She died

She died.

The news came two minutes before the first staff meeting of the new school year.  

Ellie had been at the Wachusett Animal Hospital less than 12 hours.  The last time I'd seen her, maybe ten hours earlier, she was lying on her side in an incubator, all six pounds of her rising and falling with each urgent, quick breath.  Her eyes, probably blind they told me, were closed.  One butterscotch paw was wrapped in a fuschia bandage that held in place an IV pulsing medicine to her overworked liver.

That hospital that night was our second stop. Our first stop had been the vet. I’d spent the day setting up my classroom and then instead of going home had stopped off to pick up supplies at Target and the Dollar Store. Maybe if I’d gone straight home, things would have been different.

That day, for the first time ever, Ellie didn’t come to the door to greet me when I arrived home. I searched everywhere – closets, the laundry room, even the refrigerator which she would sneak into sometimes while I was retrieving dinner or kitty treats, and finally found her under my bed, curled up in a ball, yellow eyes glittering. She wouldn’t come when I called or even when I got out her fishy snacks and shook them in front of her. So I slid under the bed and pulled her out by her front paws. She yowled and twisted with a ferocity I’d never heard or seen from her before. She clawed at me as I held her, fur matted and damp with urine. There was blood too.

Three times I called the vet. Three times the phone went to voicemail as I paced, with her on my shoulder wrapped in a towel. There was no time to find her carrier so I gently placed her next to me on the front seat and started driving. At first she seemed to sleep. A few blocks from the vet, as we bumped over potholes, she came alive, jumped into the back seat and on her hind legs clawed at the window.

The clerk took one look her at her and called for assistance. They made me wait in the lobby while they examined my baby cat, the youngest of my three, named Eloise after the mischievous Kay Thompson character.

I’d adopted her almost two years earlier when she was about four weeks old and a friend of a friend found her wandering by the side of a busy road.  Ellie loved to drink from a kitten bottle and did so for three months after I adopted her, even though her teeth by then were sharp and strong. She loved solid food too, especially canned whitefish. Each night she fell asleep nestled against my left hip.  Sometimes her snoring woke me up, but I didn’t mind.  

Reality hadn’t set in. When the vet called me in to the examining room, I was expecting at most an expensive prescription. I wasn’t expecting a diagnosis that Ellie was in critical condition. The vet gave me a list of tests and a three figure estimate, or I could opt for euthanasia.  

As long as there was hope for her, I couldn’t imagine letting her go.  She lived to wrestle with her best buddy, mouse-colored Gus Gus, and took quite seriously her main job in the household, annoying to near insanity my neurotic black beauty Molly.  She was so young and until that day was so healthy. I couldn’t let her die when she still had so much living left.

They gave her medicine and ran tests. All confirmed that she was fine except for her liver. All indications pointed to poisoning.  I wracked my brain  struggling to figure out what on earth she could have gotten into.  I had no idea. Anything potentially poisonous was out of cat reach. I’m an experienced pet owner. Plus, my other two cats were fine. 

Hours later Ellie was still hanging in there. There was still hope, but she’d need overnight care, which my vet didn’t provide.  I drove home and got her carrier then drove her to the animal hospital a half hour away.  They were waiting for her with more questions about what on earth she could have eaten. Still no answers. They ran more tests and gave her more drugs. My credit card got even more exercise.  The doc told me to call any time for updates.  

The drive home was quiet and dark. It was late. I knew my older daughter would still be awake so I called her and promised I’d keep her in the loop. She assured me I’d done the right thing, pulling out all the stops for the baby cat.

The next day, Thursday, was the first day back at school, a meeting day. Students would arrive the next week.  I called the hospital as soon as I woke up. The vet was busy caring for another ill animal. The clerk said I could wait and she’d get me an update on Ellie, or I could call back.  I said I was off to work in a few minutes, so I’d call back from there.

Walking into that classroom was disheartening. I’d hoped to be in a different position in a different building. I couldn’t help thinking of  how I’d spent several hours the day before out buying supplies for this room that I didn’t want to be in. And how if I’d been home instead, I’d have gotten Ellie to the vet sooner, and perhaps she’d have more of a chance of living.

I dreaded calling the vet again, especially from this depressing locale. The vet said there’d been no change during the night, and said the only hope was to bring Eloise to another hospital where they could do more tests.  She said Ellie was blind and likely had extensive brain damage, but they weren’t sure how much.  My other option was euthanasia.

The pitch of her voice shifted.  “Can you hold on?” she said. “My assistant is calling to me.” 

As I waited, I decided to tell the doc it was time to let Ellie go.  It seemed inevitable anyhow.  I was thinking of how I’d have to tell my boss I needed to leave.  What if she said no? She’d have to let me leave. I had to say good-bye to my cat.  Would I lose my job if she denied me permission and I left?  Did she have that much power?  Did I even care at that point?  

The vet returned pretty fast. She told me Ellie was coding right then and there. What did I want to do?

My brain shifted to another plane as I told the vet to let her go. It was a no-brainer. The vet stayed on the phone with me as Ellie passed. She assured me my kitten likely died with no pain.

One of my colleagues came into the room as I got off the phone.  He made some sarcastic joke about another fun year coming up.  Our jobs aren’t easy. 

“My cat died. Just now,” I said. "That was the vet.”  

My friend said he was sorry. We shared a few comments about how just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they do. Then we went to the meeting.  

That night, my daughter and I drove together to pick up Ellie. We buried her in the back yard near other pets.  All but Ellie had lived long lives. 

The next day, on my way into yet another school meeting, I got the call I’d been waiting for saying I had a new job in a new place. My first thought was of all that time I wasted buying classroom supplies when I could have been helping my cat. My second thought was how glad I was to be starting someplace new.

I still can’t look at pictures of Eloise without feeling scraped up inside.  I wish I could have done more.