RIP IO

10-3-11


It has been quite the last week. I have been so overwhelmed, I have not taken time to write until this morning.

On Monday night, IO started acting odd. It was around 10 at night that he started wandering the house, yelling out and throwing up, both with a lot of sadness and force behind them. It was tough to know what was going on. He had been losing weight over the last couple weeks, and now his back legs seemed shaky. Our IO was dying.

He finally stopped his cries at around 3 in the morning, when he managed to dig his way under the bed. He has been faithfully at our side, whether in the living room on the couch, or in the bed with us, so this move was odd. It seemed so cliché, but there was concern he was finding a place to be alone so he could die in peace.

We spent Tuesday allowing him to try and perhaps come out of whatever was ailing him. He did come out on his own and drink a lot of water. Unfortunately, he would not eat. I tried to force some kitten food into him, which he took like a trooper, but he just didn’t want anything. We had him stay in the bathroom so that he could be undisturbed, and hopefully he would eat some of the tasty food we set out for him. When I got up in the morning, he had not moved.

When I petted him, he did perk up and purr, which should have made me smile, but it only made it harder to make the obvious decision.

Ken called me to ask if the litter pan with him had been used while I was getting ready for work. My first answer was to ignore the pee since it was only Monarch being a punk ass. Ken said this wasn’t what he was talking about. Apparently, there was a ton of dark liquid in there. It consisted of mainly blood.

Ken called Manhattan Beach Animal Hospital. Dr. Steinam wasn’t there, but both Ken and I agreed, we should not make IO wait another day just so we could see our favorite doctor. Dr. Wang was thankfully there, so I told Ken to see when we could go in and I would meet him there.

Ken took IO down to the school so the boys could say goodbye. I am glad I wasn’t there, but it sounds like the Brenan men were stoic. I met Ken at the house and we took IO down to MB.

Dr. Wang looked at his charts and checked him out. We noted before she had even come in that IO had jaundice, which was not good. She said that it looked as though his liver was failing. She said that yes, we could put him through extensive testing and hospitalization, but really, there was no guarantee that it would help, and at his age, it might not be the best call. We had already known this, but it was nice to hear a doctor confirm that our decision was not hasty.

IO was a doll. He purred the whole time, air kneading and looking actually rather content for the first time in the last 48 hours. It was as though he was trying to make all of this easier on us.

Ken took it hard. This was in fact a kitty he had adopted so long ago. IO was always clearly Ken’s cat. As I watched my normally stone faced man crumple with his cat limp in his arms, I am not sure if I was crying more for my loss or for Ken’s.

The rest of the day was quiet. Ken went to class. I stayed at home and cleaned a bit, and exercised a lot. I even carried the two large bags of books we were donating to the school while I went up to get the boys.

Since it was a Wednesday, I had my diabetes class. I didn’t get home until about 9, which makes for a really long and draining day for me. I was thankful I was not going to work on Thursday.

I don’t know what was going on with me that morning, though. The sleep I had hoped to take advantage of eluded me. I had the ick all morning long, and it was as though my excuse to work about not feeling well was in fact the real reason I would not be coming in to work.

I felt ill much of the day. We did end up going to Disneyland for a couple of hours. It seemed as though much of Los Angeles thought our idea was brilliant, so the park was exceptionally crowded for a Thursday during September. We did manage to see the Haunted Mansion all dolled up for Jack Skellington, which was the main reason for our visit.

Because of Disneyland and walking during practice, I did a lot of exercise on Thursday. We also climbed the tree house at Disneyland, which resulted in incredibly sore thighs on Friday and Saturday. I was not happy about this.

The weekend brought tons of activity. Saturday morning, we had back to back games. Dax’s team was beaten for the first time. The Dinosaurs looked sluggish in general. They all did good, but there was something missing. Perhaps it was just the heat. Dax did good, but even he seemed a bit off. Miss Lira came to watch his game, which did make him quite happy.

Bobby’s team was short players, which meant there were no subs. Thankfully, they were on fire, which I think fueled them for the whole game. Bobby played goal for a whole half. I think if he had his choice, he would be there the whole game. He has some good placement at times and it is possible with some additional training, we could get him to be a pretty decent goalie.

Ken was the ref for Bobby’s game until one of the parents from the other team complained. Never you mind that Ken was being harder on our own team, but it was clear that the coach and parents on the other side were all assholes overall. The commissioner, when approached by the parent, pointed out that it wasn’t like any parents from their team were stepping up to ref. He also pointed out that Ken didn’t have to stop, and if he wasn’t willing to switch with the ref of the game on the field next to us, that their team would half to forfeit. This shut them up quickly, but Ken had already agreed to switch. Sadly this meant he missed the second half of Bobby’s game.

When soccer time was over, we headed over to Long Beach where my company was having our picnic. It was not super packed, which meant we could eat and kind of chill for a bit. The boys played on the bouncer and played some games. Ken was chosen at random to go up to the stage with some other guys to do a sexy legs contest, where they all wore bags on their heads and danced. Ken easily won, even beating out the company president, who was awesome about the whole thing. I was just impressed that he knew who I was when Ken said he was married to me.

Bobby and I did a game, too, where a parent and kid team had to dress the kid in over sized sweat pants and a sweatshirt and fill these clothing with filled balloons. We kicked balloon ass, but since it was kids, there was no champion. Oh well. We had fun.

We got home around 3:30. The boys went swimming and I decided to go in, too. I didn’t swim since it was FREEZING! I did, however, do my exercise in there. I walked about 30 minutes in circles in the water, occasionally changing direction to go against the whirlpool. Talk about a great workout! Plus, I think it helped make my thighs less sore for the first time in two days.

Miss Tonks has decided I am good people. I am quite pleased about this. She now hangs out with us in the evenings, and even tolerates the chaos of the dogs who also feel the need to be at my side. I even held her for a while and she purred and got all comfy, which was super sweet. She will come to me when I call her at night. In the mornings, she follows me around, and she is uber affectionate. She seems quite happy to call our house home.

Sunday was less busy. We did go to the Hometown Fair, but we really were not there too long. The boys rode the horses and went in the two bounce houses they could. They played a couple games. It was mellow. I was amused at how many new clubs pop up at my alma mater each year. Who knew we had a Baja Club and a Ping Pong Club?

The boys and I left Ken at Aaron’s house and we went to Target to get a few things. We knew we would be picking up Ken at some point, so the boys and I mostly dinked around, spending some time at the 99 cent store and even visiting with my folks.

The broad that has been working in our office a good 6 months longer than she was supposed to (our parent company is the same, and she is here during their transition from CA to TX) is finally leaving. Unfortunately, this does mean she keeps coming down to my area because her printer and her empty boxes are stored in the cube next to me. Ok, well, the boxes WERE here, until last week when Esther got rid of them. Look, I didn’t mind one bit. They were empty and strewn about making it look messy. I didn’t mess with them since I had no authority. I only stacked them nicely, which apparently Esther felt looked worse, so she had them tossed, pointing out we have plenty of empty boxes around for her when she finally will need them. This is true, except since Esther isn’t in yet, this chick keeps coming and chatting with me. I don’t like her, and I really don’t want to have to make small talk. Sigh.

This week looks to only have one super busy day. Tuesday is Back to School Night. There is a PTA meeting and two classes to attend. It will be cool, but busy. Yay, though, that I have no diabetes meeting on Wednesday, and even though I don’t agree with it, Dax may not have practice since he has no game this weekend.

Ok, to work I go!