The Sad End to 2004

Chris and I were having a lovely time on our trip, a mixture of nickel slots (for me) and skiing (for Chris). I won $250 playing my birthday at roulette (Gideon's numbers and astrological sign brought jack in terms of luck).

Last night Clyde's vet called. We were boarding him there because with his diabetes he needs to eat and be checked on a regular schedule. The first call was to inform us that Clyde was in a coma and they were doing everything possible to revive him (insulin, oxygen, etc.). The second call was to inform us that he passed away.

As you can imagine, we were pretty upset. After hearing the news I was convinced that there must have been some negligence on the vet's part because Clyde seemed fine when we left him there, in fact he seemed better than fine. After all the weight loss he was moving around really well. When we dropped him off Monday morning, it didn't even occur to us that he was a few days from death. On further reflection, I guess it was just his time and it was better that he was at the vet's when this happened and not at home for either us or a family member checking in to find him. Then it would have been, "if only someone had been around we could have saved him."

But I do have a tremendous amount of guilt. I don't think his last four months were very happy for him. When we discovered his diabetes, he was put on a crash diet of prescription food. He was always hungry. Also, the past four months the house has been under various forms of construction with various loud men coming in and out. This caused Clyde a lot of distress. Bizarre changes, strange smells and lots of horrible noise. Lastly, on the advice of several books, I had been giving both cats less attention than normal to prepare them for life once the baby arrives. So Clyde's last four months were that of starvation, terror and neglect. His last few days were in a cage in a room with other cats (which he hates). Yeah, I'm really comforted.