That last final exam I had to take was the worst testing experience of my entire twenty-one years’ worth of schooling. By far. It would have been bad even without losing Mr. Tabby; with it, it was unbearable. I’ve never taken an exam before where I honestly had no idea whether I would pass at all.
After the exam, I had more cleaning to do at the rental, and then I had to head home and pack, and the next day I was on a plane. Where was my time to grieve?
As difficult as it was after that experience to hop on a plane and go spend two weeks with complete strangers, it turned out to be the most therapeutic thing I could have done. Instead of sitting at home and feeling Mr. Tabby’s absence acutely, I was thrown headlong into a very challenging learning experience with no time at all for self-pity. And I got to interact with hundreds of animals, which in itself is therapeutic. (I’ll give more details about that trip in a later post.)
After I came home, the worst of the pain had subsided, I think, but losing a loved one is a lot like having a scab. Sometimes the pain is barely noticeable, and sometimes something rips it off, and it becomes fresh and raw all over again. Over time, though, those somethings become further apart, and the scab heals a little more until the pain is finally gone, but the memory, like a scar, is always there.
The wound was fresh and raw the day I Googled cremation jewelry; at that moment I felt a compelling need to keep him with me all the time. The wound was raw the day I got his ashes back, tied up with the metal tag that I’d placed on his foot. Except now the tag was blackened and charred.
There are happier moments, though, too. Cat Mandu, whom I would have called very set in her ways, has taken up loping around the stairwell when her meals are being prepared, something Mr. Tabby used to do. It reminds me of him, and makes me smile.
Whenever I open the downstairs closet where he lived for so long, I think about seeing his cute little face tucked among the blankets.
And when we talk about things like lymphoma and PCVs in school, I touch the little moon-shaped necklace I sometimes wear to remind me of him.
The fourth-year student who worked on Mr. Tabby’s case had told me that I wasn’t crazy for pursuing treatment. If anything, he said, I would learn a lot more about cancer than I’d learn in class, so it would be money well spent. He was right about that.
What I didn’t expect was discovering just how far in love you can fall with a handsome little Maine Coon cat who used to live in the back of your closet. No one can prepare you for that.
I miss you, Tabs.
Oct 11, 2011 | | Animal Tales
Up until then, the only experience I’d had with euthanasia was from the veterinary perspective, not the client perspective. Still, having witnessed this process so many times before certainly made it much, much easier. I didn’t have to process any of the technical details.
I was taken to a comfy little room with a sofa and a year’s supply of Kleenex, then left alone to say my final goodbyes. What was there to say? It was more important just to be, to hold his little head in the crook of my arm one more time.
I sang him his little lullaby again. “Bubsy’s boat’s a silver moon, sailing in the sky, sailing o’er a sea of dreams, as the clouds drift by… Sail, Bubsy, sail, out across the sea, only don’t forget to sail back again to me.” I had trouble getting the last few words out.
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Oct 10, 2011 | | Animal Tales
March flew by, then April, and then the homestretch of my freshman year was upon me. I was frantically studying for exams, and dealing with losing one renter and gaining another. I was also tweaking Mr. Tabby’s chemo schedule so that I could be gone for two weeks with the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association on a spay/neuter trip, which started the day after finals.
I thought about backing out of the trip, but I’d been planning on it for a while before Mr. Tabby got sick, and I knew it would be a fabulous opportunity. Still, I had one eye on the door just in case I needed to bail out.
About two weeks before finals, I looked over and saw Mr. Tabby snoozing peacefully in the sun, and, for the millionth time, I was really, really happy that I’d started chemo. Mr. Tabby seemed to be in better spirits than he’d ever been. But something made me grab my camera and start snapping as many pictures of him as I could.
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Oct 09, 2011 | | Animal Tales
In March, Mr. Tabby decided to start eating less and start puking more. This is never a good thing, but I wasn’t really anticipating how much of a not good thing it was.
The vet discovered a mass in his abdomen, and gave the tentative diagnosis of GI lymphoma, a disease about which I knew nothing at the time. My options were to give him prednisone to keep him comfy until died, or to get a firm diagnosis and possibly initiate chemotherapy.
I chose the latter, partially because, with vet student perks, the treatment would almost be affordable for me, and partially because, if you’ll recall, Mr. Tabby only came out his closet 5 months before. FIVE MONTHS! This was not fair, and I wanted to give the little guy a fighting chance.
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Oct 08, 2011 | | Animal Tales
One of our professors was discussing thrombocytopenia (low platelets) this week, and said it was a little bit like bankaccountopenia, which, as vet students, we would all be familiar with.
Oh, so sad, but true. This is one of the especially difficult parts about being a non-traditional student. I used to make decent money, and now… now I don’t even itemize deductions on my income taxes because my outflow is so much higher than my inflow, and I don’t want the IRS to flag my returns.
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Oct 07, 2011 | | School Daze
