Lamar, our sweet 16-year-old, died at home in my arms on the morning of
December 14, 1998. He had spent a restless night after a sudden deterioration in his
health. In early November, he had been diagnosed with acute glaucoma. Lamar had
started acting confused one morning, as if he didn't know where he was, and
when we took him to the vet, we discovered that he had gone blind. The vet performed
blood tests and could find nothing else wrong with him, so we began treating him with
glaucoma eye drops. After several days, Lamar began making a remarkable adjustment to
his loss of vision, but he had lost his appetite. Since Karen and I had brought him
back from the brink of death—for more than a year of robust good health—after a
similar bout with anoxeria almost exactly a year earlier, we figured we could nurse him
along by hand-feeding him until he decided he wanted to eat again, just as we had
done before. He seemed otherwise healthy and contented. He had quickly learned to
find his way to the water dish, the litter box, and had even started going up and down the
stairs on his own. Although I'm sure he was upset about losing his vision, in his later
years Lamar had become almost exclusively a lap cat, spending most of his time purring
on my lap while I worked at my computer, or on Karen's while she worked at hers.
Most pets, if they feel safe and secure, seem to adapt to being blind fairly easily. But you have
no idea how shocked I was, a few days after his eye problems had been diagnosed, to
look down at my feet one morning and realize Lamar had made it upstairs unaided and
wanted up on my lap! I was touched by his bravery and his will to return to as normal
a life as possible.
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We kidded Lamar, after he lost, then gained back, nearly half his body weight a year earlier,
that he had used up yet another of his nine lives and that he was going to have
to start being more careful. He had battled several other serious medical problems, any of
which could have killed him, the last few years of his life. Lamar had been diagnosed in
1994 with a hyperactive thyroid when his weight suddenly dropped, but he had been
stabilized with medication and had recovered completely. In 1996, Lamar developed
kidney problems, but with special high-calorie, low-protein food, had bounced back
vigorously. His anorexia in the fall of 1997 was frightening to all of us. The vet
couldn't find anything wrong with him, despite performing elaborate blood tests.
Lamar wasted away from ten pounds to a little over five, becoming so skeletal and frail
that we expected him to die at any moment. We considered having him put to sleep, but
he didn't seem to be suffering and had in no way lost the will to live. Other than
refusing to eat, he was acting perfectly normally. In desperation, we began feeding him
kitten formula with an eye dropper. After a few weeks, he became interested in his
food again and, to our astonishment, he gained back every pound he had lost—even adding
an additional pound— and started acting more like his "old self" than he had
in years! He looked and behaved like a cat half his age. After coming so
close to death, his recovery was as close to a miracle as I've ever
witnessed. It's hard to describe our joy at his return to good health.
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This time, however, Lamar had no more miraculous recoveries left in him. After his glaucoma
was diagnosed, Lamar
began refusing food again. Untreated glaucoma can be painful, which may have been part
of his problem at first, but the eye drops had reduced his ocular pressure to normal. The
vet performed another battery of tests and, just as a year earlier, could find nothing wrong.
We began hand-feeding him a special, high-calorie cat food that vets give to sick animals.
Lamar was always extremely patient with us and always knew, I believe, that we were trying
to help him. One night, after a day of normal activity, Lamar had an attack of some kind
and seemed weak and disoriented. We were worried enough to take him to the vet that
night. An injection of fluids made him more comfortable and he was much better the
next day. After nearly two weeks of refusing food, Lamar began to nibble at some of
the special treats we were constantly putting in front of him, and we were relieved and
hopeful. But after a few days of nibbling, he started literally turning up his nose at the food
we offered. We decided that we would go back to feeding him with the eye dropper until he
let us know that he no longer wanted our help. Lamar had a strong will to live, and we
didn't want to give up on him before he himself was ready to call it quits. We would never
have tried so hard to sustain him if he'd been suffering; it's a cruelty to
keep an animal alive merely because you can't bear to lose it.
