Playing God Sucks

I think I just broke one of my cardinal rules about my animals. I’ve always believed that we can do for them what we can’t do for ourselves: decide when enough is enough. That is, euthanasia.

But I didn’t put Tilly the cat down. Instead, she has a feeding tube in, and four times a day I squirt high protein slurry into her esophageal tube as well as a bunch of different medications. It’s a horrible job, and she hates it. Not because it’s painful; it isn’t. But Tilly is not terribly domesticated for a domestic shorthaired cat.  The only person in the world she likes is me, and right now I’m not on the list either.

I first met Tilly about six years ago when someone dropped her off at the barn when she was about seven months old. If I feel like being generous, I’ll allow that the people who dumped her thought she was a feral cat, and we were a barn with mice. To them it was a perfect match.

Except we were in the hills where coyotes thrive, owls hunt and we had our own personal bobcat. All of which would love to snack on a small, tortoiseshell-colored cat. As soon as I spotted her, I knew I had to do something. Fast.

Initially that involved bringing her food a couple of times a day. She’d smell the stinky can of Friskies I brought and slowly she’d inch out of the underbrush and snag a bite or two. After about a week, she’d let me sit next to her while she ate. If I moved, or reached out to her, she was gone in a flash.

Eventually I realized she was spending the night in the feed room, chowing down on the mice that flourished there. I rented a Have-a-Heart trap, set it up and went home for the night.

I was at the racetrack the next dawn watching the morning works when my phone rang. It was my trainer telling me to pick up my cat. It was howling in the cage and needed to leave asap before someone throttled her.

I took the cage with a brooding petulant cat directly to my vet. With no care for his own well-being - she hissed and growled in the waiting room - he stuck his hand in and grabbed her. She immediately went limp. And then she started to purr.

I brought the now purring cat home, gave her a flea bath, which temporarily halted the purring, and released her into my spare room. She ran under the couch where she stayed for most of the night, coming out only when I came in with fresh food. Bless her heart, she took to the litter box instantly.

A few nights later I decided to give her a little space, and locked all the dogs in my bedroom, closed the dog door and let her roam freely. The next morning she was missing. Gone.

I didn’t know how the newly dubbed Tilly got out of the house, and I had no idea where she had gone. But she was AWOL.

I checked all the nearby backyards and papered the neighborhood with fliers. That night the phone rang; she’d been spotted at an abandoned home a few houses down.  I dragged out the Hav-a-Heart and set it up.

A few hours later I returned to check it. I had a cat! The problem was that it was a huge orange tabby belonging to a neighbor. It was so fat I don’t know how it even fit in the trap. And it was pissed.  When I released it, it stopped to turn and hiss at me before wandering home.

I set the trap again, and in the morning found Tilly cowering inside. I brought her home and again locked her in the room. That night, because I’m a slow learner, I again let her roam the house . Soon after, I heard a clink, and then meowing.  From outside. On the roof. I swear when I spotted her she gave me cat equivalent the finger.

I set the trap. Again. But by morning, Tilly had returned and was waiting impatiently in her bedroom for breakfast. She was covered with sticky soot.

Now I was the one who was pissed. She’d been climbing up the chimney and using it as her personal subway system.

Needless to say, I put a gate in front of the fireplace and closed the flue.

A few years later I had a friend build a fenced outdoor patio for her that she could enter and exit through the window in her room. She loved it and spent hours sunning and lording over the feral cats that came by.

When the dogs came in her room she’d dive under the couch and remain there until I kicked them out. When they left, she’d show up for a pat or to play with a ball. It was always on her terms. She never liked being picked up and hated being held, though she adored having her ears scratched.

When we moved, her catio came with us. It faced the horse pasture and she loved checking them out.

Her past was firmly behind her. Once Poppy caught a mouse that had been living in Tilly’s room.  Tilly had been ignoring it. Why chase mice when you have Fancy Feast?

She’d always been a healthy cat. In fact my vet, who could probably name a new hospital wing after me, barely knew I had a cat.

Until last month. She started vomiting. Not hairballs – she’s never been one of those.  It didn’t stop. My vet sent me to a specialist. They did an ultrasound and decided that she either had irritable bowel syndrome, or lymphoma. Apparently in cats the symptoms present similarly. They sent me home with a prescription diet and told me to see if that helped.

Initially it did. The puking stopped. But so did her eating. She hated the food, and in an impressive fit of stubbornness, she stopped eating entirely. 

After a few days I tried tempting her with all the foods she liked best: Fancy Feast, baby food, chicken. But by that time she was over eating completely. I didn’t know that if cats don’t eat for a few days, their livers go to hell. I do now.

You’d never know Tilly was ill. Other than being anorexic she was the same; still hanging out, sunning herself in the catio and purring a lot. But she was starving herself to death.

The specialist vets were aghast. Before I knew it they were suggesting a feeding tube. Thinking that it was a really temporary thing – that I’d check her in, they’d force food down her throat and then release her - I was all for it.

I

t was when they wanted to scope and biopsy her for cancer while she was under anesthetic for the tube insertion that I realized this was a big deal. 

Normally I would never have agreed. I don’t believe in going to crazy lengths to just keep an animal alive. Quality of life far outweighs quantity.

But I also didn’t want her to starve to death.

If she had cancer, the prognosis was good – up to five years before it spread.  The drugs were simple oral meds with few side effects. But first she needed the feeding tube to straighten out her liver and get eating again.

I decided to go ahead with it. The cost was staggering and dealing with the reality is not easy.

Four times a day I go into her room with a battalion on syringes. Some are filled with food, others have medications and one is water. 

When the door opens, she dives under the couch. So I move the furniture, grab her, I wrap her in a towel to keep her still and clean where the tube comes out of her neck. Then slowly I put the food and meds in her tube.

The vets assure me that she will come around in a few days.  I hope so, because right now, although Tilly’s not in pain, she is suffering.  And that’s just wrong.

She hasn’t purred since she’s been home.