We put Fries to sleep almost 2 months ago. My daughter said, "This was the worst thing that's ever happened in my life." I have to say it was one of the worst experiences in my life also. Fries went quietly and comfortably, with my daughter and I petting her as she drifted off to her final rest. We sobbed as she went. Did she know that we were there for her? I hope she's in a better place now, and the health problems that plagued her final years are forgotten.
We've started becoming more comfortable with the concept that our old friend is gone. Her health problems wreaked havoc on our house, and there is no more daily cleaning or emergency clean up jobs, done in work clothes, at 7:30 in the morning. There are no more clean-ups of cat snot on the hardwood floor.
Fries was ...an interesting cat. We adopted her right after we moved to a new house when the kids were still little. We picked her out of the website "lineup" at Purrfect Pals, and we drove up to visit her. My son fell in love with the shy, small cat who was hiding when we arrived. "Little Jo" came home with us that day.
My husband had a really hard time calling her Little Jo. He kept singinig "Little Joe from Chicago" (it's a Nat King Cole song) every time someone said her name and it was driving us all nuts. I kept calling her Jo Jo Fries, as in those "jojo" fried potato-wedge things one can purchase at the Safeway deli. Plus, our neighbor was named Jo. I couldn't stand our neighbor. Eventually, we just called our cat Fries. Once, a vet at a very chi-chi, cats-only veterinary office tried calling her "Free-ess". Like I had named her something intellectual. "Nope. It's Fries, like french fries," I said. He didn't comment.
Fries had a herpes sore in her left eye, which flared up on occasion. You couldn't really see it, it just made her eye water. She had sinus "issues." Once when some friends, luckily very good friends, came over for dinner, Fries was being her friendly self. She liked to sit wherever the people were. Fries sat down with us. When I brought in the hors d'ouvres everyone said "aah". Everyone was really hungry. I set down the hors d'ouvres. Fries sneezed. Repeatedly. I took the hors d'ouvres away. We waited until dinner was ready to eat.
Fries had grown from being small into being quite a substantial cat. When she trotted anywhere, her tummy swung from side to side, sort of like cow udders. People would point and gape. Eventually, she just looked like a calico bowling ball with legs.On the flip side of this obesity problem, what finally got our girl was thyroid disease. She started to lose weight. A lot of weight. So I took her to the chi-chi vet who suggested the even chi-chi-er option of radiation therapy, which was crazy-expensive, and not a proven outcome. The medication option we chose for her made her act as if she was close to death, every day. She'd lie around and then throw up. So we decided to take her off the meds and just let her live her life until the end. She got very skinny, but seemed very happy until the last few weeks before we made the decision to put her down.
Fries loved people.She would always come to greet us at the door or first thing in the morning. She would carry her toy over to us when she wanted to play. She allowed my husband to hold her like a baby. Fries would watch TV with us, and she loved sitting under the Christmas tree. We'll really miss her.
Fries is the calico cat on the left of my profile picture.
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