Kitty Kat and Grandma

I talked to my mom today and she told me my little kitty Allie (short for Allegro) had to be put to sleep yesterday. Apparently for the last couple of weeks she's been dryheaving horribly, and when stuff finally comes up (this is really gross) it's like these giant masses, like chunks, and my mom said it smelled like poop. But then afterwards, she would run to her food and eat ravenously.

Turns out, she had cancer, with a mass the size of a tennis ball blocking her lower intestine, so no food would digest, which would explain why her vomit smelled like poop, and she she was starving.

Allie was the only kitten of a litter that my other cat, Easter, had when I was in high school that I kept. I gave the rest away. She was born with one of her eyes sealed shut, and everybody thought it was ugly, so naturally that's the one of the litter I wanted to keep. The vet eventually discovered that her eyelid was just turned inside out, so after a couple months' of maturity, they popped it back the way it was supposed to be, and she was fine after that. She started out very tiny, and about halfway through her little life, she started getting really fat and mean. But I loved her anyway, because I felt a kinship. Last fall, her momma, Easter, wandered away from my parents' house and disappeared. They haven't seen her since. Either she got carried away by coyotes, because my parents live a bit out of town, even though it's encroaching in all around them in the form of these hideous, gated subdivisions, or she wandered off somewhere to die peacefully and alone. I hope it was the latter. I miss my little kitties. Easter would always curl up on me and fall asleep every time I came home to visit. And almost every night, Allie would curl up between my dad's feet on his recliner while he was watching television. I think they had a special bond as well.

In happier news, my Grandma, who has advanced Alzheimers, is doing slightly better. She was in the hospital for weeks and weeks following a horrible fall she took last winter which resulted in a broken hip. She had to have surgery (twice, because the first time the wound didn't heal properly and was leaking fluid and infected) and then rehab, and she's a bad patient to begin with, but when you throw Alzheimers into the mix, she was kind of a nightmare to deal with. But she finally went home, and my mom and uncle hired a live-in nurse that my grandma just loves, apparently. They tried to do that once before, right after they had to take away my grandma's car keys, and my grandma absolutely hated the girl. She was a really sweet little early-thirties nurse, very quiet and demure, but my grandmother resented her very presence, and she was duly done away with. But this new lady is about 70, not a whole lot younger than my grandma, and my mom said they've become great friends, just driving all over town, and shopping, and baking all kinds of stuff. I'm so glad and relieved, both for my grandmother and my mom, who was doing most of my grandma's caretaking, on top of working about 70 hours a week and taking care of my brother. It was times like when I would talk to my mom when my grandma was in the hospital, and my mom was about to absolutely collapse from exhaustion and stress, and just not knowing what to do anymore, that I would feel so guilty about not living at home and helping out. So in some selfish way, I guess I'm also relieved that I don't have to feel so guilty.

My oldest brother Jeremy, who is married with the kid, is also moving up to Rogers with his family at the beginning of June. He lived in Little Rock, about 3 hours away, and my mom is just ecstatic. She'll finally truly be able to see her grandson grow up, and she already has plans to enroll him in Suzuki cello school this fall. The kid is 3 years old. I love it. I can't wait to see him play songs on his tiny cello that will probably be about the size of a banjo. Maybe he'll grow up to be just like me!

Oh, wait. Well, if nothing else, he'll probably be a better cello player.