Spencer

Dear Mama,

I want you to understand something that’s going to be difficult to hear. I knew I was going to die. I know you were seeing the signs that my time was coming one day, but I could feel something was wrong. I could tell that my time was coming much sooner than you realized. I wish I could have told you, to spare you the shock of losing me. In truth, I knew I was going to die the last time we saw each other. I was grateful that it would be painless and quick for me, and that you didn’t have to see the vets trying to re-start my failed heart. I’m sure imagining it is bad enough on you.

I love you so much. I wanted for you to not have to make the choice for me. I didn’t want you to see me like that. I didn’t want you to have to hold me and ask me to stay with you a bit longer. I just couldn’t. I was older than you thought. My heart was in much worse shape than you knew.

I applaud you for all you did for me. You watched me so carefully, always racing me off to the vet, never balking at the costs, even though you went without things you needed so many times. I couldn’t have asked for a better mama. I really couldn’t.

I hope you understand that I was in a tough place. I wanted to stay with you more than anything, but I also knew if I had to leave you, that I wanted to spare you the worst of the suffering. You didn’t have to see me waste away. You didn’t have to come home and find me already gone. You didn’t have to syringe feed me (and man, you would have hated that and you know it!).

We all make choices. We all see things differently and make different choices. I did the best I could for you. I know the only thing you really wanted was for me to be with you always, and as we’ve spoken before, I am always with you, just not in the physical sense.

I see your tears, even after a month. It pains me so much. I know you took the small wooden box that contains my ashes, to bed with you one night, and cried yourself to sleep again. If I could take your pain away, I would. Please don’t despair, mama.

There’s something that I could do for you. Your friend Karen realized it before you did. She recognized my message when you didn’t even realize it. She’s a great cat-mom, too, at least that’s what her cats told me.

After I passed away, I spoke to the gerber daisies you planted in the flowerbox this spring. You really got a raw deal when you planted them; the first flowers you’d planted in ten years. How it wrecked you when in less than 12 hours, the squirrels had eaten the flowers, leaving only the green leaves. You even saw one running off with a flower in its' mouth. Part of you gave up you were so angry and frustrated. Yes, you dug up the remaining flowers and moved all but one of them inside because you didn’t have enough pots. Most of them either died or never flowered.

You got pissed. You sprinkled lemon pepper all over the surviving plant that was outside. The squirrels left it alone. As the summer went on, they didn’t bother with the flowerbox. Instead, they went in search of other food sources even though you feed the birds every day and leave out a bit of seed for whoever wants it.

It wasn’t fair that you did all that and never saw a flower blossom again.

So I asked the daisy to bloom for you. The buds began to develop the day I died. There wasn’t just one flower, there were two; a symbol of our relationship. They were a bit ratty looking at first-kind of how I looked when we first met. But as the days passed, they began to fill out, nearly glowing from their effervescent hue. It was my way of saying; I’m here, I love you, and don’t give up on being happy again. Don’t give up on loving another cat as much, or even more, than you loved me. It’s ok. My love for you will never change and I know you feel the same way.

©2019 Robin AF Olson. 

Our lives pass in the blink of an eye. Why waste it crying when you could be loving someone? You can still honor me every day, with every pink candle you light, with every memory of me that leaves you smiling. And you can be the brave and strong mama I know you to be, and find a way to lift your head up again, to dry your tears, and to find that your heart still beats and can feel love again.

Love always,

Your “baby-man,” Spencer

My Sweet Boy,

I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to write your Memorial, but I can’t look at photos of you for too long without losing it. Photos will be the key to show just what an amazing creature you were and I have thousands of photos to look over. So far I managed to look at about 100 before I just couldn’t look any longer.

Yes, they bring up happy memories, but mostly it leaves my heart in ruins. Tomorrow will mark three weeks since you died unexpectedly during a dental procedure and the pain is worse now than when you died. I keep feeling like it’s been long enough that I haven’t seen you. You should be home by now, but I know that’s a foolish wish. I know you can never come home again.

Thank you for your letter. Of course you’re right about us having a connection that lasts beyond the constraints of one life. We always have been together, just in different forms. I should have understood that better when I joked about how you always had to “tuck me in” every night. You acted like my mom. Maybe you once were?

You’d sit on my pillow and purr so loudly into my ear there was no way I was going to be able to sleep. You’d purr away while I gave you some skritches, but after about 10 minutes you’d get up and walk to the foot of the bed and lay against my leg. It was your way of saying goodnight. The last time you did that was late in April. I cherished it every time you did it. I knew that one day no one would tuck me in and I was right. I often sleep alone now. Either none of the other cats come to bed, or little Freya will join me, but she stays on the corner of the mattress.

I don’t really want the connection any more. It’s okay to sleep alone. After you died, I just quit caring about feeling connected to anything. Yes, I still have a house full of cats and foster kittens. I love them all, but not “like that;” not the way I loved you.

I don’t need the connection any more. The one I needed is gone forever. It’s not a replaceable thing. I’m working on finding a place to be okay with just being grateful I had a connection with you, and that although the world feels so gray, it’s okay. I saw things in color for a long time. I was lucky.

I’m trying to be kind to myself, but I’m eating too many carbs. I really shouldn’t. I’ve been getting out to do my morning walk as often as I can, but I don’t know why I’m bothering.

Last weekend I took myself out for brunch. Part of my choice was simply because I really enjoy going to Mothership Bakery, but I also admit I was feeling pulled to go there. I don’t know why and I don’t know why I felt like I had to hurry up to get there, too. It was odd. In my mind, it didn’t matter when I got there as long as they were open, but once I got there it all became apparent.

I brought a book with me to read while I waited for the lunch special to be prepared. I sat off in the corner of the cafe, a ray of sunlight was peeking through the skylight onto my face. I turned slightly to get the sun out of my eyes and noticed two women sitting to my right. As I turned back to my book, I overheard one of them say; “I don’t know what to do. She’s so upset about her cat dying, all she does is cry. It’s been going on for weeks.”

The woman across the table from her replied; “What was that cat’s name, again?”

“Blue.”

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Many years ago, my mother got my father a kitten as a birthday present. He was a tiny chocolate point Siamese with stunning turquoise colored eyes.

His name was Blue.

What are the odds this would happen? That I would be in the right spot…that I would hear this snippet of conversation. I felt compelled to talk to the women and tell them I run a cat rescue and that their friend could contact me and come visit our kittens if it would help her feel better---not to push an adoption on her. I was brutally depressed. I wanted to work up the courage to talk to them, feeling I’d had a sign to do so, but I just couldn’t do it. It was difficult enough not to break down and cry in public.

Someone was sending me a message, but I didn’t know who sent it. Was it my mother, who I’m at odds with after finding out she lied to me about my brother not being my full-blood-brother? I didn’t find out until after she died! Was my father sending me a sign? Was it you? Did you do it?

I know you sent me yet another sign, Spencer. I was watching Hulu and the show (the remake of Four Weddings and a Funeral) featured a character named Ted SPENCER. Are you KIDDING ME?!! Is everyone on television named Spencer now? There were posters all over the wall in one scene because fictitious Ted Spencer is running for political office. I had to take a photo of the TV screen so someone else would believe me.

This is craziness! I don’t trust that this is real. I’m just open to hearing your name, right? That’s it. It’s just coincidence.

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In 2005, my mother and I were talking about if we would come back in some way after we died. Of course my mother said; “I’m not coming back. I am not leaving any signs. I will be dead. The end.”

Yeah, she really knew how to be comforting, that one.

So as much as I want to believe it, having faith was never my strong suit. I’m trying, Wee, I’m trying. Keep sending the signs!

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I just bought 72 votive candles, yes, in pink, like the color of your nose. My hope is that if I burn one every day that when the box is empty, maybe I'll have started to feel a bit better. If I don’t, that’s ok. I know you don’t think I’m honoring you by being in so much pain and by crying so often. I know you want me to be happy. I'm trying.

But you probably saw what happened when I had to bring Nora to the vet yesterday.

©2019 Robin AF Olson. Nora not thrilled that it's time for yet another...enema.

She got constipated yet again. At 19-years of age we can’t hope it goes away. She has to get to the vet. When I got there they put me in the exam room…the exam room where I last saw your body after you died. You weren’t even the first of our cats who died in that room, but it didn’t matter.

You mattered.

I couldn’t handle it. I kept having flashbacks of seeing you dead. I tried so hard to stay cool, but I started to sob. They had to pull us out of the room and put us in another exam room. It was just too much to be there. In my heart, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to go back in that room again. The pain is brutal. I want to scream bloody murder. I want to rip my hair out. I want to cry until my eyes burn.

God how I miss you. You were such a magnificent creature, my dove. There will never be another cat as fabulous as you were. I will never care as much for another cat ever again. I’m grateful I had the honor of being in your fluffy- presence for seventeen years.

Mama Loves You

Dear Spencer,

It’s been a week since you died. Numbness and depression has really sunk in. I’m alone. Sam still lives in NYC taking care of his mother most of the time. I’m tired. It’s been a year that he’s been gone. This should be resolved by now. I can’t care for this entire house, all the other cats, by myself. I didn’t sign up for that. Every day that passes, I get less and less interested in my life. I’m sorry to whine at you about it, but seeing you every day, talking to you, hearing your purr, really made it bearable. I just don’t have the connection to any of the other cats, the way I connected to you. They don’t even sleep with me. It’s so weird going to bed alone.

©2019 Robin AF Olson. A truly lovely gift-a plant (read the message on the container!) from my beloved friends at Royal Bobbles.

Remember how you used to tuck me in? You’d use the step stool at the foot of the bed to jump onto the trunk, then from the trunk you'd jump onto the bed. You’d walk all the way up towards my pillow, then settle down ON my pillow, putting your face and front paws as close to my face as you could. Your long soft fur would tickle my face. Your purr was deafening. There was no way I could sleep with you almost laying on my face. Some nights I could barely breathe with all the floof covering me!

But you only stayed for about 5 to 10 minutes. I think it was your way of sending me off to a sweet slumber. You’d get up and return to the foot of the bed and lay against one of my legs. I can’t say how many nights I would wake myself up when I wanted to turn over so I wouldn’t crush you. Maybe I didn’t sleep well most of the time, but you were there, my furry shadow. You honored me with your devotion to stay by my side. It gave me great comfort. It broke my heart when you couldn't make it up the stairs any more. The last time was late April. I could have carried you upstairs every night, but we both know that would have irritated you.

Yesterday was 9|11. That just made my depression worse. It's a big day for me. My life began to change a lot after that day. I got trapped in New York City, like so many other millions of people. Sam was there, too. We were working together in the same design firm but we had broken up and were dating others. Talk about a weird situation. Then we had to rely on each other to navigate basically being homeless, with nowhere to go, as the World Trade Towers collapsed and our world got a lot more scary.

You hadn’t joined our family yet. Maybe you had just been born or would be soon. I bet you were an incredibly cute kitten. I wish I had known you then. You must have been about a year or so old when I first fostered you.

©2002 Robin AF Olson. One of the first images of Spencer, before his coat grew in and he went up to his highest weight of 16 lbs.

