On Clyde
It’s been a hard week.
Then again, “hard” doesn’t really cover it. On Monday, March 17, Brian and I had to help our sweet kitten Clyde pass on. Grief is hard. Stories are hard. So maybe I’ll start at the beginning and see where this goes.
On December 31st, 2015, I went to the local SPCA just to look at some cats. We had recently lost our family dog and I had been wanting a cat for a few years. Now, with a few weeks of winter break, a finished basement, and no other animals in the house, I had finally worn my mom down to at least consider looking at cats. There at Providence Animal Shelter, in a rehabbed aquarium that held kittens, was Clyde. He was so small - he never did grow all that much - with wide, curious eyes and big whiskers and a little crook at the tip of his tail. He scratched everyone that was there, including my mom, except for me. I couldn’t explain why, but I knew he was meant for me. He had come from a hoarding house in Jersey where hundreds of other cats had been found, he was a runt, and he was scared of pretty much everything, but after some convincing and some phone calls home and practically begging my dad, Clyde came home with me. We took a pit stop to the PetCo first, where we got his Flyers tag and a collar, a brush, a litter box, some toys and some food. He had that Flyers tag his whole life.
Bringing him home was easy, but getting him to adjust was tough. He was so small and loved to hide. He constantly played with wires. He climbed on things. But we kept him in the basement for a while and helped him adjust. I slept with him on the couch in the basement for weeks. He learned to sit in my lap, watching me read or draw or play video games. He started to sleep with me, preferring to curl into a ball in the crook of my armpit, pressed against my body and arm, purring like a chainsaw. He had the biggest purr for the littlest boy.
From then on, it was instant companionship. I hated leaving him to go to school or work. Whenever I was there he’d be by my side, at my feet, following me, leading me, with me. We were inseparable, No matter where I was, Clyde was with me. In a way, he still is.
Through huge life changes, two moves (and a stint back with mom and dad), two degrees and more, Clyde was there. He was even at my wedding (the legal one, anyway). I couldn’t have asked for a better familiar. Everyone who met him loved him, partially because he never really caused trouble but also because he was just so cute. Since he never really grew much, he was a perfect cuddle buddy. My dad would often cuddle up on the couch with him and take long naps when I wasn’t home. He loved to play. His catnip pickle and orange jingle ball and his laser pointer were among his favorites. Brian would get Clyde to run laps in our living room, making high-speed circuits around our couch. He loved treats. Hearing that bag crinkle would make him come running and even hearing the word “treat” would make him stand at attention. He knew a few words, like his name, and the letter “H”, and treats… Or anything that sounded like the word treat. In his last few months, he would respond to a new nickname from Brian - Jurj. If you’ve watched BoJack Horseman on Netflix you might’ve heard this one, but Clyde started responding to that like it was his own name.
Being without Clyde for the first time in a decade is sundering. I wish I had him here. I wish he didn’t have to go. I wish we got more time. But in the end, we did manage to get a little more time.
About two weeks ago, Clyde’s eating and drinking slowed to next to nothing. At first I thought he was being picky about his food. He was the type of boy who liked something once, and that was pretty much it. We were constantly rotating in new wet food to help his water intake, but he was a food snob. So when he wasn’t super fond of his wet food (which he never really was in the first place), I wasn’t that alarmed. Then he stopped drinking a ton of water. We thought it might be his bowls, so we bought new ones. When that didn’t work, we bought a fountain. He never touched it. Then he stopped eating his dry food, which was always an easy win for him, and I got really concerned. Clyde had always had bad teeth, lately he had been starting to get a cataract on his eye, and last May he had been at risk for kidney disease. Between these three, I had finally made the call and my Mom and I took him to the emergency vet. That was last Wednesday. They ran a lot of tests, and the results were mixed: an eye ulcer (give him drops), his teeth are absolutely awful and he should probably have them taken out (but they didn’t do dental there and couldn’t give him antibiotics because…), he has a heart murmur - a 4 out of 6 in severity (so that’ll make treatment complicated), and he’s dehydrated (so he needs fluids, but we can’t give him too much because of his heart) and he’s constipated (so he got an enema), and a scratch on his nose and eye (but those should be fine). A short trip and a lot of answers, but really just the solution of eye drops, oral medication, and a cone that he absolutely hated. He was pretty okay for two days, not himself but not worse, and we had a follow up last Friday with our usual vet. Brian and I took him with minimal complaint, which was abnormal since Clyde loathed his carrier and would give the loudest meows when he was confined in it. Clyde sat quietly in the car, waiting for the vet, and even on the ride home. Yet another red flag. Our vet confirmed the murmur, but said his eye was clear, so we were free to remove the cone. She was concerned about his nutrition and his teeth, so she gave us more painkillers, an appetite stimulant, and an antibiotic. She also ran a blood test, but those results wouldn’t be in for a few days. We went on our way, and Friday and Saturday were more or less okay. He wasn’t eating a ton, but he was eating some wet food and sipping some water, but he still wasn’t using the litter box. Come Sunday, after trying to give him his appetite stimulant and his eye drops, Clyde wanted nothing to do with me. He yowled, ran, hid, and complained when I tried to pet him. This lasted for over an hour and Brian and I took him back to the emergency vet. This time, things were much more concerning. They ran an x-ray and though his colon was clear, we later found out (from our normal vet and with some digging) that he had a very, very enlarged kidney. His kidney levels were off the charts and into the hundreds (our vet later told us that they had spiked from “normal but high” on Friday to astronomical on Sunday, something she’s never seen in her career) and that he was in late stage kidney failure. Our choices were an extended hospital stay, where they would try to give him fluids to flush the kidneys but that might stress his heart (killing him) and may or may not even help his kidneys, or take him home and make him comfortable. It was an obvious choice.
