Adjusting to a weakening body
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Angel finally leaves this Earth leaving a yawning gap behind her
WHEN ANGEL, my elderly one-eyed Siamese, moved into the final stages of kidney failure a few weeks ago, my vet told me that her death would come “very soon.” Nevertheless, it’s still hard to prepare yourself when death comes.
We’ve continued to provide Angel with every support we can, to reduce her pain and make her as comfortable as possible.
Some medications have helped, improving her ability to walk and to enjoy her food, but the results have been temporary.
Every day, Angel has grown increasingly weaker, yet despite all the effects of this terrible disease on her body, she continues on.
She’s not a fighter. Instead, she tries to adjust herself to her failing body.
When her gums become too painful for her to eat, she finds one little space in her mouth that allows her to swallow the soft food I prepare for her. If she can’t walk, she can still push her body with her front legs.
For her whole life, she’s been adjusting. When I found her on the soi as a six-month-old kitten, she adjusted to home life fairly quickly, although closed doors always presented a challenge to her. She’s always felt that doors were made to stand open.
Even in her present weakened state, mobility is extremely important to her. Although her legs are weak, she pushes herself about, moving around the floor in the mornings and evenings.
She still tries to enter the kitty litter tray, calling me when she can’t manage her back legs. She’s ashamed to urinate on the floor, I think. When accidents happen and she soils herself, I can see how depressed she feels. She’s always kept herself clean. Now, she can’t even groom herself.
I brush her gently, cleaning her face as well as her front and back.
At first, she manages to purr, but over the days, she stops, trying to conserve her energy, although she responds when I scratch her under her chin.
Touch is very important. Kittens are born deaf and blind; touch is the first sense a kitten experiences from its mother. At the end of her days, Angel returns to the first comfort of her kittenhood, when her mother groomed, cleaned and fed her.
As long as she eats, as long as she responds to her environment, I take these as signs that she still wants to live. Of course, she’s not happy. Who would be happy as the body fails? But she’s still trying to adjust to her circumstances, finding the most comfortable way to continue living.
This morning, she eats her breakfast. She seems hungrier than usual, in fact, perhaps because I’ve cleaned her mouth carefully.
At noon, when it’s time for lunch, though, she refuses her food, keeping her mouth shut as tightly as she can. I put her back in her sleeping box. Perhaps she’s not so hungry because of her big breakfast.
She begins calling me a few minutes later, short, soft kitten-like whimpers. I lift her up to my lap, and her cries stop, but when I try to put her back in her box, she begins crying again.
I have been expecting her to tell me when it’s her time to go, and then we would have a few hours or maybe a day together. She doesn’t give me even an hour.
As I hold her on my lap, she begins having trouble breathing. Her kidneys, in complete failure, can no longer support her lungs and heart.
Yet Angel still doesn’t give up. She moves her body around, searching for another way to adjust. Her body cannot help her, though.
Slowly her breathing slows, then stops. Her body relaxes. She sinks against me.
The wonderful creature is gone.