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On the evening of December 12, I found him lying on our bed with a large wet area under
his mouth. He was salivating and in a stupor. Karen and I took turns sitting in the recliner in
the living room, holding him beneath an electric blanket and comforting him. We decided that
it was pointless to rush him to the vet again. There was obviously something seriously wrong
with him in addition to his eye problems, even if the vet had been unable to pinpoint the
cause, and at Lamar's age it seemed more cruel than kind to go to heroic measures
to prolong his life. Lamar was so lethargic by late that night that we felt he was unlikely
to live until morning. We made him a comfortable, warm bed on the recliner. We would
have taken him to bed with us, but he'd never enjoyed sleeping on our bed, for
some reason. Early the next morning, I was surprised to find him resting peacefully where
we had left him. I went upstairs to check my e-mail and a little while later was astonished
to see Lamar at my feet! He had come upstairs, as weak as he was, to be with me.
I held him on my lap for three hours. He seemed to have perked up considerably, and I
began to feel cautiously hopeful once again. If I hadn't seen the miracle of his recovery
a year earlier, I would never have allowed myself any optimism, but he had come back
from near-fatal problems so many times in the past that I thought perhaps he had one
more recovery left in him.
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A few hours later, however, Lamar began salivating again and became almost too weak to
move. We took him to the vet early that afternoon. Karen and I discussed whether or not to
have him put to sleep. If he hadn't come upstairs by himself earlier that morning,
I would have assumed his condition was hopeless. But I just couldn't convince myself
that Lamar had given up. We discussed it with the vet, and he recommended doing
whatever I would be most comfortable with. I decided that I needed to give Lamar
one more day. If we'd put him to sleep that afternoon, I would have always wondered
if I had done the right thing. Karen's cat, Cassie, was dying of bone cancer
complicated by diabetes, so the decision to have her put to sleep when she started refusing
food had been simpler. There was no way Cassie would ever get any better. Nothing
specific was killing Lamar, and I just couldn't bring myself to have him put to sleep when
there might still be a sliver of hope. The vet gave him fluids, and we took Lamar home again.
Lamar was visibly uncomfortable, but the vet had told me that he didn't think Lamar
was in any pain. Perhaps I didn't do Lamar any favors by bringing him back home,
but I felt that after all the resiliance he'd shown in the past, he would forgive me for
hoping that he could rally one last time. There are moments when it's a shame
pets can't talk; I would have preferred the decision to have been his.
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We fixed a box for Lamar in our bedroom with a heating pad and a soft towel.
His body temperature had been two degrees lower than normal at the vet's, and the
vet had recommended that we keep him as warm as possible. The shot of fluids Lamar had
received at the vet's office had made him feel better, but it soon became clear that
he had used up the last of his nine lives. He had been my best friend for many years
and it was incredibly difficult to accept. Lamar was the sweetest, best-natured cat
I'd ever had. He had been a joy to be around in so many
ways. But he had finally used up all of his energy. Karen and I had done all we
could. I could no longer pretend to myself that he was going to make another miraculous recovery. The next morning, I found out that Karen had heard Lamar in the night and
had taken him into the living room and held him from 2:30 a.m. until dawn.
It was obvious that he didn't have much longer to live. Karen and I put him in our bed
and took turns staying with him, petting him and talking to him. The sounds of our
voices seemed to reassure him. We called the vet a little before 9:00 a.m. and arranged
to take him in to be put to sleep—still a tough decision for me. But I figured I would
know when the time was right, and Lamar was making it clear. I have always been
uncomfortable with the thought of the last few minutes of a pet's life being spent in a
vet's office, scared from a car ride and in a place the pet had never enjoyed visiting,
anyway, but at some point the trip to the vet's becomes kinder than the alternatives.
We bundled Lamar in a heavy towel and Karen went out to warm up the car. I was holding
him snugly, stroking his head and telling him what a wonderful cat he was, when
he coughed and gave a little shudder. A few moments later, I realized he'd stopped
breathing.
Although I know Lamar had been frightened and sick the last twelve hours of his life, one of us had been holding him, stroking him, and talking to him nearly every second. He knew, as much as a cat can know under those circumstances, that he was loved. We were with him and giving him affection until he took his last breath. It's a sad truth that the best any of us can hope for is to live in reasonable health until we are old, and to die surrounded and comforted by those we love. I hope that when that time comes for me, I will be as fortunate as Lamar. |