I didn’t want another cat.
Patty was 17 years old at the time. She was the family cat who lost her place as the kids grew up and moved around. Newly acquired cats were picking on her, keeping her from her litter box and her food. She needed a place to be.
My friend Marte took her in for a while, but her landlord was coming down on her so Patty had to go from that house too. We found out that she had terrible ear mites, so bad and for so long it had actually changed the anatomy of her ears. My friends Matt and Ian took her in while we got rid of them so that my other animals wouldn’t catch them.
I’ll bet pretty much anyone reading this has been in the same place. You don’t want another pet, it isn’t best for the pets you already have. But there he or she is, and you can’t say no. So you don’t and it works out and you can’t imagine your life without them.
In her previous life, Patty was always more of an outside cat, who slept in the doghouse with two of the family dogs at night. I think she actually thought she was a dog. At our house though, she took over my mid-century modern leopard fur chair. With her black, orange and white tortoiseshell fur, she was perfectly camouflaged in this chair. Friends would come over with their dogs and they wouldn’t even notice her there.
I quickly discovered that Patty was in fact both funny and adorable. She was a secret sock stealer. She would roam the house at night, moving socks around and yowling. Every night as soon as we went to bed, she would yell and yell. Heeeeeelllllowwwww? Yewllllllowwww? In the morning, we might find a sock in the hallway, perhaps the living room, or maybe the kitchen.
Patty would also chase her own tail. She would be sitting, minding her own business, and something furry would move right beside her that she must attack immediately. (Her tail.) She also had a quirky way of sitting with her feet together like four little cotton balls in a row. She liked to sit on the couch next to me and purr, but she would bite you if you pet her too much. She loved to watch Joe eat cereal and wait for a taste after he was done.
In December, we noticed that Patty’s face looked swollen. Our vet found an abscessed tooth. Do you do a dental on a 19 year old cat? Not only were we worried for her to be put under, the money was a factor. But her bloodwork was fine so we bit the bullet and had it done.
Patty came though it just fine, but the vet saw some tissue she didn’t like the looks of while she was in there and did a biopsy, which turned out to be cancer. We were told it would be a matter of weeks. We made it through the holidays, with Patty eating well and forgiving us for giving her pain medication. She even gained some weight back. Then things started to go south.
She began to only eat a little even though she seemed like she wanted food. I tried everything to get her to eat, from baby food to cheese and every kind of cat food you can imagine. The vet wanted to try some antibiotics just in case infection was causing her swelling.
Patty was NOT happy about the antibiotics. Something started to shift as we forced them down her. She became suspicious of our approach and we dreaded having to dose her. In another couple of weeks she started pooping outside her box, and one day when she looked me in the eye and peed on the rug in the living room, I felt like she was telling me she had had enough.
Dr. LaCombe came to the house to put Patty down in her favorite chair. I would love to say it was all beautiful and peaceful, and generally it was. But she yelled and hissed when she got the sedative. Our vet warned us that she would but it was still very hard to know we hurt her. I have been through putting dogs down before and didn’t expect it to be different with cats but I guess it is. Did we do it at the right time? Probably, but it is an awful decision to make.
Now her corner is empty and it sucks. We had to give away the chair, one, because it was trashed from her using it and two, because it was too depressing to look at it. Patty’s ashes came back yesterday in a beautiful box with her name on it and some flowers from Dr. LaCombe. We are glad she spent her last years with us. I don’t regret loving her one bit.
And no, I don’t want another cat. Yet.
It takes a village to raise a cat! Thanks to Marte Crow, 
Matt Hamilton, Ian Gilbert, Ben Jampole, Dr. Beth Dutton, Dr. Tracey Bennett, Dr. Peggy LaCombe, PALS