant stress? When I was in a relationship with the Cowboy (who still sits for them whenever I go on vacation), and, God help me, the Drug Dealing Felon, because Drug Dealing Felon aside, that was one of the most comfortable relationships I've ever been in.

But I digress.

I took Percy in on Monday for his surgery. Surgery he passed with flying colors. I have the best vet in the world. He's a master surgeon on animals, the best in the county. If you need shots for your pets, you can go anywhere. If you actually need something serious done on a pet, you go to this guy. You don't go to anyone else, ever (Drug Dealing Felon's sister included, as she is a very accomplished vet too).

What ended up happening to Percy was a blood clot. A pulmonary embolism is most likely what took his life, and the vet said that he probably had that clot floating around his heart for a while, and it would have eventually killed him anyway. And if I hadn't done the surgery, his hyperthyroidism would have killed him. There were other options - diet, pills - but I trusted the vet when he said Percy was a strong candidate for surgery and surgery was what he recommended and what he would do for his own cat.

It was that damn clot. With or without surgery it would have taken him.

I never thought Percy would be the first to go. God forgive me, I thought it would be Tess or Puckett, and while I wouldn't say I was prepared or ready for anyone to go, the shock of losing Percy so quickly and so suddenly has thrown me into a tailspin. I was driving back to work from getting lunch yesterday when the vet called and said Percy was deteriorating rapidly. He couldn't breathe, his heart rate was too fast. So I told the vet, tears streaming down my face and sobs choking my voice, that i would be right there. That I was on my way.

It was all I could to keep the speed limit. I didn't want to get pulled over when I needed to be with Percy in his last few minutes.

When I got to the vet, I pushed open the door, and the receptionist took one look at my face and hurried me to the back room. I saw nothing, heard nothing, except for the distressed wail of a cat in horrific pain.

I've heard that wail before. I stayed awake all night with a cat in such terrible pain before, when all I could do was hold her until she finally died in my arms.

I was not going to let a cat suffer like that again, especially not my Percy.

A vet tech had an oxygen mask over Percy's face while he screamed. Puckett was in the cage above him, having just come out of her own surgery, but I didn't even see her. I fell on Percy, screaming "Oh my God, Oh my God," sobbing and begging the vet to put him out of his misery. I asked the vet if there was any chance for Percy to come through. The vet had said that he hated to end it after all we'd been through, the surgery, the careful montitoring, the IV and the calcium drip, and the horror of all of it.

He was one hundred percent honest when he said he truly believed Percy would not make it, and that he was in pain.

I had to make the decision in a split second, so I did. Put him down, it was the humane thing to do.

And I held him as they injected the euthanasia in his IV. I cried as I held him, and told him how much I loved him, and how much I was going to miss him, and how sorry I was.

I held him for a long time after he died.

I've lost a lot of pets in my life. I've loved a lot of animals.

Percy was hands down the absolute worst.

Percy was not just a cat. He was a personality. Even people who said they didn't like cats met Percy and fell in love with him, wanted to steal him away from me.

The vet has been absolutely amazing. Him and all his techs and receptionists. They've all been great. They did everything they could to save him. They did their best, and I will be forever grateful to them. As long as I have animals, I want my vet to be there, taking care of them, because as far as I'm concerned, he is the absolute best.

I spent the whole next day in bed - today actually. I wasn't this broken up over my last breakup. I wasn't even this broken up over the Drug Dealing Felon. I might have spent four months in the bottle, but I got up. I did stuff. I lived my life as best as I could despite everything.

Today I couldn't live my life without Percy.

There was no one waking me up in the morning, flinging litter everywhere as loudly as he could, scattering it all over the floor.

There was no one playing peekaboo in the shower with me.

There was no one squalling loudly for his breakfast.

There was no one to pick up and snuggle me under the chin, head butting me and purring so loudly the neighbors could hear him.

I had no idea how quiet my girls are until Percy was no longer with us.

Tess paced all night, looking for her friend. I'm clinging to her as if to say, "Don't you leave me too."

Puckett stayed downstairs by the food bowls, constantly trying to eat and being unable to because of her teeth. She'll feel better in a few days. But I don't think she's quite right either, sticking to the food bowls, moving from one of my kitchen chairs to another as if she's waiting for Percy to join her for dinner.

Does she understand that she will never play fight with him again in the mornings?

Willow, I think, is glad he's gone. I don't judge her, though. She's on the bed, fast asleep as I write this. I binged on wine, sushi, and chocolate cake (completely packed with gluten, speaking of judging) and she glared at my sushi like it was the most disgusting thing ever.  Funny thing for a cat to do, considering sushi is raw fish.

I'm starting to believe Percy was the glue that held us all together. I'm simultaneously numb and devastated, puddling up every hour when I think about him climbing into the toy box or playing with his favorite catnip mouse. And I'm making plans to bring Willow to my best friend because her eight year old daughter would absolutely love her.

Willow deserves a person of her own, and my friend's daughter could very well be that person.

And I'm making plans to bring Puckett to my mother, who has said in the past that she would love to have a cat like Puckett.

And I'm going to hang on to Tess as long as I still have her, because she and Percy were my first, my babies, my best animal friends. They defined my thirties. They helped me through my breakup with the Drug Dealing Felon, and sat with me through the long nights alone, and crawled into my lap the two awful weeks when I had the flu; when one night I couldn't take it anymore and sat down on the top step of my stairs and cried for two hours, Percy in my lap, and Tess snuggled up beside me.

It is the end of an era.

It is the end of this blog.

I will never forget Percy. I will never forget my precious black witch kitty, who could always make me laugh even when I was at the bottom of a hole, in the depths of despair.

Most people would say, "Hey, he was just a cat. There are plenty of homeless cats out there. Just get another one."

When pets are all you have, when those are the creatures that are with you through your bad times and your good times, your barometers for when you're in a horrible situation, and your sounding boards for when you're happy, no one is "just a cat."

I feel like I've lost a limb. I can't go downstairs to my living room where Percy's toy box is, where he used to sleep and play and roll in catnip. I can't do it, so I've been in my bedroom all day, except for when I took Tess for a walk, binge watching The New Girl, and then bingeing on gluten and sushi and wine.

I don't know how I'm going to make it without him.

Bye, bye, baby, baby, goodbye...