Do you remember the animal communicator? What she said about you? A friend got us a consultation. She did tell me some scary-accurate things about two of the other cats. I hoped what she said about you wasn’t true — that you didn’t want to talk about it. You put those days behind you. I know you were on “death row” somewhere in New Haven and that your time was up. They’d shaved you down. You must have been a matted mess. Your white fur was yellow. On your paperwork it said your name was Skeezix. What a horrible name! The director of the rescue named you Spencer. I didn’t like that name much, either, but it didn’t feel right to change it again. I guess that’s why I called you “Wee-wee” or “Weedie-woo.” …not because you peed all over!

People have been really kind. Did you see all the comments on social media about your passing? So many people were wishing you well on your journey to the rainbow bridge. So many people sent me thoughtful notes, a few sent flowers or a plant with nice cards. I was really honored that they cared so much about you. I guess about me, too.

I keep going back to what a few people said about how we never stop loving each other, even after death parts us. Even if we’re not in the same room any more, that love doesn’t have to stop. I thought I would never feel love from you again, but you sent me a sign, didn’t you?

You did it more than once to make certain I knew.

Here’s what happened (though I bet you already know this): I was watching TV. It was a reality show. I can’t remember which one. One of the folks was named, Spencer. In all the years I’ve watched TV I can’t think of a time when a character had that name. It’s not common at all. My ears perked up when I heard the name out loud. I thought; “Did he make that happen? No. Couldn’t be. That’s crazy.”

Then, yesterday I was taking a break, watching “Say Yes to the Dress.” Why do I watch this show? It only makes me angry seeing women flip out over DRESS SHOPPING for a dress they will wear once, they will gladly spend thousands of dollars on, and then feel they have the right to go ballistic if it doesn’t go perfectly and they don’t get what they feel entitled to...and half the time they look like hookers, not bridal. Ugh. I'm particularly horrified by the women who drop over $10K on a dress. I mean, really! Spend $10K on pretty much anything else and that's cool with me, but not a DRESS!

So. Anyway. Here comes today’s bride. What’s HER name? Spencer. Yes, a woman named Spencer. You did that, didn’t you? First time was coincidence, right? Second time? No way. You did that!

Are you still here? If not, where are you? What are you doing? Are you all right? What was your first week like? I hope you’re not scared. I hate that I can’t protect you any more. That was my job. I still feel as though I failed you. I’m trying to do better with all the other cats to make up for something I can never make up for.

I guess this happens every time one of our cat's die. I try to learn a lesson. This one made me decide that we have to find a way to get every cat back into the vet to look at their teeth and set up a game plan for dental cleanings. We started doing that over a year ago. I need to do better. If your teeth had been in better shape, maybe you’d still be with us? But Sam also said that if it was your heart that failed, maybe you would have made your journey much sooner than you did.

I feel so screwed up about your passing. A few days ago, the foster kittens got spayed/neutered. I didn’t expect to be a wreck leaving them at the clinic, but it hit me, they were all going to be sedated. None of them had pre-op blood work because it’s too costly and usually not necessary on kittens, but then I started to worry about the dreaded “what ifs” again. What if I lost one of the kittens? What if one of them didn’t wake up?

Then later that day I took Flap, the little handicapped kitten, to see our specialist, Dr. Deb. She said she might have to lightly sedate him to put a brace on his leg. I lost it. I couldn’t hold back the emotions. I tried to explain why I didn’t want Flap sedated. It was stupid of me to feel that way, but I still felt so raw.

I just want to curl up under the covers and hide from the world.

©2019 Robin AF Olson. Right after Spencer died and I got home, I walked out into my back yard and sat on a big rock. I looked up and saw this view of the tangled brush. It's how my heart felt in that moment; all twisted up with grief.

But you did it one more time, didn’t you? You gave me another sign. I wasn’t looking for one. I was flipping through the channels trying to find something to watch. On the History show there was a documentary, really a bunch of video clips with no narration, of 9|11. I wasn’t sure I should watch it. I was already so depressed.

I watched for a few minutes. There was a footage of a little girl with her even younger brother by her side. They were standing by a window in their apartment. You could see smoke from the collapsed World Trade Towers rising in the distance. The little girl explained what was going on…saying the building was just gone, gone forever…then she turned to her brother and said: “right, Spencer?”

WHAT? I got chills! Maybe I’m going insane from grief, but maybe this is legit. Maybe you're really out there. Maybe you'll write me again? Is that asking too much? I miss you so badly.

Keep the signs coming or the letters or both.

Mama loves you.

On September 5, 2019, my 18-yr old soul-cat, Spencer died unexpectedly during a procedure while sedated. If you'd like to read about his last few days you can go HERE and HERE.

What I could never have imagined is that our connection didn't end on that fateful day. Because of the deep love we shared, a door remains open to us. It's a rare gift, only for those who have a magical bond with their companion animal. Instead of keeping this secret to myself, I decided to share it with the world. Please read on.

Dear Mama,

I guess I better start off by saying, I’m sorry. I know you’re hurting right now, not only because I left this mortal coil, but because it was so sudden and such a shock to you. I heard you cried so hard you got a migraine? Is that true? I would never want you to suffer like that, just like you never wanted me to suffer, but there are things that we can’t control no matter how hard we try.

I know you miss me. I miss you, too. 17 years is a long time to be with someone. I never wanted to leave you. Even though my physical form is gone, I'm still with you.

In the end, I didn’t suffer much. I was sedated when my heart gave out. I’m grateful for that. Yes, I was scared because you weren’t there, but I was surrounded by others there that cared about me. Dr. Larry, Super-Deb, Dr. Mary, Judy. They were trying really hard to keep me around, even though I'd been a pain in the ass to them all these years. I gotta hand it to them for trying. I think they really care about you, which is why they were giving it a team effort. The thing is, my heart hasn’t been good for awhile now. You didn’t know it. I wish I could have told you.

Leaving you so fast was a bit of a shock to me, too, but in truth I could feel it was coming. I felt it for a long while now. You saw it in how tough it was for me to walk more than a few steps without having to rest. I didn't come upstairs any more. I missed meeting you at the door when you came home. My legs were getting pretty wobbly. I hated tripping over my paws some times. I know it upset you to see me like that.

I saw you trying to figure out what was wrong. You tried so very hard, for so very long, to find an answer. You took me for laser treatments for my legs. It felt good, but it wasn’t my legs that were needing help. You saw the holistic vet and he gave me some really good remedies and the antibiotics you struggled trying to give me really did help me feel better over my last two weeks.

My health issues were really complicated over the years and man, did you go the distance for me. You raised, what, about $5000 when you didn’t have $100 to your name, just so I could get that big mass removed off my pancreas when I was 16! Then the pathology hinted at cancer, and you jumped on that, fast. You figured out it wasn’t true, but you had to work so hard to get answers about that. Before that time there were a zillion other problems, but you leaned in and learned as much as you could about every health issue I had so I would never have to suffer-“Not on my watch,” you said.

Then you had to give me fluids every day for over a year. I know you hated “sticking me.” It took a toll on you, but you made it comfortable for me so I wouldn't stress out. I even enjoyed getting fluids some times.

Mama, honestly, you blow me away. You never gave up on me, even during so many dark times when it looked like my health was truly failing. I hope you find a way to see that and not feel guilty you couldn’t save my life today. In truth, you did save my life, MANY TIMES, but sooner or later the day will come when “all the King’s horses…” you know how it goes.

And it’s not like I made anything easy for you. There is no way you could have figured everything, because you know how I get. I’m like you. You get pushed a bit too hard and you go into the “red zone” fast. How is anyone supposed to examine me when I flipped out so easily? Kinda like how you got when one of the other cats peed on the sofa (I’m not saying names, but it started with a P., literally and figuratively). Boy did that piss you off.

Yes, I still have a sense of humor. Just because I’m not there with you doesn’t mean I can’t try to cheer you up once in while.

The connection I felt with you when we were together, and now as we’re apart, is on a molecular level. I know you didn’t just love me like all the other cats that have been in your life. We had a bond that was so strong it continues to pull me towards you, to keep reaching out, to let you know I’m okay over “here,” and to tell you I can write you now and let you know how I’m doing. That is, if you’d like to hear from me. I hope it’s not too painful that I keep reaching out. I would not want to add to your grief.

Write soon?

Love always,

Spencer (aka, Wee-wee, Weedie-woo, Baby-Man…just proving to you that it really is ME and I’m okay so don’t worry about me. I miss you!)

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Dear Spencer,

With all my heart and soul I hope it really IS you writing me. When you died a few days ago, a big hunk of me died along with you. Losing you is so painful, I can’t really think about it too much. I can look at a photo of you for only a second or two before the tears well up in my eyes and my head starts to hurt. I think about your last few days, but it’s mixed up with so much regret, remorse, guilt, frustration, anger, and complete heartbreak that I can barely keep myself together.

I can feel the pressure build up behind my eyes. I’m going to cry again. I can’t do that. If the dam bursts I will never stop crying. You were my everything, my sweet fluffy sassy shadow. You saw me through so many tough times. You made me smile, even when you drove me crazy. You always tucked me in at night. You were my best friend and you never stopped loving me.

©2019 Robin AF Olson.

You never questioned if I loved you. You always looked up at me with this adorable expression of love mixed with curiosity. That purr of yours was non-stop and just gave me another reason to be completely charmed by you. I fell in love the first moment I saw you pop your head out from inside a cardboard cat carrier. You were my first foster fail oh so many years ago. I promised myself I wouldn’t adopt you. I’m so glad I broke that promise.

But this is a game-changer-if I really could talk to you. This is so messed up. I can’t believe it. I just got your ashes back tonight. They’re in a little wooden box in the living room. Dr. Larry and Dr. Mary sent me a big bouquet of flowers. There are thistles mixed with the roses and hydrangeas. It’s perfect. It’s just like you. Beautiful and prickly at times, but I don’t mean it in a bad way. I loved how sassy you were. You didn’t take shit from anyone.

©2019 Robin AF Olson. Thistles.

I just hugged and kissed the wooden urn, then a few minutes later, I find your note. That’s crazy!

All I can say is keep writing me, please! What’s it like where you are? What are you doing? Can you see any of the other kitties like Bob or Gracie? Can you visit with humans? Or is the Rainbow Bridge segregated by species?

Will you ever come back to me? Please come back! How will I know it’s you? How long will it be? Oh Weedie-woo, I miss you so much. This house is empty without you and my heart aches all the time. I want this bad dream to be over. I want you to be here with me still. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I never will be.

Please write me again when you can!

Mama loves you, always.

©2019 Robin AF Olson.

Gutted.

I’m tempted to leave it at that, but I need to write about what happened a few hours ago. Writing keeps everyone away from me. I don’t need their awkward attempts to comfort me. No one knows what to say other than; “I’m so sorry.” or the line that makes my blood boil: “He’s in a better place.”

He is NOT in a better place. His place is with ME. If he can’t be with me he is NOT in a better place.

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This morning Spencer was in lovely spirits. He was happy, purring so loudly you could hear him across the room. He was still weak when he walked, but otherwise he was up and being pure-Spencer. It was such a lovely morning, too. Just the right temperature; not too hot or too cold. There was lots of seed out for the birds to eat and I could hear them chirping away through the open windows, as Spencer laid down on the floor by the doorway to the kitchen. That’s where he sat every morning while he waited for me to bring him his first meal of the day. He’d wait there while I fussed with his freezed-dried raw food, I’d add something to it, depending on what he needed. Today would have been pro-biotics because Spencer had been on antibiotics for his dreadfully infected teeth. The meds did wonders. He was truly at his peak of wellness, considering he’s an old fella.

