Good Bye Kitty

It's a super sad day for The Gang. Today, The Boss took our diva kitty girl, Maggie, to be put to sleep.

It's been a long hard road for her these last 10 months. She started having seizures back in September of last year. Each month they've gotten progressively more intense and more difficult from which to recover. Around January or so, she started losing control of her bladder with almost every seizure. And then in March or April, she started to have lingering temporary paralysis of her hindquarters after almost every one. By May we knew we were looking at having to make a pro-active decision about ending her life humanely. In addition to the sadness of the condition and the unsanitary nature of losing control of her faculties, we knew that the increase in frequency during day time hours likely meant she was having seizures at night and when we weren't around to witness them. That's no way for my girl to live.

This week, she had what seemed to be the "mother" of all seizures to date. It was terrifying for us all to watch. And we said, "enough."

But it made it NO easier to actually pack her up into her crate and send The Boss out the door to the local SPCA to carry out our joint decision. In fact, since Tuesday, she's been so "normal" and affectionate and interactive that we really were second-guessing ourselves right up until he walked out the door this morning.

Please indulge me while I take a look back at my diva kitty girl. She was a gift to our little growing family and tolerated the many changes of 17 years with grace. Such a tolerant kitty - two big moves, four additional kids, and countless bonnets, blankets, and stroller rides. She never understood that she was "too big" to be a lap cat and though she permanently stopped lounging in my lap shortly after I got pregnant with LadyBug, she was a regular on The Boss's lap every night after the gang headed off to bed. These last months, she couldn't always make it up to the couch but settled at our feet or on the low ottoman for some late night foot-warming. She will be missed.

 First days home, in June 1997, at only 8 weeks old.

Her favorite perch when "play time" with Shaggy and Dr. D

(almost 3 and 18 mos at the time)
got to be too much stimulation and she needed a kitty nap.

One of her favorite perches in this past year,

tucked away in a corner but still in the middle

of The Gang's activity.

A tearful good-bye for this momma.

Beautiful girl, you will be missed.

April 26, 1997 - July 11, 2014

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I can't believe this is what jumpstarted my blogging brain again. But at least SOMETHING has. Man, the drought of coherent thought around here has been a drag. Stay tuned, I have some catching up to do in this "family scrap book" of mine and some give-aways coming up soon, too.