R.I.P. ---death of a pet

We found, Chester, our cat literally hanging out in the toilet this morning. He was all curled up in there, not showing any desire to get out of the water. It was one of the stranger things that I have seen in a while.

He’s been showing signs of illness since Saturday night, and I planned on being on the vet’s doorstep when they opened on Monday morning. However, he seemed so much better yesterday, and since I thought he was on the mend, I didn’t take him to see the vet.

Then, today, he was lounging in the toilet, and when I got him out, Holly, our hostile dog, would not leave Chester’s side. She stood by him, cleaning him and basically hovering over him. I already knew that a toilet-cat meant I needed to take him to the vet, but hovering-Holly confirmed my fears. So I rushed him to the nearest vet, whose office is about a mile and a half away and who happened to not be our regular vet.

After this new vet checked Chester out, I realized that this was serious business. I was going to owe nearly $950 after only 24 hours and another $312 a day for every day of “hospitalization” that he needed, which could be anywhere from two to seven days.

I thought to myself, ”No way; I can’t afford that.”

So I paid my office-visit fee and took Chester to the man who used to be my high school cross country coach but who is now a vet, figuring that if Chester’s problems were that serious, I wanted him with someone I totally trusted.

It was strange, though, because once I got to the man in whom I have absolute trust, I no longer cared about the money. The idea of paying a couple thousand dollars for the health of my cat no longer had any bearing on any decisions I was about to make. I knew that if anyone could make Chester better, it would be my ex-coach and current-vet, and I was willing to pay for it--in cold, hard cash.

Alas, that was not what transpired because Chester died at about 2:30 this afternoon.

Apparently, he had a blockage in his urethra, which meant that he had a build up of urine in his system, which meant that he was essentially “toxic” by the time he got to the vet. He didn’t have a prayer of making it through the day.

So, yeah…we lost a member of our family today. And I feel terrible about it. In our house, pets are part of the family, and my son especially loved Chester.

I can’t say that anything I may have learned was worth the life of fantastic, playful, clumsy Chester, but I did at least realize a few things: one, how much I am willing to pay for a service is in direct relationship to how I trust the person who will get my money. I didn’t want to pay a few thousand dollars to a new vet that I didn’t know all that well, but I had no problem paying thousands of dollars to a man I trusted (if I would have had the LUXURY of paying that amount in order for him to live.) I also realized, once again, how in tune animals are to each other’s pain. I swear, Holly knew that Chester was dying because that piss-ant dog has never been nice to Chester until that moment, six hours before Chester actually died.

But, as I already said, whatever I may have learned from his death does not counteract his death. I’d rather have a live-Chester and be ignorant of my own spending habits than to have a dead-Chester and know what I know now.

Chris Marsh--mother, teacher, runner, coach....