©2019 Robin A.F. Olson. Waiting for his breakfast just this morning.

Between the birds singing, the sunshine and Spencer looking so fine, I felt hopeful that today’s dental would not only help him feel better, but add years to his life. I had two vets agree we could go ahead with this. No one felt the risks outweighed the need. Instead of giving Spencer his morning meal, I gently placed him into his cat carrier and let him settle before touching his paw and telling him he was a “Good boy” as I closed and locked the crate door.

I was terrified today would be Spencer’s last day. I told myself to focus on being gentle, on having a nice trip to Dr. Larry’s. I’d take the back road, the one that follows along the river. It was a longer trip and slower. No highway. Everything I could do to keep Spencer from stressing out, I was going to do.

I sang.

I sang a stupid made-up song to Spencer. I’ve done it before, but today I really ramped it up. I sang to keep myself from crying...from obsessing with "what ifs"…I would see him again. It would be okay. I kept singing so I wouldn’t think. Spencer purred along with me. It was a good trip.

We hung out in the waiting room once we got to Dr. Larry’s. Someone would come fetch Spencer and take him into the back of the building where he’d wait until his procedure. Until then I had his cage door open. He was calm. Purring. I forgot my phone. I wanted to take a video of him so I could hear him purring. I told myself I could do it later. It was going to be okay. I told Spencer for the millionth time that I loved him.

“You’re a good boy. Mama loves you.”

One of the techs came to get him. I told her to stop doing the procedure if he started to flip out. I told her to do whatever it took to help keep Spencer relaxed. Going into the red zone today was more than dangerous for him. She said she would. I know she heard me. That was it. She took him away and that was the last time I saw him until a few hours ago.

The next time I saw him, Spencer was dead, his lifeless body on an exam table.

At 1:41 PM, EST, Dr. Larry called me. He sounded bad. All I heard was; “Robin…I’m so sorry. He had a heart attack. He didn’t make it.” All I could say was; ”No. No. No.“

Dr. Larry began to describe what happened, how they tried so hard to save him, as I slid down onto the cold tile floor of my laundry room. My chest constricting, hard, my ears started to ring. My mind was going blank. The washing machine is broken. It’s finally getting fixed after a few weeks. I was clearing the stuff off the machine so the tech would have a way to access the top of the washer. I was trying to keep busy so I wouldn’t obsess about what time it was or if I thought I should hear from someone yet.

But the words started to flow together…they’d done the dental as far as they could. His mouth was really bad. They were trying to wake him up but he wouldn’t wake up. They did heroic efforts to save him..chest compressions…injections…they kept trying. It wasn’t just Dr. Larry. Dr. Mary was called in, Super-Deb was there, Judy, the tech who’s done Spencer’s laser for months was there, too. In all 5 people were desperately trying to save Spencer’s life.

But they couldn’t get Spencer back. He died. He was sedated when they lost him. He wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t suffering. I wasn’t there with him, but people who also loved him were there.

I drove to Dr. Larry’s in a trance. I was tempted to drive into oncoming traffic or just let the car drift off the road, into the river. I was angry at myself. I wondered if I had been too arrogant. I should have left Spencer alone. What was I thinking? He was SO HAPPY. He was doing so well the past few weeks. Why did I ruin it? Why did I risk it? WHAT HAVE I DONE!

I tried to rationalize with myself. I did the best I could. Spencer was tough to handle at the vet. He hated being messed with. His teeth were hurting him, really killing him. They had to come out. It was cruel to leave him like that. But he possibly had something else going on that we didn’t know about. The leg weakness made me wonder if his heart wasn’t so great, but we couldn’t know without sedating him to do the exam and x-rays that could have given us some clues.

As I fumbled with my wallet and keys, I started to open my car door. Super-Deb was standing there in the parking lot. She must have been watching for me to arrive. She didn’t say a word. She just grabbed me hard and hugged me tight. She said she had no words. I totally understood.

Deb never touches anyone, ever. She just hugged me. I told her now I would have two reasons to remember this day for the rest of my life. It was a lame joke. She was shaken up. She felt so badly. She’d known Spencer for most of his life. This just wasn’t my loss. It was hurting her, too.

---------

Deb escorted me to Exam Room 1. They had Spencer waiting for me. We’d been in the same room so many times before, but this time was different. The overhead lights were off. Just the under cabinet lights were on. It was the same way I asked to light the room every time I brought Spencer there. He was much calmer in low light and we could get more done if he was calmer. Now he was laying on his side, covered with the fleece cat bed I’d brought with me that morning. His eyes were still open. His paws were still a little warm. He’d been brushed and was clean. There was a box of tissues by his body left for me.

I stayed with Spencer’s body for a few hours. Sam had to drive up from New York City where he was still caring for his aged mother. I didn’t mind staying there so long. I had time to say goodbye. I spoke with most of the staff. One by one they came into the exam room and told me what happened, how much they cared and were sorry. I got a lot of hugs. It was comforting to know they cared so much about Spencer, about me, too. I even spoke with Betsy, who runs the front desk. We’ve become close over the years. She told me she lost two of her beloved pets in the past year. She is so distraught about it she hasn’t even told some people it happened. I won’t say more to respect her privacy, but I’ve been down this road so many times, I think I said a few things to help comfort her. At least I hope it helped.

We’re all hurting. It just may not be apparent, but scratch at the surface and most people have broken hearts.

In a final act of kindness, Dr. Larry called Mark. He owns the pet cremation service. He asked Mark to come today and take Spencer to be cremated so Spencer’s body would not have to be stored in a freezer for another week. I may even have Spencer’s ashes back as soon as tomorrow.

It’s over. I can’t do anything about it. My love. My sweet boy is gone forever. I will never see him again. I will never hear his purr. I don’t have to fuss over how much he ate today (I’ve kept a diary every day for two years tracking every meal he has eaten, how he was doing, what meds I gave him). I don’t have to give him fluids every day. I don’t have to hold his plate while he eats. I don’t have to come up with a new food or treat to tempt him, but I would do it every day for the rest of my life if it meant he would be here with me.

©2019 Robin A.F. Olson. Farewell my beloved. I sent Spencer off with his catnip banana and a letter I wrote to him, along with a photo of us. Sam slipped his own message to Spencer in along with mine a bit after this was taken.

I’m going to write a proper memorial about Spencer one day, but it needs to be separate from this heartbreaking tale.

I am gutted. I am done. I took a chance and lost. I really tried with everything I have to give. I’m so sorry Spencer. I will miss you for the rest of my life.

Medical decision making for your cat is often complicated, especially when your cat doesn’t have a definitive diagnosis. We all struggle with what-to-do and how-it-should-best-be-done. Then there’s the added issue of costs. What if a test could give you clear insight into what is sickening your cat but it’s a budget-buster? What if the test doesn’t give you helpful results and you’re left as confused as you were before-and broke on top of it?

What if it’s more challenging than that? What if your cat is elderly? Do you still make the same choices for them or do you give up and put them down?

I would go to the ends of the Earth for my cat Spencer. He recently turned 18, which is 88-years old in human years. At 16, Spencer had a large mass removed off the tip of his pancreas, even though one vet said maybe we should just let him live his remaining days without doing the surgery (assuming it was cancer-but the mass ended up being benign). Our surgeon said she could do it and get Spencer through the procedure and she did just that. It was a long, tough recovery, but Spencer made it and has had good quality of life.

Test results indicated that there were some cells that were “consistent” with neoplasia (cancer), but did that mean he had cancer? I had to decide if I would put him on chemo or try homeopathy instead. I’d only just started to learn about homeopathy and I was so well-entrenched with allopathic medicine I feared not going straight to chemo. I even ordered the medication and had a vet oncologist on Spencer’s case, but this cat is geriatric. Do I do chemo on him knowing the possible side effects?

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Spencer after recovered from surgery to remove a mass in his abdomen.

Then, as I was trying to decide what to do, Dr. Jeff Feinman, my holistic vet, sent me an article from the New Yorker magazine. It was a simply fascinating piece about cancer cells-how we all have those cells in our body, we even have metastatic cells, too, BUT we all do not have the “fertile ground” in us for those cells to run wild. That’s why two people with the same kind of cancer have two different results of that cancer. The article talked about two men with skin cancer. One man resolved the cancer with minimal treatment while the other required a great deal of chemo and eventually passed away.

So even if Spencer HAD cells that were consistent with neoplasia it did not mean he HAD CANCER throughout his body (which our oncologist agreed with). Clinically, Spencer was doing well. The oncologist then told me the chemo was a prophylactic measure.

“So he doesn’t really need chemo, then, right?”

“Right.”

The chemo is still in my refrigerator.

I chose to do homeopathy.

TWO YEARS LATER

I feel as though Spencer, who has chronic kidney disease, has had two bonus years after his difficult recovery from surgery. I never thought we would even get to this day and still enjoy his company. I should not be greedy wanting yet more time with him, but as I’ve learned in homeopathy, focusing on age is not the goal. Focus on how the cat is doing. How is his energy, his behavior, his appetite, his mood? If all of those things are going well, then that’s the focus, not a number. It’s possible he will keep going for some time to come.

©2019 Robin AF Olson. Spencer getting laser therapy.

Because Spencer “red zones” really fast at the vet, the most we can do with him is do an occasional blood test. Exams are out of the question. I’ve been taking him in for laser therapy on his legs and back, which he enjoys, but other than that, we can’t do much.

But something's wrong with Spencer—a lot of things. I’ve been noticing changes over the past year plus that I thought were age-related, but a light finally went off in my head and now I have tough choices to make.

Spencer’s had a number of issues: • Weakness to mild lameness • Turns his head when he eats • Appetite issues • Weight loss he lost a pound in the past year • Dirty ears • Staining on his paws • Unkempt coat • Coughing with a sneeze at the end of the coughing. • Low energy

Then I finally realized it was Spencer’s teeth. I asked Dr. Larry to look at Spencer’s mouth the last time Spencer was having laser done. Dr. Larry couldn’t look at more than one side of Spencer’s mouth before Spencer blew a gasket. It was enough for Dr. Larry to see PUS coming out of Spencer’s upper gums. He had a wicked mouth infection and was in dire need of a dental cleaning and probably tooth extractions.

Then I went back to my mental list of problems Spencer faced. Most of them could be related to his bad teeth. Immediately we put him on antibiotics (normally I am not a fan of them but in this case it was a must).

©2019 Robin AF Olson. Spencer a few days ago, enjoying a catnip banana, a sure sign of feeling better.

13 DAYS LATER

Within a few days Spencer stopped turning his head while he ate. I had already treated his ears with a steroidal liquid that cleaned them out nicely and the paw stains were going away.

Spencer began to eat a bit better and walk a bit better. I added pro-biotics to Spencer’s food many hours before medicating him to help protect his gut.

Once his mouth began to feel a bit better, Spencer began to groom himself again. His energy picked up a little bit. The big shocker was he stopped coughing.

I imagine that the infection in his mouth, effected his sinuses, which caused him to have post-nasal drip, which would make him cough/sneeze. It could also effect his ears. It could effect his kidneys. It could do so many things, but I hadn't considered even looking at Spencer's mouth because of his age. He's 18. I assumed that his changes were AGE RELATED, NOT SOMETHING ELSE. I wrongly assumed that you can't do a dental on a cat that old. He had a dental in 2016 so I thought maybe he was fine.

