Lucky's Last Days

A month has passed since the events that I am about to describe. It has taken me this long to be able to discuss them without going into hysterics. We will see if I can make it through typing this without crying.
As many of you know, my cat, Lucky the Monkey Cat, for whom this blog is named, has always been a bit of a problem child. Since he was a kitten, he was always a little different, namely unusually aggressive. But aside from this very odd and unexplainable trait, he was always my special little guy. At the end of the day, he would run up to me and implore me to pick him up when I walked in the house. I would hold him on my shoulder like a baby, and he would purr, drool, dig his claws into my back and chew my hair while I would pet him. At night when I would lay down to sleep, he would crawl onto my tummy and insist that I pet him before curling up in a little ball on the pillow I sleep with under my arm, his back resting against the curve created by my arm and my body while I slept on my side. When I would eventually begin to toss during the night, as I usually did, he would make his way down to the foot of the bed and curl up a safe distance from my feet. When I would first begin to stir in the morning, he would lay on his side and stretch, then wait for me to pet his tummy before getting up to eat his breakfast. Being a cat and largely independent, he kept to himself mostly, but when he wanted my attention, he would let me know. If I was reading, he would come sit on my book. If I was texting, he would perch on my leg and swipe at my phone. If I was on the computer, he would try to walk on the keys or pace around my chair meowing. If I was sitting on the couch with a blanket over me, he always had to come nest on or next to my legs. He would get offended when I would get up.
In recent months, Lucky's aggression had started to become a problem. His outburst went from mildly rude to inexplicably violent. His vet and I started him on a Prozac regimen after he flipped out one night and ripped up both of my legs like a wild animal because another cat had come up to the door. For a few months, the Prozac helped, until he had another identical incident early in January. After another trip to the vet, his vet and I decided to add Xanax to his Prozac and give it a few days to see how it took. The first night went off without incident. The second morning he refused to eat his Xanax-laced tuna, so the second night I was forced to give it to him the old fashioned way: throwing it into the back of his mouth, tipping his head back and massaging his throat until he swallowed. Its the sort of thing I had previously done several times when Lucky was on antibiotics for bladder infections. The act of giving him the pill went off without incident, and I started to get us both ready for bed.
The Xanax seemed to hit him all at once. He was having a hard time jumping onto the bed and he seemed a bit wobbly. I picked him up and put him on the bed after 2 failed attempts. He looked a little confused, but after I stood him up and had him walk across the bed and back he seemed ok. I knew he would probably just need help getting in and out of bed for a bit, but that he would eventually snuggle up and go to bed like always. He started to howl softly, which for him could mean a lot of things, usually frustration. I figured he just wanted off the bed so he could eat or use the litter box, so I got up, picked him up and gently set him on the floor. What happened next still haunts me to this day.
Lucky began to howl louder as I made my way to the other side of the bed, the side with a narrow walkway (the size of my nightstand) between the bed and the wall. I turned around and noticed he was behind me. Before I could say anything, Lucky simultaneously howled like a wild cat and leaped from the floor, latching onto my right arm with all four sets of claws and his fangs. I screamed in pain and flung him off, but to no avail. Trapped between the bed, the nightstand and the wall, with no clothes on, with Lucky between me and the door, Lucky charged again, and again, and again, for a total of at least 4 times. Each time, he went for my upper body, tearing up both arms in several places and both breasts with his fangs and his teeth. On one leap, he missed my neck by mere inches. I grabbed blankets and whatever I could to throw on him long enough for me to get to the door, which I eventually did. I had been screaming for help at the top of my lungs, but my roommate, normally a heavy sleeper who had been up sick all night the previous night, was out cold and couldn't hear me this time. I ran, cut, bleeding and naked, out of my room and shut the door behind me. I walked into the bathroom and got the first glimpse of my injuries in the light. I had only 2 or 3 deep cuts on my left arm, but my right arm had over 20, along with 5 or 6 puncture wounds on the inside of my upper arm just below my armpit. My left nipple had sustained about 6 deep scratches and puncture wounds, while my right breast had 2 sets of puncture wounds (2 from his upper and 2 from his lower jaws) and the space between the 2 sets of wounds had already begun to turn hard, red and warm from infection. I was sobbing and still in shock as a dabbed a wet towel at my wounds to clean up the blood seeping from all over my upper body. I cautiously opened the door to my room to get some clothes. During the attack, my hamper full of clean clothes had fallen over near the door, so I grabbed the first tank top and pair of yoga pants off the top, keeping a vigilant eye on Lucky, who was perched on my nightstand. He was now calm, his body still, his tail not swishing, staring at me with a confused look on his face. This was the look he would always give me when I was upset. It's the "Why are you crying, Mommy?" look. This broke my heart. Still sobbing, I looked over at him and said "How could you do this to me?" before hurriedly exiting the room to go get dressed.
