Returning from The Journey

My computer blackout (advertised in the previous post) lasted the intended week, but my blog blackout has gone off scale. The reason being... I simply wasn't in the mood. My BWO (Blogging Without Obligation) certification allows me that luxury and I decided to exercise it. Life has been on hold for the last few months as we helped one of our beloved felines transition. Diana left us on June 17th after nearly a year of intensive nursing care and total dedication from my awesome husband and co-cat parent. There aren't enough words to express my feelings of love and gratitude for Martin's total commitment to the task of caring for Diana. He literally put his own life on hold for the past few months in order to dedicate himself to her care. If we were to go by test results and other medical statistics, Diana should have died sometime last year, but, test results and examinations be damned, she lived for months beyond that medical prediction. I'm absolutely convinced it was due to Martin's love and care. Until her dying day, she appeared to be pain free, comfortable, interactive with both us and the other cats, affectionate, playful, and interested in what was going on around her. She loved lying in the sun, or in front of the fireplace, and especially enjoyed sitting in Martin's lap on a suny day out on the patio. Behind the scenes, Martin was feeding her four times a day through her esophageal feeding tube, dealing with the preparation (measuring, grinding, blending, diluting, mixing and orchestrating) of a dozen drugs, administering twice-daily sub-cutaneous fluids, dealing with daily dressing changes, at least twice-weekly vet visits in Vallejo, and bi-weekly vet visits at UC Davis, and countless other ditzy details that would have driven me bonkers. I wasn't totally idle throughout all of this - there still remained the care and feeding of the 21 other cats, preparing Diana's special food, keeping Martin and me fed and in clean underwear, shopping, keeping the garden presentable, and occasionally vacuuming up the substratum of cat fur from our beleaguered carpets.

People who don't know us well and/or who don't appreciate cats, or who think parenting human children is the only worthwhile act of sacrifice, would ask us why we elected to denigrate our health and sanity for the sake of one feline. "Why don't you just put her down?" they would ask. Why? Because that's not the way we do things. It most likely would have come to that sooner or later, but as long as she appeared to be enjoying her life, we had no intention of opting out for our own convenience.

Life is slowly returning to a reasonable accord around here, as we clear up the enormous collection of medical paraphernalia we've amassed over the past year, and rearrange the houses and our life habits to a semblance of normal. (Normal... us???) But the big void that remains after Diana's departure will be felt for a long time to come. We miss her enormously, as do a number of the other fur kids. It bordered on mayhem and chaos a lot of the time, but neither of us would wish it any other way. Life is nothing without our experiences, and Diana gave us one hell of a ride! Thanks, our brave, sweet little girl.