But it's clear what we have to do is not because of his age. It's being done tomorrow (9/5/19). Spencer HAS to have his mouth fixed or he will die a slow painful death from his horrible teeth. Of course I’m terrified that he will die from the stress of being at the vet, from being sedated, from something else they didn’t know about because they couldn’t do a proper x-ray or exam all these years.

I’ve had a few conversations with Dr. Larry and with Dr. Jeff. We’re going to gas-sedate Spencer, which is a slower sedation, but he can wake up a lot easier-no drunk walk, no hallucinations post-procedure. It won’t effect his kidneys so badly.

Dr. Larry has kindly cleared his schedule so he can focus on Spencer. Super-Deb, my friend and Vet tech, knows Spencer well. She’s worked with Dr. Larry for decades. This is the best team I can have to do this procedure. We have a game plan in place, but I'm scared, too.

Dr. Jeff has been advising me on which remedy to give Spencer before and after his dental procedure. He also agreed that the gas sedation would be the safest.

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Spencer wasn’t doing well a few days ago — after I stopped his antibiotics. I stopped them after nearly two weeks because he was fighting me more and more and he wasn't eating well. I’d given him homeopathy and I thought he was getting worse. He had a bad day yesterday, not eating well, very wobbly in his gait. I thought maybe we should do an ultrasound. Maybe Spencer’s mass grew back? Maybe he is full of cancer? I'm going crazy with "what ifs."

Then last night he started to perk up. This morning he ate more than he has in years. He seems brighter. He is walking better, faster, more steady on his paws. It HAS to be the homeopathy now that the antibiotics have pushed the infection back.

While Spencer still has a nasty mouth, perhaps I’ve shored him up as much as I can so he can handle what’s going to happen tomorrow. I’m trying not to think about getting a call to tell me he didn’t make it. I know I’m going to lose Spencer some day, but I hope that day won’t be any time soon.

Spencer is one of the first cat’s I ever fostered. He’s been with me for 17 years. He’s my shadow, my purry-pal. I can’t imagine my life without him in it. I can't stand the thought of it

But I also don’t want to be so fearful that I don’t help my cat when he needs it most. He will not have a "fun day" tomorrow. He needs a healthy mouth to have a chance at a better future. We have to try.

Whatever happens, I didn't let Spencer's age stop me from treating his issues. I just focus on how he's clinically doing and if my vets feel we can reasonably do the dental safely then that's what we will do. Your cat's age shouldn't stop you from providing vet care, especially because cats are living longer lives than ever.

And I hope Spencer is one of those cats (fingers and toes crossed).

©2019 Robin AF Olson. My sweet boy.

2017 was a lousy year that followed another lousy year (2016). That I’m alive and have a roof over my head sort of surprises me. I’m VERY GRATEFUL for what I have, so grateful. I’m lucky, even with very serious financial problems because it could be so much worse. I feel for the millions of people who lost their homes this past year due to floods, fire, hurricanes, tornadoes…not to mention all the suffering caused by social upheaval, reports of rampant sexual abuse, and the fears stemming from the actions of the so-called leadership of our precious country.

January

Annie, one of our Kitten Associates fosters, fell ill yet again. She’d been punky after recovering from intussusception surgery in October of 2016. Even though Dr. Larry said she looked good, I pushed to do blood work. It revealed Annie was seriously anemic, to the point of an Internist feeling she might have lymphoma. I asked if we could treat her for my nemesis, Bartonella, because there are some forms of the infection that cause anemia. We couldn’t re-test her so we tried a new treatment. Within a few weeks and some TLC and vitamin B12 injections, Annie bounced back and regained her good health, but just as she was recovering I got a disturbing call.

©2016 Robin AF Olson. Fly Free sweet Lady Saturday. We miss you so much.

Lady Saturday was ailing. She was skin and bones. I didn’t know. Our foster family called and said she needed to see the Vet. She’d been pretty weak and eating a lot less. When Dr Larry saw her, he was shocked. She only weighed 4 lbs and was near death. We didn’t know how old she really was, but we knew she’d had kidney issues for the nearly two years she’d been part of our foster program. She’d gotten fluids, a heated bed, good food, supplements, but we couldn’t cure old age. On January 16th we said goodbye to our sweet girl.

With all of that going on, my cat Petunia began having focalized seizures. We didn’t know the source even after taking her to a neurologist. We started her on Phenobarbital in the hopes it would give her some relief, but did she have cancer? Would she eventually have a grand-mal seizure and I’d come home to find her dead?

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Petunia is doing better these days and no longer needs medication to control her seizures.

The year wasn’t off to a good start, but thankfully it was pretty quiet as far as rescue went. After years of saying I was taking a break from taking on kittens, I decided I would really do it. Then I saw a post online about a huge feral colony in Waterbury, CT. Over 50 cats were struggling to survive and were breeding out-of-control. Read about the first cat we rescued HERE along with follow up stories them HERE and HERE) While doing TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) isn’t my forte, I thought I could help raise funds for these cats and do some social media outreach.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. My first sighting of the Waterbury Ferals.

My mistake…I decided I had to go to the location to see for myself what was going on, to take some photos, then start raising money for the #Feral50 #waterburyferals. Once I saw a horrifically sick cat, I knew I had to get more involved. I had no idea that instead of taking a break, I was going to be busier than ever for the sake of these cats.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. This little sweetie is feral. She was eventually named Tulip and was the first cat trapped. You can read about her story HERE.

February

I pushed the limits of what I could handle and was pushed beyond my limits by another volunteer who worked doing some of the trapping of the feral cats in Waterbury. The things I saw, some cats barely clinging to life…I found placements for 10 cats, but it wasn’t enough. I had to do more and more and more until February 13th when I ended up in the hospital during a snow storm. I was diagnosed with an ulcer, along with an anxiety attack that I was certain was really a heart attack in disguise. The stress was just too much.

But in rescue "too much" always ends up becoming "just help one more." I decided to take on a pregnant feral from the Waterbury colony.

It was very risky, because I didn’t know what I was going to do with her after the kittens were born and weaned, but as so many other rescues, I just took it one day at a time. Solve one problem at a time-that’s the key. The cat had been named Waverly. She was covered with oil and metal dust. She was too dirty to give birth, but we have a great foster mom who is gentle and patient and who was able to wipe Waverly down every day until Waverly was clean enough to give birth-and just in time, too. By the end of the month, Waverly had given birth to three kittens. Sadly only two of the three survived. I knew that if we hadn’t taken Waverly on none would have made it.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Happy Birthday Willoughby and Weatherby!

I’ve come to the understanding that in rescue you shouldn’t try to do everything. Rescue the kind of cats you can handle and do your bit. Other people, who are great at things you may not be so great at can do their part. It all adds up to be much more effective than trying to take on more than you can handle and getting sick from it. What I learned is that I am not cut out for TNR. I want to give every cat a chance to become socialized. There isn’t time or space to take that on.

While I respect every cat who just can’t become social kitties, and I will return those cats to the outdoors, it kills me because I know their future will be very difficult, even with a great caretaker looking after them.

Meanwhile, Spencer had a re-check of his blood work because in late 2016 we found out his kidneys weren’t working very well. The new test results showed us that Spencer might only have a few months left because his values changed for the worse, so very fast. We were to start him on fluid therapy and see how he did in 6 months.

March

Things started looking up. I was a Guest Speaker at the first ever, Cat Camp NYC. I had a blast, made new friends and saw some of my most cherished cat lady friends. It did my heart good to be reunited with them and energized me for Kitten Season, which was right around the corner.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Artist Cathi Marro (left), Me and Jodi Ziskin of Treatibles (right)

We took on #FairfieldCountyGives and had our best fundraising day ever, raising over $3500 in a single day-most of which were $10 donations. We’d be ready to take on kittens, but where were they?

I got an email from a guy who asked for cat behavior help with his 5-month old kitten, Holly. She’d been peeing on the family beds. The guy turned out to be musician and songwriter, Stephen Kellogg. What transpired next even surprised me. You can read about this crazy trip in these stories HERE (including links to all 5 chapters). I’m glad to say that after all the trials and tribulations that Holly is in her home and that Stephen has become a good personal friend and newly minted Cat Daddy.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Stephen visiting Holly while she was here being evaluated for behavior issues.

Weird April

I wasn’t getting calls about kittens. It was very strange. Then I thought about why it might be so quiet. We’d had a very mild January giving intact cats plenty of time to become pregnant, but in February we had a few brutal snowstorms dropping a lot of snow. I didn’t want to imagine it, but I started to believe that perhaps a lot of kittens just didn’t make it and that the “season” would be starting later in the year.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Will Bills was a bit too wild for Bill.

For once I got out on my birthday for a short road trip and lunch at O'Rourke's diner. We stopped at a crazy place called Wild Bill's. The namesake and owner was there as we strolled down the aisles. I didn't think he looked so hot. I guess I was right. He died a few days later. I couldn't help but feel like I better not take having another birthday for granted.

May

Ah, Stormy; a purebred Russian Siberian cat whose owner really was allergic to her entered the picture in May. Her mom, Kim, was sick all the time and though she felt terrible about it, she needed help getting Stormy a new home. The problem was, Stormy was not very nice. I thought it might be due to her being declawed. Perhaps she was in pain? So we did a lot of tests to see if that was the problem.

The bottom line was I promised to help find a home for this 9-year old aggressive cat, but how was I going to pull it off?

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Stormy.

I found what I thought was a good home in Boston, but the people were terrible, fearful, posers. A few weeks later they brought Stormy back to Kim’s where I was under even more pressure to find Stormy a placement because her home was about to undergo a serious renovation and they’d have to put her in a boarding facility if she stayed much longer. I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever be able to find Stormy a home. I even tried to get a breeder from the CFF Cat Show, where I took part as a guest judge, to take her on, but with her anger issues it was a lot to ask.

June and July

I wasn’t going out of my way to find kittens to rescue since I never got a break over the winter, but then I got a call from my friend Joan. She told me one of the shelters down south had 65 kittens. They were going to start putting them ALL DOWN in 12 hours. Could I take even a few? She’d foster for me and even go get the kittens.

I decided to take 6 kittens, which turned into 8, except that they counted wrong and there were twins so 8 became 9 and I got another rescue friend to approve taking 3 and somewhere in the middle of that Moe, our other southern foster mama asked me if I could take just one more to make it 13 kittens.

Yes. I’m insane.

I nicknamed the group, the #SweetSuperheroes. If only they had lived up to their name. I wrote about what happened to them, how it broke me in ways rescue never broke me before, but I never published what I wrote. I may some day reveal all the details when I feel I can tell their story without it wrecking me.

In a few words, it was our first experience with Feline Panleukopenia. Within the first week, two of the kittens were dead and the threat of many more hung over us as poor Joan feverishly scrubbed and cleaned, while I spent thousands of dollars on vet bills, cleaning supplies, cages, food and litter for the remaining kittens.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Some of the kittens we rescued. Thankfully, our offering to take so many inspired other rescues to take kittens, too so a majority of the kittens made it out alive.

Some of the kittens were in isolation at the vet in Tennessee, while some remained at Joan’s foster home. We both did as much as we could to get the survivors healthy for the long transport to Connecticut, but in all honesty I did not want to bring them here at all. I was terrified my cats would get sick.

