Technically, per the calendar, today is the one year anniversary of Myrna Loy's death from HCM. Actually, it was on a Wednesday last year at about 1:20 a.m. when she died. I have been mourning the memory.
She had been in the ER Tuesday, 8/18/15 since about 9 p.m. due to severe CHF-not the first time she had ever been in the ER but the first time she wasn't recovering as well (following another difficult summer, the third year in a row.) Luckily, blessedly, I stayed there that night and waited. It took until midnight before they thought she was recovering. They asked if I wanted to leave, leave her there, or take her home. I said I would think about it and they brought her to me and I had her in the room with me while I petted her and talked to her. She was bouncy, anxious, happy it seemed to be in the room with me and out of the oxygen cage.
But after about 20 minutes she began breathing heavily again and it quickly got worse. I picked her up, took her in the back, told them she needed oxygen again. Then suddenly, as I put her in the cage, she gasped and struggled. She had a sudden heart attack. They tried to revive her and I didn't understand that she was dead. I thought they were trying to get her to breathe. When they told me they couldn't revive her, I told them to stop. She went quickly and I am so grateful to have been with her, that I didn't take her home or this would have happened in the car.
I miss her still. I saw her, talked to her in the house for months after her death. It's only been since May that I see her less. But her photos are all around and here at this page. I'm still working on videos, and photos about her, and her story. I want to write it. But this year-instead of granting me time to take care of her story-has been spent taking care of my father's death (funeral, estate process, etc.), and everything else that is my life.
We all believe our cats are unique, special, and we love them. She was so unique compared to our other cats. She had her ways of demanding food, of letting us know when she needed the litter box (coaching, coaxing, praise, and treats), of playing "cute"-rolling over and twisting her body into four sections at once; she could be very vocal and very chirpy; and she loved to play with certain toys.
I will never be glad that she is gone and now I have "time" to do other things; I will never be glad that I can leave the house and not have to worry (although it took me months to drop that feeling that I have to be back in time for her meds); I will never be glad that she's not urinating out of the box; I will never be glad that I don't have to process her meds. There's no sense of relief in her death.
But there are many, wonderful, joyful memories-she was the first kitten to use the litter box (ironic), the first and only to jump up beginning at 8 weeks to catch a mouse toy with both paws, the second one (to her sister Katharine) to be so vocal and demanding, and the third one to love waffles but the only one to grab it out of my hands as I'm eating it, and the only one to play "cute" the way she did. And more memories, of course.
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