We miss you already, baby.
[Updated 2/15/2006] Sheryl was right, much to the dismay and sadness of both of us. After a few more trips to the vet, we found that what we originally thought was a bite on Miss Plissken’s stomach from another animal, was actually an inoperable infection, tumor, or cancer, that she had tried to gnaw or scratch away.
Snakey had come home for us to take care of her. Had she not acquired this illness, she may have continued on her travels — where she went on those many months she didn’t spend with us, always refusing to be kept indoors, we’ll never know. But we’ve certainly made up interesting stories that help us come to terms with her death and her life alone.
So the last week of 2005, after reassurance from our vet that this was the best course of action for a FIV-infected cat, and after a month of her living peacefully in our basement, we decided to put her to sleep on the last Friday of the year.
With the baby coming soon, it has been difficult for either of us to post any follow-up about her. We’d been taking care of her ever since Sheryl and I met. Snakey’s optimism in the face of a hard, and short, life (the vet estimates that she was only 3-4 years old when she died) made us proud to take care of her, any way that she would take it — from building her heated outdoor house that she occupied as soon as she returned from her last trip, to having her operated on (to remove an infected uterus) shortly after we met her to extend her life a little into a happy one. The cat who sunned herself in our summer, backyard garden was a much more playful version of the nervous and hungry one that we found on our doorstep years ago.
The last memories we will have of her, aside from our twice-daily visits to our basement closet where she enjoyed respite from the elements, will be of finally being able to hold her in our arms once she passed away, the scent of her stinkly little self all over our clothes. This will always be a reminder of time we could have spent with her — had we met her when she was a kitten, before her original owner abandoned her, before she was made to fend for herself.
Previous Plissken Posts:
- 12/2005: Miss Pliss Progress Report
- 10/2005: Miss Plissken Kitty Returns, Again
- 04/2005: Where’s Miss Plissken?
- 12/2004: Miss Plissken Returns (First Plissken Post)