We had one great last night with Clyde. We tried to have a “normal” evening, but after three hours at the vet and a diagnosis so grim, we couldn’t take our eyes off of Clyde as he stationed himself in his new hiding space: under a towl hanging from the banister at the top of the steps. Ultimately, with offers of handfuls of treats that he hungrily accepted, we got him to come up on the couch with us, sitting between us like he had done hundreds of times before, for one final time. We also got a good final cuddle with him: he slept both next to me in the crook of my arm and in between us with his head on Brian’s pillow, for one final time. Over the course of the night, he wasn’t doing well getting back up onto our rather low bed, yet another red flag. In the morning, we tried calling our vet for a follow up, but she wouldn’t be in until later in the morning. In the meantime, Clyde was now refusing medicine as well as food and water. We decided against chasing him around to force the medicine: it wasn’t work stressing him. He wouldn’t get up on the furniture or even eat treats, a massive red flag. He was wobbly and lethargic, and was giving these begrudging, long meows when we pet him. It was almost as if he knew, and we knew though we couldn’t bring ourselves to admit it, that it was time.
Calls to a service, Lap of Love, were made. Confirmations with our vet followed. She called us earlier than expected, we suspect she called us out of office hours just to confirm: we were making the right choice. She had never seen such rapid advancement in her career and she suspected it may be a very aggressive and rapidly advancing form of cancer, possibly in his kidney but who knows where else. He wasn’t suffering yet but he absolutely wasn’t himself. He wanted nothing to do with anything he liked: treats, toys, broth, cuddles. It was time.
A doctor from Lap of Love came to our home and helped us guide Clyde over the rainbow bridge in the calmest, quietest, most peaceful way possible. He was with Brian and I, in Brian’s lap and my hands, while my mom was there too to provide support. Some of the people who loved him most were there to help him take one good, final nap. It was the fastest and longest moments of my life, all wrapped in one.
And now he’s gone.
I don’t want to akin this to losing a child - he didn’t come from my body - but I raised him. He was the closest Brian and I have to a baby. He was my everything from the moment he would wake me up at 5:30 in the morning for wet food to the moment I went to bed and he cuddled beside me. Now that I’m not running in a constant state of anxiety and stress for the first time in two weeks, my body feels hollow, my mind continues to race, and my heart is torn through. Brian and I continually rationalize that this was best for Clyde. No suffering, no prolonged pain, no continuing through treatments that could ultimately backfire. I know it was for the best, but it doesn’t make me wish I could conjure him back to us, just like he was a handful of weeks ago, so playful and curious and bothersome and loving and soft and warm. But I can’t. I couldn’t, even if it was possible, if the result would be the same.
I know he’s warm, safe, loved, fed, in whatever is beyond, but that doesn’t help us here. Clyde is missed, but Clyde is safe. Clyde is gone, but Clyde is so, so loved.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for following my ramblings. The last twenty-four hours sucked. I know this was incoherent and long and quite possibly I’ll edit it in the future, but I wanted people to know, just in the event that I lash out this week. Here’s why.
Hug your pets, count your blessings, savor the good, the bad, and the everything in between while you have it.
Sweet dreams baby Clyde. Mama loves you ten buckets full.
-G