another goodbye

2020 is the year that keeps on giving, isn't it?  We've lost our third kitty this year:  Oscar.

We got Oscar in 2005 at a local adoption event, which was run by New Leash on Life. Apparently his owner had passed away and the family didn't want her two cats. They dropped Oscar and his sibling off at a local rescue without any paperwork or even telling the rescue the cats' names. Given there was no paperwork, we believe he was around three to four years old at the time. I was looking at Prince, who was in a long cage with a bunch of kittens. Prince was six months old and the kittens were just a few months old. He was on one side of the cage, trying to stay away from the kittens. So we decided to get him. Then Bob spotted this cute black and white kitty who was in a cage by himself with  a name tag that read, "Help! Get me out of here!" The poor guy had no name on his cage unlike all the other cats and kittens.  Bob felt sorry for him, so we came home with two cats that day.

We called him Mr. No Name for a while and then eventually settled on "Oscar." He was lovable from the start and we discovered he was a hugger. He liked to be held near our shoulders so he could wrap his paws around our necks and hug us. He was great with the other cats--very tolerant and let them cuddle with him. Eventually most of them seemed to think of him as Dad or even Grandpa in more recent years. 

Even though Oscar was young when we adopted him, he'd already lost most of his teeth. And since there was no paperwork, we have no idea what happened. Although he had virtually no teeth, he wouldn't touch wet food and almost no form of human food, not even tuna fish. The only human food he would touch is ham (lunch meat), which we eventually stopped giving to him. He also had pica, which is a compulsive eating disorder in which people or animals eat nonfood items. He favored plastic bags and wrapping mostly, but also tissues and napkins, which meant we had to make sure anything plastic was thrown away and any tissue boxes were turned over at night. If we didn't, I'd come downstairs in the morning to find half-eaten tissues. He even ate a check once! I had to tell my friend to send me the money she owed via PayPal because my cat ate half the check. 

Oscar has two accomplishments:  he was featured in a banking industry calendar back in 2012, which featured pictures of clients' pets; and that same picture (posted at the beginning of this blog post) I took of him won second place in a photo contest. The prize was a mug with his photo on it, which I still use. 

A couple years ago Oscar was diagnosed with a large mass in his bladder. We were told they could remove it, but it would mean losing more than half his bladder. At his age then, which was about 15 or 16, we decided that would be too invasive and we just left it alone. The vet told us it may or may not be cancer, but if we notice he's coughing a lot and starting to decline, then it's most likely cancer. Surprisingly that never happened and he lived a couple more years with no issues. 

Over the last few months we started to notice Oscar was losing weight, which is pretty normal for a cat that's about 18 or 19 years old. Then a couple weeks ago we noticed the weight loss had accelerated and he was basically just a skeleton with fur--very matted fur, as he'd stopped grooming maybe a year ago and brushing wasn't always enough. We knew it was almost time. I then started noticing he wasn't really eating, but was still drinking, jumping, and playing a bit. But he was also behaving strangely, as though he was going senile. For example, he would stay in the bathroom most of the day--a room he never ventured into--or howl very loudly for no reason. A few times I turned on the shower not knowing he was in there. When I went to get into the shower, he was in there drinking the water and was soaking wet. It seemed like he either didn't know the water was hitting him or just didn't care anymore. I had to physically remove him from the shower. Last Thursday afternoon he started sleeping a lot more and Emily snuggled with him all day. Friday he was in his bed all day and didn't come out for food, water or the litter box. He also started sounding a little congested. By Friday night, it was clear it was time to bring him in to be euthanized:  Bob picked him up and he just laid there and seemed very lost, like he didn't know what was going on. His eye was glued shut by gunk, too. We struggled for a couple hours, trying to decide if we should take him to the 24 hour vet hospital or if we should wait until the following day to see if he would pass in his sleep or if not, we could bring him to our own vet. We decided it would be cruel to wait until Saturday so we called the vet hospital and brought him in. 

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure Oscar was the cat we've owned for the longest--15 years. He had a very long life and he was a great cat. I'm so glad Bob convinced me we should get a second cat that day at the adoption event. (Although, it's not as though I needed much convincing.) I'm going to miss his hugs and the fact that all the cats seemed to think of him as Grandpa. I guess he was a comforting presence to them, especially Emily--she is really missing him I think, as she's decided I'm now the one to cuddle with.  I won't, however, miss having to hide the plastic bags and tissues! So hopefully Oscar is now with all the other kitties we've said goodbye to over the years. We'll miss him, and so will Emily.