I’m not a fan of the FVRCP booster vaccination, but we had to make the difficult choice to booster most of our adult cats right away because there is no definite period of time for how long kittens who are exposed to PanLeuk are still contagious. To be safe, the kittens were isolated for 6 weeks, which ruined their window of adoption by a great deal, but I also didn’t want them here if there was any chance at all they’d sicken my cats, too.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. In honor of Super Nibs, who died from PanLeuk. You are forever in my heart. I wish you had a chance to grow up and find your forever family as your siblings did.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. and Major Muffin. He died so fast there was nothing we could do to save him from the ravages of Panleukopenia.

I spent most of the end of June and into July crying, worrying, researching PanLeuk and trying to prepare things here for their arrival. It was the first time in years I dreaded taking on more kittens.

Stormy was proving to be a tougher case than I imagined. The shocker, what I realized much later was that Stormy had reverted to being feral from not being handled for many years. She wasn’t in pain at all.

Because she had to be moved into the in-law apartment in the home and be in close proximity to her family, Stormy ended up getting handled more and sure enough Stormy became friendlier. So friendly that a lovely lady named Annabelle flew to Connecticut from Philadelphia so she could adopt this magnificent cat. They’re doing great and Stormy no longer lives up to her name.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Stormy says farewell to her sweet mom, Kim and hello to her new mama, Annebelle.

August

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Leslie Mayes gets ready to interview us for #CleartheShelters.

My rescue took part in #CleartheShelters, a national program to help pets get adopted in a 24-hr period. We were off to a great start because Heidi Voight, journalist and Anchor on the local NBC affiliate came over to interview me and meet the #SweetSuperheroes. We did an hour-long live Facebook event and I think we were in the news about 10 times over the next few weeks.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Ready for their big adoption day, most of the Sweet Superheroes.

The problem was, we didn’t have a shelter to clear, so that meant doing an adoption event at Watertown BMW. Being surrounded by $100,000 cars and anxious adopters and yet more news media was literally a crazy ride. The folks at Hoffman Auto Group BMW were awesome, but some of the potential adopters left something to be desired…yes, screaming kids, demanding kids who wanted a kitten “RIGHT NOW” and unapologetic parents shocked and angry with me. They asked why I would deny their application to their face when the dad would declare they would let our kittens outside even after the mom hushed him and said “They don’t allow going outside. Don’t you get it?” Followed by "dad" getting so angry I thought I was going to have to call the police.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. The Kitten Associates, associates from left to right: Grace, Me, Sam, Adria, Jame and Frances.

Thankfully, one kid was nice and his parents were just as sweet. They saw a poster of Buddy and Belle, my ex-boyfriend’s two cats. They’d been in our rescue for almost a year with not one application for their adoption and they would be too scared to be at the adoption event so the best I could do was have a poster advertising them.

©2017 Kathleen. Buddy & Belle in love with their new mama.

I told the lady their story and she was smitten. A few weeks later, Buddy and Belle were adopted. Her new mom says it’s like they were home from the second they arrived. They’re doing great and the new joke is her son likes to blame things he did on the cats.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Poor Fluff Daddy!

And then Fluff Daddy got really sick, really fast...Horrible, bloody mushy stool. I was terrified it was PanLeuk. How did he get it? He had to be confined to a cage, then a few other cats got very mildly ill. Tests came back positive for Giardia. How could he get it? Guess what I didn't know? Adult cats can have chronic episodes of it or it can be intermittent! Gah! It's really contagious, but thank God it wasn't PanLeuk.

Shitty September

The brown month. Diarrhea. Kittens with diarrhea. Kittens squirting the walls, floors, bedding, pretty much everywhere but the litter pan, with stinky, pudding poo. I could not get most of the foster kittens to resolve their runs. We did so many tests and trips to the Vet followed by a zillion de-worming protocols and found NOTHING.

Joan had warned me about Tritrichomonous Foetus. It’s pretty much impossible to test for, though we did do a PCR fecal test (negative) and treatment can cause neurological damage and may not even work. I was to a point where I didn’t want to go into the foster room because it would take over an hour to clean it every time I entered it. I was so angry and frustrated that I imagined kicking the kittens outside, but I would NEVER DO THAT EVER. Instead I just cried as I scrubbed the floor yet again. The kittens were oblivious to my suffering. They were not sickly at all, unless you counted them leaking stool out of their rear ends while they were playing.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Yes, it's poop. The poor kittens couldn't have much of anything soft in their room because it would get filthy so quickly. I don't think any of us got any decent rest that month.

I put the cats on a raw diet. They got better quickly, so as the kittens got adopted, their new families had to promise to keep them on the raw diet. So far, so good.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. The good with the bad...de-wormer for the kittens first followed by a freeze-dried chicken heart treat.

The highlight of the month was my play date in NYC with Mario Arbore who is an architect by day and fantasy cat furniture designer by night. I can’t do better than to have a buddy who builds cat furniture, right? His business is called Square Paws (humans measure space in square feet, so Mario’s coined the term “square paws” to indicate how cats measure space).

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Mario putting the moves on Fluff Daddy.

Mario had been graciously helping me design a brand new foster room for Kitten Associates. We’d bounced a few ideas around over the summer that were truly inspired. The main foster room in my home is totally run down and I want to create a showpiece for our kittens and to allow us to increase adoptions and have a safer, more entertaining home for our fosters. Mario is incredibly creative and though our workload has prevented us from locking down a theme, I hope we’ll get there in 2018.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Uncle Mario surprised Fluff Daddy and the rest of the kitty-clan with a hand-built giant mouse trap for our cats! Check out more of Mario's wild designs at Square Paws.

October

The Big Chocolate Show returned after being on hiatus for a few years and boy was I happy it came back. The show was fantastic. I learned that there’s some kickass chocolate coming from Ecuador and that I will eat as many samples of chocolate as the vendors will hand out.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Thank God for chocolate.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Thunder Cake and Wonder Waffles get adopted together!

With Buddy, Belle and many of the kittens adopted, I took time to focus on trying to make a living and for a quick escape to New York City!

©2017 Robin AF Olson. I actually left the house! Here I am at NY ComicCon where I got to meet one of my idols, Bob Camp, who did the animation art for Ren & Stimpy. I also had a chance to get back to work as a Graphic Designer. I love working with Royal Bobbles on their carton graphics for the main cast of Better Call Saul.

I also had the honor of creating the carton for Bob Ross, the afro-hairdo-headed painter who had a show in the 1970s on PBS that’s in re-runs on Netflix even today.

To see more examples of my design projects, visit Ultra Maroon Design.

The biggest thrill was having a chance to design the new cartons for over half a dozen of The Walking Dead figures. Those designs are still in development so I can’t show them, but I’m crossing my fingers they’ll be greenlighted into development in 2018. The only problem with this project was I felt I needed to watch all 8 seasons of TWD so I could do a better job with the design. It’s a compelling and interesting show, but watching the entire program over the course of a month left me feeling a bit paranoid. I had to fight off the urge to strap a weapon to my leg when I did a run to the grocery store.

November

Waverly found her forever home with a retired couple named Molly and Sam. I was thrilled that the cat we feared was feral was really just a sweet, mild-mannered lady. Her kittens, Willoughby and Weatherby were adopted together over the summer.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Dear Waverly with her daughters.

Then one night, just before Thanksgiving, my dear 16-year old cat, the Mascot of this blog, Spencer vomited. It was a lot of food. He sounded like he aspirated some of it. Normally I’d wait it out and see how he did, but something told me to go to the vet right NOW because they were going to close soon.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Waverly on her Gotcha Day with Sam & Molly.

Dr. Mary found a big mass in Spencer’s abdomen and feared it was an aggressive cancer. So began our journey of tests, scans and treatments until we realized that the next step would have to be surgery or palliative care and prepare to say goodbye. We'd already lost 4 cats in 2017. I prayed there wouldn't be another.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. The x-ray that changed everything for Spencer.

December and Beyond

Every time my cats get really sick, I get sick with worry. I try to take a breath, have faith, focus on my cat, but I often find myself not sleeping, not being able to concentrate on work and wanting to bury my head in the sand. But it was Spencer. I had to face whatever it was. I had to face that maybe this was it and I had to face that I couldn’t afford to provide surgery for my beloved cat even if there was a chance it could give him more time.

I almost didn’t ask for help, but in the end I did do a fundraiser. Thanks to A LOT of REALLY REALLY REALLY AWESOME people, we raised just enough to have the surgery done. I still can’t believe it happened at all and am blown away that we got the funds together in just four days.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. What do you mean SURGERY?!

Now that I had the funds, I had to decide for sure if we were going to move forward because there were lots of risks involved and quite a few could happen after the surgery was over.

On December 5th, Dr. Weisman removed a 6cm mass off the very tip of Spencer’s pancreas. The amazing thing was it wasn’t cancerous, but there WAS small cell lymphoma found in other areas. It’s extremely rare that a cat has a benign mass like Spencer’s and I was so grateful, because those sorts of masses often are very aggressive cancers and lymphoma is slow-growing. At the time, I didn’t know if removing the mass would help him, but now, a month later, I can say that Spencer is so much better that he often surprises me.

He’s had a lot of ups and downs and I have to carefully monitor what he eats because he did get pancreatitis after surgery. He’s eating all right, not quite enough. He’s given me some very bad scares, like trying to eat cat litter when he got badly constipated and was battling anemia (He lost a lot of blood during surgery and I read that cats who lick cement or cat litter often are anemic.).

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Doing well and I am oh so very very very grateful to have this extra time with my boy.

We recently did new blood tests to confirm the pancreatitis and anemia and were surprised to see Spencer’s kidney values had improved some.

Today, Spencer’s getting up the stairs to come to bed and tuck me in just like he used to do. He’s also smacking foster cat Andy in the face and chasing after toys. He LOOKS better. His eyes aren’t so sunken. He’s grooming himself more. I honestly am completely thrilled to see him like this.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Naked belly requires a heated bed for full napping comfort.

It’s time to start him on Chlorambucil, a form of chemotherapy that we hope will retard the growth of the lymphoma and help him feel even better. I already have him on CBD Oil, which may also help and will certainly keep him comfortable even if it doesn’t effect the cancer. I’ve decided to put off starting him on prednisilone because it IS a steroid and Spencer’s oncologist is ok with not using it right away. I’m hoping the CBD oil will take the place of the pred for now. Why? Because steroids really do a number on the body and I’d rather help give him vitality and protect his failing kidneys for as long as I can.

Needless to say, with all the vet runs and care Spencer needed, Christmas cards didn’t get printed and I didn’t do much to plan for “the day.” Somehow it was still a really nice holiday, aside from all the guilt I had for not getting everything done and for not being able to buy presents for anyone except Sam.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Our Holiday e-card.

Sam and I have had one thing after another go wrong with our finances and honestly I’m terrified that if things don’t improve we will lose our home. We’re trying to keep the faith and we’re both working as hard as we can. So many people have it far worse off than we do, I can’t complain. I’m happy I have a home, it’s not on fire or swept away by a hurricane. I have my dear cats, as much as they often annoy me, they’re still one of the few reasons I get out of bed in the morning.

©2018 Robin AF Olson. Bye bye Sprinkie! I'm going to miss you!

And I’m determined, after nearly eight years of constant fostering, to take this winter off and focus on work and getting funds for Kitten Season. The other cat rescue in town surprised everyone by deciding to close after many years.