(And here we go, here come the tears again.)
After gingerly putting clothes on over my now aching body, I went and woke up Mike so he could go get me some Bactine and liquid bandages. Still crying, I nudged Mike awake, apologized for waking him and asked him if he could go to the pharmacy for me. The look of horror on his face when he saw me was exactly why I couldn't bare to go to the pharmacy myself. "Oh my God...did he do that to you?" Mike felt like crap that he had slept right through the attack and jumped up and went to the pharmacy, leaving me huddled on our couch and Lucky locked in my room. When he got home, I was still crying. I put Bactine and liquid bandages on my cuts and bites (which I would later find out was the wrong thing to do) while Mike called his Mom. He had originally planned on spending the weekend with her, but now he didn't feel right leaving me in the house alone with Lucky. His Mom asked to speak to me, told me how sorry she was and said I need to think about doing something with Lucky. Having already been through too much for one night, I thanked her and said I would think about it. I slept on the couch that night, and for a few nights after.
We called Lucky's vet the next day to report the incident. Meanwhile, I tried to go about my life as best as I could, the weight of a large decision on my mind. After 24 hours, the bite on my right breast began to swell, darken and harden, so I went to urgent care. The bite had in fact, become infected, and putting the liquid bandages on the wound only sealed in the germs, despite a liberal application of Bactine. I was given a tetanus shot and placed on a regimen of pain killers and two kinds of antibiotics for Cellulitis, which is what they diagnosed me with. I think its just the medical term for infected tissue. A month has now passed and the bite is still a little red, though the swelling and hardness has subsided. I am told it may scar this way.
Lucky's vet took almost 2 days to get back to me. During those 2 days, I kept Lucky in his room, and Mike would go in and top off his food and water. We bought him a new litter box rather than having Mike clean the old one. I was not allowed near him, so Lucky was now off his meds. When the vet eventually got back to me, the news wasn't good. "In my opinion, Lucky is not longer a candidate for medication therapy alone. He will have to be completely declawed, and even then we will still have to medicate him because he will become a biter." I had heard of cat's being "defanged" so that was also an option, but it would have to be done with the full front and back declawing. I told Mike to tell the vet thank you and that I would call him back.
At first, the thought of doing whatever I had to to keep Lucky was the only option I considered. Sure, it would be expensive, but what choice do I have? Then I got to thinking about what I was actually c0ntemplating doing.
I need to stress at this point for those of you who don't know how spoiled Lucky was. Because of his history of not drinking enough water and getting bladder infections, he drank filtered ice water from a Rainforest Cafe souvenier glass on my nightstand that originally had been mine. He at food sold exclusively at vets' offices because of his weight and his propensity to bladder infections. He got canned tuna with his medication and turkey straight from the table on holidays. He took his daytime naps on a chenille blanket on my ottoman and had a faux fur blanket at the foot of my bed to sleep on at night. He had the biggest litter box I could find, which I cleaned daily, and a few treasured toys, one of them a toy fish, the rest of them things of mine he coveted, namely hair ties, garter straps, mylar gift wrap bows, stuff like that. He got to be rude to every other living breathing thing on this Earth with little more punishment than the words "That's not good manners, Lucky!" because he would snuggle with his Mommy at night. He was my baby. I had done everything in my power to give him a wonderful, lovely life.
