The End of a Long Road for the Big O

The problem with pets is that you get them all cute & fluffy & young, and before you know it, they're gone. Or worse, you're sitting with them in the vet's making like it's all going to be OK. When you know you're going home without them.

I remember my first dog... I can't remember how old she was, maybe 13 or so, but I'd already left home & left her in the care of my mum. One day mum called & told me the poor thing had lost the use of one of her hind legs. The vet said there was a massively expensive operation, which had a very slim chance of success. Mum quite reasonably judged that she wasn't going to live with a 3 legged dog, and the decision was made to have her put down.

I accompanied them both & we were distraught.

Since then I've been through a few cats, and most recently a sheep. We weren't so distraught. But we were a little sad.

Now it looks like it is the turn of the stately old gent who has shared several homes with us, a big black long haired cat called Oscar. As best we can make out he's 20.

A couple of years ago, he went missing. Last seen heading arthritically out into the back garden on the eve of quite a big storm. 2 days later, I enquired at the local vet to see if anyone had reported finding an old cat. They were able to tell me that yes, indeed, someone had reported finding a skanky old stray (!?) and handing him into another vet's across town (as the local one was closed at the time).

I raced around to the other vet's & was told that the old boy had just been handed to the SPCA. They were closed, but the next day I called them & arranged to go see if it was Oscar.

Turns out it was, looking none the worse for his adventure. The SPCA vet also told me to get his thyroid checked out, because his heart was racing, and this would also explain why he was a bag of old bones.

My vet, confirmed the diagnosis and told me, inevitably, that there was a massively expensive operation available, which had no guarantees of success. I responded that as the old boy must have been 18 by that stage, we would pass on the op. But since then, Oscar has been kept alive by feeding him pills twice a day, to keep his heart rate down. He even started to gain weight! And we get his thyroid, and kidneys (because the side effect to the medication can be damaged kidneys) checked every 6 months.

His 6 monthly check is now slightly overdue. However, we have a new psoblem now, Houston, the poor old man can no longer control his bowels and bladder. We'd cleaned a couple of messes up in the last few months, and even discovered we'd locked him in one day & forgave him. But the frequency of mishaps is increasing, and last night we watched in frozen horror as he sat in front of the fireplace & calmly voided his bladder. The other day, he pooed on the kitchen floor in front of Mrs Llew (Wilma ate it :) and then I wormed her)

i've been putting off what may be his last appointment for a few days, and fair to say, there have been several times the last year or two when we thought he was making a one way trip, only to be told he was remarkably healthy, and to joke on the way home that the Black Cat Rides Again.

but I fear this is it this time.

I thought I had a photo of the old guy, but it seems not.