Their reason, they aren’t needed any more, which is completely absurd. They spun it into making it sound like they solved the feral and free-roaming cat problem in Newtown so they can look like heroes and get out of doing rescue any longer. It just puts a bigger strain on Kitten Associates so we’ll need to ramp up.

©2018 Robin AF Olson. Macaroon is a total goof head who loves to fetch her pom pons. Her new family promised to make sure she has as many pom pons as her heart desires.

I expect 2018 to be very busy for us as we shoulder more responsibility in helping local cats, but in a way I’m excited for the challenge and crazy as it seems, I really do miss having little ones here.

Here’s to 2018. May we all have a safe, loved, prosperous and Happy New Year!

Oh, and the last two kittens from the #SweetSuperhero rescue were adopted just after Christmas. Congratulations to the Mighty Macaroon and Professor Sprinkles!

©2018 Robin AF Olson. Last night Mackie and Sprinkie met their new family. Here's Suzanne and Maddie, totally psyched to have their first kitties ever!

-----------------A few hours later------------------

….I just got a text message…“Robin, I just found a kitten. Can you take him?”

©2018 Robin AF Olson. Uh oh...

(continued from ch. 1 and ch. 2)

For a long time now I’ve had this calming feeling as I take my walk around the neighborhood. I’m enchanted by the wind as it scoops up the dried autumn leaves causing them to swirl and dance, and equally charmed by two squirrels who playfully chase each other across a well manicured lawn. I hear birds chirp merrily along as I see their silhouettes on a sun-kissed branch. It reminds me that I’m part of all these things and we’re all part of something much bigger.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Another day, another walk.

On a deeper level, I feel a state of interconnectedness that has no sense of time. It just is. It is just now, but it also feels like all of it has already happened, will happen, is happening. It’s a very big feeling in my soul that as I take another step I’ve already finished my walk, it’s another day, it’s the first time I tried to take a walk and could only walk to the top of the driveway, it’s years from now when I can’t walk any more. It’s not a sad feeling. It feels full, like I don’t have to worry about Spencer because in each breath he’s just being born or has already passed away or is purring on my lap all at the same time. It’s fluid, not tangents on a path. It’s more like a river with a wild current that curls and froths and bubbles up around itself and back again.

-----------------------

The other day Sam and I finally moved an old tube TV set out of our bedroom to make a space to add a litter pan, now that Nora is 17. She still gets around fairly well, but we’d like her to have a pan upstairs so she doesn’t have to travel too far. Moving the TV was no joke. It’s awkwardly weighted and there’s nothing to hold onto, just smooth edges. We managed to slide it down the stairs on a big flat cardboard box with a blanket wrapped around it like a sling. I held the sling and pulled towards myself as Sam guided it down the stairs. Somehow we didn’t break the TV or our legs.

There’s a place at the town dump where they recycle old electronics. It’s inside an old semi-truck trailer. I wasn’t certain how we’d get the TV out of the car and make the 12 steps or so trip to the trailer. I said as much aloud as Sam opened the hatchback of his old red subaru. A man unloading his car ahead of us heard what I said and offered to help carry the TV. It was such a kind, surprising gesture and I was so very grateful for his help. It made me less sad that in this moment we were throwing away something that took me many hours of work to earn the money to pay for. There was a time I yearned to be able to acquire a nice TV for my bedroom and it was quite an accomplishment to get one, but now it was junk, maybe salvage for its parts and that's about it. This TV saw me through a few uncomfortable days or weeks when I was sick and had to stay in bed, but for many years it’s only gathered dust in the corner. I haven’t even turned it on. It’s too old to work with a digital cable box.

Sam says for me to think that yearning for something and knowing, even in that yearning, that the object is already decayed and dead is very Buddhist of me. He also said something about a relation to quantum mechanics and atoms but that’s too far over my head. The gist of all this pondering is that if you take a step back far enough and look at the world, heck the universe and beyond, we’re all just made up of stardust in different, constantly ever-changing forms. I suddenly feel like I understand reincarnation in a way I never did before. It’s very likely that the form I was in before I was a cat mom was something else. It may not have been a human, it could have been a little bit of many different things, even an old tv. What happens to my body next is it will become a different form that will become a different form again and again. It makes me feel a little bit less sad about Spencer’s future. He’s already part of me and I of him. It’s all the same little bits of stardust, just in different shapes.

Monday 12/4/17

Somehow I managed to raise $4300 in 4 days to cover Spencer’s surgery. I honestly don’t know how I could be so lucky and so honored to have so much support. The stress, the fear of if I could raise the money in time, did a number on me. I didn't know if we'd make it until the night before his surgery date.

I hate to ask for help, but I really felt that doing the surgery was the right thing for Spencer and I needed to make it happen. With a mass inside him, at least it was uncomfortable and, at most, it was killing him and needed to be removed. I assumed it was carcinoma because there was a mass and not tell-tale inflammation that would make us consider it was lymphoma. Big masses usually mean, big bad things. In the morning we’d have a beginning of an answer when Dr. Deb opened Spencer’s abdomen and took a look inside.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Our last morning together before surgery. Spencer's belly was shaved to do the ultrasound the week prior, but even more was removed later that day.

The night before surgery, Spencer ate well and purred away, as he always does. He came upstairs and got into bed and tucked me in as he’s often done over the years. I had to sleep in a weird position so I didn’t bother him. It was an honor to do that. I didn’t know if it would be our last night together. I didn’t know if he’d ever be able to come upstairs again or if he’d even survive the procedure. I was sick with worry and kept wondering if this was the right thing to do. I could still call it off and just do chemo and hope that did the trick and maybe he’d have a better life, maybe shorter, but less pain…I had to stop over-thinking it. I’d consulted 4 vets and 3 said to do the surgery. In my gut I felt we had to try and give Spencer a chance. I just prayed I wasn’t wrong.

Tuesday 12/5/17

I tried to be cheerful about taking Spencer to the vet, think positive, non-jinxing thoughts, even though I felt sick to my stomach. I wore my brand new Lil Bub Sweater. It’s so colorful and adorable, I felt like Bub was watching over us and would keep Spencer safe. How could anything bad happen if I was wearing something so upbeat, right? I told myself that no matter what happened, my memory of Spencer would never leave my heart. I could still hear his wheezing even if he didn’t sleep near me any longer. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen. I couldn’t control anything. I just had to remain present, be kind, and be open to however things unfolded. I had to be prepared to say goodbye, knowing I did everything I could, even if one day soon I would hate myself for making a choice that ended in Spencer losing his life. I gave Spencer a kiss and handed him over to the vet tech. I tried not to burst into tears.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Traffic cop, Spencer.

I gave the vet tech a new ziplock bag with a note on it to please save all of the fur they shaved off of Spencer’s belly. I wanted to keep it to make a memorial out of his fur one day. I was embarrassed to ask for such a silly thing when surgery was all I should focus on, but being a realist I also knew I might need that fur sooner than I’d like to admit.

I was told that surgery was going to begin around 11:30 AM. In a way, I wish they hadn’t told me. It was possible that at the last minute an emergency would come into the hospital and that they’d have to bump Spencer’s procedure to later in the day. Alternatively, I knew that if the procedure was quick, they either got the mass out or Dr. Deb decided it couldn’t be removed at all.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. It's time.

I sat with my phone either next to me or I held it in my sweaty hand. The ringer was turned on and turned up. I kept checking the time. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour. My heart started to sink as it approached 2PM. Finally, Dr. Deb called.

“We go it out! All set! His blood pressure went down a bit too much during the procedure but we were able to get him back up. He’s in recovery now and we’ll be keeping a careful watch on him.”

Dr. Deb explained that the mass had been attached to the very tip of one of the lobes of Spencer’s pancreas. She had to remove that tip, but it was only a very little bit. Even so there was concern that Spencer would get pancreatitis, which would be a very hard on him. It’s something that scares the heck out of most cat parents because it can go on and on causing the cat to not want to eat. If it goes on too long, they can get “fatty liver” disease and die unless there’s a lot of intervention on the cat parent’s part, even a feeding tube may be required. We’d have to be very careful.

The good news was that Spencer’s liver, which had shown lesions on ultrasound, was in very good shape-no signs of cancer there. Dr. Deb said she looked at everything else in his abdomen and everything looked as she would expect. The pathology of the mass would take 3-5 business days so I figured it would be the following week before we knew what kind of cancer it was.

The game plan now was go visit Spencer that night and hopefully get him home the next day.

Spencer was alive, for now. The next few days were going to be really hard on him. I needed to stay strong, but first I needed to take a nap. I felt like I hadn’t slept in a decade from all the stress.

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Around 10PM Sam and I drove to NVS to visit Spencer. I tried to prepare myself for seeing him stitched up, wearing the dreaded “cone of shame” around his neck, probably looking a lot older and weak.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Nothing is a worse indignation than the cone of shame.

But before we could see him we had to wait until they could get him ready for our visit. They had a nearly record number of animals being treated-about 18-at the time, so we had to wait for them to move Spencer into an exam room. While we waited, a couple came in with a pug dog. We knew what happened well before they got close to the reception desk-a skunk sprayed their dog. My GOD did the place suddenly stink to the high heavens. The lady kept apologizing, saying she’d changed her clothes three times. Lady, it’s not YOU that got sprayed!

The dog got scratched by the skunk but it didn’t even need a stitch. They needed to update the dog’s rabies shot, but otherwise he didn’t need anything other than about 50 baths. The receptionist shooed them out the door saying they should have called first so they could have treated the dog outside the building. As it was the place had no open windows and we were all suffering. The couple went into the vestibule between the two front doors because it began to rain. It only created an inescapable stink-zone that everyone who entered or existed the building was going to have to walk through. I started to wonder if all the bags of chips in the nearby vending machine were going to stink like skunk, too.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Baby food to the rescue.

We were finally able to go visit Spencer. Thankfully he was too drugged up to be bothered by how badly Sam and I and my Lil’ Bub sweater smelled. His pupils were huge. He waxed and waned between being asleep and being crabby. The tech told us he hadn’t eaten. I offered him a spoonful of chicken baby food. He furiously licked at it, going through the entire jar of food as fast as I could spoon it out. We made a huge mess because we weren’t allowed to take his e-collar off, so some of the food went onto the plastic barrier and some into his mouth.

I took a few breaks to wipe off his face and get the collar cleaned up. Sam held Spencer up so he didn’t fall over. He had an IV line in his leg and the pain meds made him weak. Even with all that it was good to see him eat. I hoped it was a good sign.

Since Spencer got crabbier the longer he had to sit up, we decided to get him settled back in his cage for the night. It would be our first night apart in 15 years, but I knew he was in good hands.

Weds 12/6/17

Spencer pretty much hates being messed with, for any reason. Even drugged up he red-zoned at NVS to the point of them realizing he’d do better at home then be in the hospital for another day. I couldn’t argue the point. I’d set up my home office as his space for the next two weeks of recovery. I’d also be ripping that cone off him the second we got home. If he tore his stitches out that was on me, but he’d be a lot happier without the cone on and hopefully he’d be too tired to do much with the stitches for the next few days.

This is when I decided I better write down everything I was doing with him in case things took a turn for the worse. I made a list of all his pain meds (buprenex, gabapentin, onsior) and when they were to be given. I wrote down what he was eating and how much. I made notes if I noticed he was having side effects-which he did-like diarrhea and extreme weakness. I knew I had to just see this through. I had to support Spencer’s needs, keep him warm and clean. Make sure he ate enough and was comfortable. He might not be himself for some time. I had to have faith he would be feeling better in week or two.