Removing a cat's claws is tantamount to cutting off their fingers and toes. That is how the procedure is done. The recovery in a 9 year old, overweight cat would be especially hard, and he would spend the rest of his life, or at least during the long period of the surgery wounds closing, using shredded newspaper for cat litter. Defanging him would make him unable to eat anything thicker than baby food for the rest of his life. And even after taking all of these measures to mutilate him "for my safety" I would still have to make him into a vegetable with medication in order to even be around him. Loving him like a child and having spent almost a decade giving him a good life, I couldn't bare to do this to him. After a "mini-intervention" with Mike, Trina and Gregg that Sunday afternoon, I consented to allow Lucky to be put to sleep the following morning. My Dad would come and take him away and Trina and Gregg and Mike would be here to help me and clean up all the traces of Lucky in the condo. Nicki, Leigh, Marita, Jonie, Sherry, Lynn and many others were also at the ready in case I needed to call someone after Trina and Gregg left to go pick up the kids from school. Ending his life was the only humane thing I could think of. I gave him a can of tuna and tried multiple times throughout the night to spend time with him, but I could never manage more than a few minutes at a time before his tail would begin to switch back and forth, the first warning signs of an aggressive incident. I just wanted to be able to hold him, pet him, tell him how much I loved him and say goodbye, but he was just too messed up in his head to let me.
The last morning of his life, I woke up and gave him another can of tuna and tried to pet him for a bit. Mike got up and Trina and Gregg came over. My Dad arrived at the appointed time and I went into the room with Jeff's deluxe pet carrier to pick up Lucky for the last time. At first, he ran and I had to go and get him and quickly close him up. I had started to carry the enormous carrier, but my Dad came into the hallway and got it from me. The side with the door, where you could see into the carrier was facing me as he walked away. I screamed and in a rather undignified display, flung myself atop the carrier before he could reach the door. Lucky was putting his little paws through the bars on the carrier door and I clutched the bars and told him I loved him and that it was gonna be ok. As I crouched next to the carrier, Trina came up next to me and gently grabbed my hands so they could take him away. I had asked Mike to go with Dad, because it would make me feel better to have him there since I couldn't go. As they carried him out the door, I completely lost it. I buried my face in my couch and screamed into the cushion and sobbed shamelessly. It took me the entire time Mike and Dad were gone to lift my head up off the cushion. By now, everyone was upset. Gregg and Trina were on the verge of tears, Mike was trying unsuccessfully to not let me see him cry, and Dad let out a tear or two. Dad went home, Gregg and Mike started to clean up all traces of Lucky from the house and Trina suggested that she and I go out shopping. Since the attack had gotten blood all over my room, my white bed sheets needed to be replaced, so we went and looked at sheets while Gregg and Mike packed up Lucky's stuff, got rid of the cat pinata head and even the remaining cans of tuna in the pantry, and vacuumed up this house so that no wayward flecks of cat sand or strands of cat hair would remind me later of what I had lost. I am lucky to have such good friends.
The days that followed were filled with random bouts of uncontrollable sobbing. My emotional wounds heeled as slowly as my physical ones. With loving care, both the scars on my body and the ones in my heart have subsided to a less noticeable level, but I still occasionally have those moments, when I am out in public with short sleeves on, where some cashier will look at my arms and ask "Do you have a cat?" and all I can do is look down and say "I used to..."
I've made peace with my decision. I know that it was the best thing to do. Sometimes I can even recount the events without getting really upset, but sometimes, like right now, I have to cry. I continue to have the support of those closest to me, and that means a lot to me. You really find out who cares about you when something like this happens. I am truly blessed.