Thursday-Friday

Spencer was a mess. He was so weak he could barely make the trip of a few steps to his litter pan. Once in the pan he would fall over and just lay in the litter. Thankfully I had been meticulous about keeping his pan clean, but seeing him laying there broke my heart. I helped him up, careful not to touch his belly. He strained to pass stool, but could not go. I looked up side effects of all the meds and called the vet. One by one I pulled him off most of the pain meds a day or more early because he was just too sick from them.

Sam gave Spencer fluids every day. It helped him feel better. I gave him an injection of B12 and offered him raw chicken liver. He’d lost 40 mL of blood during surgery. No wonder he felt awful.

Spencer barely moved. He mostly slept. I kept out of my office so he could have peace and quiet. Not being bothered by the other cats was good for him, too, so my door stayed closed.

That night I called NVS. Spencer just wasn’t eating well and I wanted to start him on Cerenia, which combats nausea and could possibly help him want to eat. I started him on the medication that night and prayed it would work by morning.

Saturday 12/9/17

The first real snow fell. It would have been something to enjoy if I could forget the guilty feeling that we didn’t rake the leaves out of the front yard yet and now we’d probably have to wait until spring to do it. Spencer wasn’t eating very well and sleeping a lot. I spent time brushing him because he likes it and he needed it. I hoped the comfort it gave him would help him want to eat, but he had a long way to go before getting back to his old self. I was very worried about his appetite issues so I called our vet and asked for an appetite stimulant if we really needed it-we did.

Sunday 12/10/17

Spencer wasn’t eating more than a few bites of food. I offered him a zillion different options. He’d eat, at most, an ounce of food. I offered him food about 10 times that day. I added it all up and it came to 3 ounces, barely half of what he should have been eating. The good thing was that Spencer was a bit brighter. He was grooming himself and though he still had diarrhea, he was not falling into the litter pan any more.

Now if he would just EAT.

Monday 12/11/17

We gave Spencer mirtazapine, an appetite stimulant. I got varied answers on how long it would take to work-the average sounded like a few days. In the meantime Spencer’s appetite was still lousy and I finally began to syringe-feed him a meal once I’d seen if he’d eaten enough over the day. If he didn’t, I syringe-fed him.

What was interesting was that he seemed basically ok with it. I expected a fight but he almost appreciated it. He even ate something about an hour after I syringe-fed him. I started to wonder if he just needed a jump start to get going.

By now Spencer definitely looked a lot better. The contusions on his belly were starting to fade and though he didn’t move around too much, he was much sturdier on his paws than before.

Tuesday 12/12/17

Dr. Deb called. The results were in. I expected her to say carcinoma, but she didn’t. Dr. Larry, my vet for over 20 years, has this joke about my cats. They’re called “Olson cats.” The reason why is that more often than not, my cats have things go wrong that he has either never seen before or so rarely sees that it’s only because my cats are the ones it happens to. He even knows to look for the weird diagnosis when I bring my cats in for an exam.

It’s extremely rare that a big mass in a cat isn’t cancer, but the mass in Spencer’s abdomen, is NOT CANCER. It’s benign. It’s gone. It’s over and done.

It’s also extremely rare that removing a non-cancerous mass leads to the discovery of actual cancer, but it did. Spencer DOES have cancer. Cells were detected that are “consistent with small cell lymphoma,” so it’s not 100% sure but it’s pretty darn likely.

That said, it kinda IS a miracle because if a cat is going to get cancer, then small-cell lymphoma is the one to get. It’s treatable for a good long time. It grows slowly. It’s not an expensive treatment and Spencer can possibly have a good year or MORE of quality life. That would put him at about 17-18. If it had been carcinoma, we’d be lucky to get 9 months, if that. More likely we’d get about 3 months.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. The power of the Lil' Bub sweater is strong. Good Job, Bub!

And as the day passed, and the fog of the shocking news lifted, I realized that one thing was very clear-doing the surgery was the right thing to do. If we hadn’t done it we would have assumed it was a carcinoma and treated him with the wrong chemo drugs. It would have been a waste in so many ways, but now we know what it is, what to do, and how to do it…or do we?

But this is an Olson-cat, so things may go a little differently than one would expect.

Next up…meeting with the oncologist and considering a potentially cutting edge treatment that could be a game-changer. The only problem is there’s no research on it yet, only anecdotal information for dogs, and even less for cats. Oh yeah and Spencer's eating...cat litter!

Note from Robin: Thank you VERY MUCH to everyone who made this story possible. Your donations, which ranged from $2 to hundreds of dollars, all added up to making Spencer's surgery a reality. YOU are his lifeline, his rescuers, his friends, and for that I am eternally grateful.

©2017 Robin AF Olson Thank you from Spencer, too.

The semi-truck appeared over the crest of a hill on a curve in the road. For a moment our vehicles faced each other as I travelled in the opposite direction. All I had to do was stay on my side of the lane and all would be well, but I couldn’t help but feel the desire to turn the wheel hard left. It would take a flick of the wrist to put me into the truck’s path. The impact would certainly destroy my little car and end my life. I was so distraught that the idea of ending it all gave me a momentary reprieve from overwhelming, gutting heartache. I was desperate to stop the pain. As that moment ticked on to the next and the next, I steadied my hands and stayed true, a thick slab of yellow dividing paint on the road the only thing keeping me from making a fatal choice.

A few days later I sit here in my office and try to write. My words have failed to come for so long. I’ve thought over and over about what I would say, how I would let you all know that my love, my friend, my little shadow is going to leave me. I didn’t even want to think about it, I was so shocked at the news. The discovery was revealed so simply, really, but perhaps it was intuition that guided me to do something out of the norm, this one time. Or, maybe my guide was something more divine?

Spencer, the 16-year old mascot of this 12-year old blog, my first “foster fail” 15 years ago, is terminally sick. There is no cure. There are treatments. There may be some things I can do to keep him comfortable for a time. How much time I may have with him has yet to be determined.

This is what I know…

A week before Thanksgiving, one of the cats threw up. Not usually a dire situation, but then Spencer vomited, so I worried there was a virus going around the cats. It was a great volume of food. Spencer has had life-long breathing problems, stemming from scar tissue in his right sinus after suffering from what must have been a terrible infection that occurred a long time before I ever fostered him.

I spent two years doing different tests and treatments thinking he had asthma or allergies, only to find out the most simple answer was the right one. As a result of the scar tissue, Spencer wheezes. I’m always very careful about when he has to be sedated and sadly, because he also can get VERY stressed out in the car (he hyperventilates) and VERY stressed at the vet, I try to limit his trips.

That’s why it was strange that when he vomited, my first reaction was to run him to the vet. He sounded quite bad. I worried he might have aspirated food into his lungs or sinus cavity. I could have opted to wait an hour or two, but my vet was going to close in less than an hour and if I rushed over they could check Spencer out. I was planning on bringing him in for his bi-annual exam in December because his kidneys have started to go downhill and we needed to update his blood work. Something in my gut to told me to go now and not wait. It’s not like I have funds to throw around, but I imagined they’d do an exam and we’d come home and all would be well.

The fates must have aligned that night because Dr. Larry couldn’t see us. His partner, Dr. Mary was the one who examined Spencer not long after we arrived at the clinic. Dr. Mary doesn’t know that examining Spencer is a difficult task. Spencer “red lines” quickly, often hissing and snapping with Dr. Larry. He has to be quick about it or Spencer can require oxygen he gets so upset.

But Dr. Mary is always upbeat and cheerful and speaks so sweetly to all of her patients. She’s very soothing for all of us to be around. She didn’t know about Spencer’s history. I even warned her not to do too much, but she cheerfully continued her exam, while Spencer’s pupils began to dilate with rage when she palpated his abdomen.

“I feel a mass!” Dr. Mary exclaimed.

Dr. Mary's cheerful veil fell for a moment. Sam and I both said that maybe it was stool she was feeling. We’d just brought our senior girl, Nora, in the week before for the same issue-raw fed cats often have very hard, crumbly stool. Dr. Mary shook her head no. She couldn’t break up the mass. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She asked if she could do blood work and an x-ray as my knees went weak with fear.

I agreed we should do the tests if Spencer would allow it, while I tried not to cry. Maybe it was just constipation? Maybe he was just fine. Maybe she was wrong.

Spencer’s blood work looked ok. His kidney function was a bit better in one area and a bit worse in another. Mostly he was doing all right, which was great, but then she showed me Spencer’s x-ray. It was very clear there was a big mass in his abdomen. She explained that it looked like it was in Spencer’s omentum-it’s like a net that holds the intestines in place. She felt it was likely some sort of cancer, but that we should get an ultrasound done right away to learn more.

All I could think was “no...no…not CANCER…not my baby!”

Dr. Mary was very kind and stayed late, even though the clinic had closed for the day. She got Dr. K on the phone to find out if she could come the next day to do the sonogram. Thankfully she could, but it would have to be first thing in the morning. I couldn’t be there. I’d injured my knee over a month ago and was starting physical therapy. Sam said he’d get Spencer to the appointment, but I wanted to skip my therapy and take him. It was a mess trying to juggle Sam’s busy schedule along with feeding all the other cats and foster kittens, while I tried to figure out how to maneuver rush-hour traffic to get to my appointment.

Somehow I managed to keep it together, thanking Dr. Mary for staying late, being polite to everyone and thanking them for helping Spencer, but the second after we left the clinic and the door closed behind us, I burst into tears, nearly howling with anguish.

The next morning, as I drove to physical therapy, I started adding up how I was going to pay for all of this, get Spencer what he needed, and hopefully find out this was all just a big scary monster and that everything was going to be okay.

Except that it wasn’t okay.

Dr. K had to sedate Spencer he was so upset. She found small lesions on his kidney and his liver. The mass in his abdomen might be connected to the “tail” on his pancreas or his bile duct. They called me during the test to ask if I wanted them to do needle biopsies of these organs and the mass and I answered yes right away. We couldn’t waste any time, even though I knew that needle aspirates don’t always provide a definitive diagnosis. We had to try.

But the needle biopsies caused Spencer to have internal bleeding. He couldn’t come home for now. He’d have to stay for the day. They would do a PCV (packed cell volume) test on him every few hours to make sure the bleeding was stopping. I thought I was going to faint from stress. After the shock of the bad news, now I had to worry that the test was going to kill Spencer before I even knew what was going on.

By closing time, Spencer was allowed to come home. The bleeding had slowed and it looked like he would be all right. We were to keep him comfortable and give him time to recover. The test results might take a day or two so there was nothing more to do for now.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. The setup in my office for Spencer.

I have a huge dog bed in my office that has a pet safe heated pad on it. I set up a litter pan not far from the bed and a water dish nearby since Spencer drinks water due to his kidney problems (he gets sub q fluids too). I didn’t want him to have to go too far for anything. He needed to rest and get the sedation drugs out of his system. He walked around like a drunk, but thankfully was very hungry after his ordeal. He ate well, then retired to his bed.

Spencer stopped coming upstairs to “tuck me in” as he has done so many nights over the years. Spencer barely left my office, though in all honesty I didn’t give him much reason to. Spencer would join us in the living room once a day for about an hour but then would wobble back to his heated bed. His appetite was okay, not great. He was still Spencer, but in those days it seemed like he aged a million years.

During those next few days I had terrible anxiety wondering when the test results would come in. I started to pace around the house during the time when Dr. Mary might call-usually either when she first got in for the day or at the end of the day. Around those times I had my phone in my hand, a pad of paper and a pen nearby so I could take notes. I knew that whatever she told me, I’d probably blank out. Better to write some things down so I could look everything up later.

But there was no call Thursday or Friday.

I felt like a zombie. I couldn’t concentrate. I did some research and talked to a few friends. I played a guessing game with Sam about when and how and why I wasn’t hearing from Dr. Mary (an asteroid hit the lab and Spencer’s samples were destroyed…she had an emergency come in and would call me tomorrow…she’d call when I was going to the bathroom).

I imagined we were probably dealing with an aggressive cancer because Spencer had a mass, not thickening of the intestines or lymph nodes, which would suggest a more treatable lymphoma of some kind. I wanted to know how the Hell this could have happened. I prayed to God that it was just some weird benign thing, not something that was slowly killing my cat. Every time I checked on Spencer my gut hitched with fear. I didn’t know if he was slowly declining…did the needle hit something bad? Was he still bleeding internally?

As Spencer slept, I could see his bubblegum pink belly where he’d been shaved. I saw the tiny round red scabs from where the needles entered his body. I wondered if the fur would grow back before Spencer died. I wished I didn’t think things like that.

©2017 Robin AF Olson. Spencer dreams while I have painful thoughts.

Saturday I took Annie, one of my foster cats, to the vet. I didn’t want to bring up Spencer’s test results. I didn’t want to talk about him. I didn’t want the staff to give me that look, the one I’ve seen too many times, the one that says “I’m so sorry I know your cat is going to die. I’m sorry I can’t do something about it. I’m not sure if I should talk to you about it or not so I’ll just not ask out of respect because I also fear that you’ll burst into tears…“

Annie checked out all right. She’d had a cough for a few weeks and I wanted to make sure it was nothing serious. I couldn’t handle any more bad news. I spoke with Super-Deb, the vet tech and my friend. She talked to me about Spencer after I asked her to review his ultrasound report. She explained that because it was a mass it was probably an aggressive cancer. I was right in my thinking, but I wished I was wrong.

She reminded me that what comes next will partly be due to how Spencer handles being at the vet. He won’t sit still for an IV full of chemo drugs. He might not be a good candidate for surgery, even. She surprised me by saying that Spencer was the top 5 angriest cats she’d ever dealt with—and she’s dealt with a lot of cats in her over 20 years as a tech.

So I went home, heartbroken, wondering when I’d get the news. The weekend passed and so did Monday. I started to get angry, wondering what was taking so long. Of course the call came when I didn’t expect it-when I was just leaving my second physical therapy appointment. When I was alone in the car.

It was Dr. Mary, sounding as cheerful as ever. Somehow the word CANCER didn’t sound so bad when she said it. Even when she said she was sorry, her voice softening ever so slightly, as she suggested I take Spencer to an oncologist I didn’t get upset. I’d already made an appointment for him with Dr. McDaniel since it was Thanksgiving week and I worried that if I didn’t move fast we’d lose another week. I didn’t cry. I already knew it was carcinoma and I was resigned to this truth. This news was just sealing Spencer’s fate.

The day before Thanksgiving, when so many other people were racing around, doing their final errands before celebrating with their family the next day, I was sitting in a waiting room with my beloved cat waiting to talk to an oncologist. I never want to be an ungrateful person, but I honestly did not feel thankful for anything this year. It’s been financially the worst year ever-with my poor fatally sick foster kittens nearly bankrupting Kitten Associates, too. I wrote a very very long blog post that I’m not sure you’ll ever read, but it talks in great detail about how very broken I am and what this year took out of me.

I’ve sacrificed the past 7 years of my life to saving lives and I’m exhausted. My family, for the most part, is gone. I’m very lonely. Holidays have lost their joy. They too often feel like just another day. It shouldn’t be like that for anyone.

And now, after all that, I discover my dear boy Spencer has a heartbreaking secret. I don’t know how I missed it because I watch my cats like a hawk. I try to keep thinking things will get better, but they don’t. I’m a rat in a maze with no way out. It’s hard not to turn the wheel and make it all stop, but I have to find a way.

Spencer needs me. I can’t let him down.

….to be continued….

next up…difficult choices and hopefully how to make good ones...

©2017 Robin AF Olson. A bit worse for wear, my precious boy.

We all face difficult times over the course of our life, but the dark days often come in measured amounts—a spoonful of despair, a cup of grief. We must take a sip, as bitter as it is, knowing that’s the cost of being alive. There’s the dark but there's also the counterpoint of the light, the happy vs the sad. We assume that after a time of heartbreak there will be love again one day. We push against suffering. We can try to cover up the pain with medication, food, or other neurotic reactions, but it never really goes away. Despair forces us to take another sip and another and another, but there are times we know we’ll drown if we have to take just one more. That’s how I’ve felt these past few weeks as I’ve been struggling against the dark, praying for the light to return soon.

Heartache, anxiety and fear have robbed me from being able to write, work, think. As a cat-mom and rescuer, most of what I do has something to do with or for cats. There are bumps in the road that I usually manage, but when a health crisis hits one of them, the all-too-familiar and all-too-painful knot twists my gut, draining my soul. The worse the crisis, the less I can eat or sleep, the more I worry, research, call Vets, try to find an answer while attempting to soothe an anxious, weak, mysteriously sick cat.

©2016 Robin AF Olson. My baby, Spencer, flat, depressed and not eating while Blitzen worries about his old friend.

There was something wrong with Spencer, the mascot of Covered in Cat Hair, my 15-year old shadow. He was lethargic, would not eat, was depressed. He’d been drinking a lot of water and I’d feared it was his kidneys because water drinking can be a sign of kidney disease. At Spencer’s age it's no joke for him to have a problem like this. The issue: getting him to the vet when he’s a very high-stress patient.

This time it was no problem getting him to the vet. That’s how sick he was.

We gave Spencer fluids, hoping it would help him feel better, but it did nothing. I knew we couldn't wait this out. Once at Dr. Larry’s office my mind went into overdrive imagining what was wrong with my dear boy. I thought it could be pancreatitis or that his kidneys or his liver was failing but why? Spencer’s on a fresh diet, with lots of protein. There was no reason something would irritate him like that. It had to be that his kidneys were failing so I worried about how we’d give him fluids when he has a very short fuse.

Dr. Larry did some tests that indicated pancreatitis. It was possible I caught it early but Spencer still needed an ultrasound at the ER Vet as soon as possible to make certain there wasn’t something else going on. They kept him there for the full day because he’d been so stressed out, even though he was weak. Just taking his blood was difficult so they had to let him calm down in a cage for a few hours before trying to get the sample. By the time we got home Spencer was flat and even more depressed than before.

©2016 Robin AF Olson. One of my "go-to" things to tempt a sick cat to eat-chicken baby food. Notice I offer the food on a flat dish and elevate the plate not only to make it easier to reach but so that the aroma of the warmed food reaches Spencer's nose faster. Normally I use a soup bowl to elevate the plate but in this case a tissue box was a good height and nearby.

I didn’t want to take my baby to the emergency vet because over the past year they’ve lost most of their staff and I didn’t know if they were hiring any decent vets. I didn't want to believe the rumors I'd heard. Their prices are crazy-high, but they are also a few minutes drive from my home. It meant less stress on Spencer and they could see him the next day so I agreed and hoped for the best.

Even the short drive to the ER did a number on Spencer. He was open-mouth breathing so they rushed him into an oxygen cage until he could settle down. How the heck where they going to be able to an ultrasound on him if he was flipping out? I feared they’d have to sedate him and the after effects of sedation on his old body. This had to be done, but how would they do it without pushing Spencer into the red zone?

Instead of meeting with the Internist, they went ahead and performed the ultrasound. I was surprised that it only took a few minutes. They went slowly and since Spencer was so ill, he was easier to handle and did not require sedation. I waited anxiously in the exam room, mentally adding up what I feared the bill was going to be for the day. The door opened and there stood Dr. De (her nickname to keep her anonymity). She was very nice and polite. She explained right away that yes, Spencer did have pancreatitis and that the key now was to soothe his belly while getting him to resume eating. There was no sign of cancer and the rest of his organs appeared normal. The concern was that if he didn’t eat soon, I’d have to assist-feed him or what worked much better was the placement of a feeding tube.

Feeding tube? In Spencer? The cat whose claws I can barely trim if I only try one or two at a time? Oh God!

She gave me a list of meds and a schedule along with some bland food (which of course I hated since the ingredients included corn, wheat and soy, but I had to do whatever I could for my boy). I went home and wrote everything out. Pilling Spencer was going to be dreadful but I had to get the job done.

Pancreatitis is no joke and cats can get it once, then never again or they can have flare ups for the rest of their life…or they can DIE.

©2016 Robin AF Olson. I constantly followed Spencer around, but not so close as to make him anxious. As he chose a strange place to lay down, near the stove, I decided to sit down on the kitchen floor, too. Fluff Daddy, ever the jokester decided it was a great time to sit on my lap and watch Spencer with me.

Spencer laid on the floor under the table in front of the sofa. He’d lost a good bit of weight and he was depressed and in pain. I began giving him pain meds and something to help the nausea. I offered him some food but he would not touch it beyond a few licks.

Two of my friends got in touch with me when they heard the news and offered to help me if Spencer did need a feeding tube. They assured me to welcome this if the Vet thought he needed it because it made it much easier to provide nutrition and medications and that most cats (hey, not Spencer!) would not be bothered by it, too much. That feeding tubes could extend or save lives.

A very nice lady named Dee even offered to come to the house and show me how to feed, then clean the setup should Spencer need it. I had to prepare myself for doing this. If he needed it then so be it.

©2016 Robin AF Olson. I took this photo not realizing that Spencer was laying in a large pool of his own urine. He was completely zoned out, between the pain meds and being sick. You can see it effected his pupils as well.

The next morning I woke up to find Spencer sleeping next to me. I was so happy to see him after days of him sleeping under a table, but my joy was short-lived. Spencer was also laying in a pool of his own urine. He had peed on the bed right next to me. He has never done anything remotely like that in his entire life. I wasn’t angry for what he did. I was heartbroken. This was not good. Not good at all.

After a few days of meds, Spencer began to eat on his own. He liked the crappy food so I was glad that he'd eat anything. I offered him many small meals throughout the day and he’d eat a teaspoon or two at most. He began to perk up a little, but I was still worried about taking him off the pain killers. I also wondered if we did something to his food that made him sick in the first place. We make our own raw food from carefully sourced ingredients, but what if we made a mistake? Surely one of our other nine cats would have been sickened, too?

By day five Spencer was off his medications and back to eating his regular diet. He’s still underweight but he’s back to his old self. I think he’s even friendlier than before and he’s not sucking down copious amounts of water, so perhaps the drinking was a way to soothe his digestive tract and not an alert that his kidneys were failing?

©2016 Robin AF Olson. Spencer giving me "lovey-eyes."

But my joy was very short-lived because as Spencer began to improve, our little black cat, Cricket began to go down hill, fast.

Next up: A Semi-feral cat, indeed!