How to say goodbye @ Life on an Island

Snowball/Nonie was born in July 1999. I adopted her as a second year graduate student in a doctoral program when she was about 6 weeks old. At the time I was living in a small cottage, and my neighbor, a girl originally from Singapore, adopted her brother Cotton Ball, who was also pure white and the biggest difference between Snowball and Cotton Ball was that Nonie had long white fur and Cotton ball's was short. The two of them would be playing together like two fuzzy balls, really really cute. At that age I did not have a digital camera, so most of her photos were prints. I moved to the cottage across from the original place for an extra room, and it was so nice because Nonie loved to climb the pine tree in front of the small cottage. I would like to post those photos digitally at some point for memory -- white fluffy kitty against brown bark, green trees and blue sky in the American Southwest. In 2002 she moved with me to Texas -- we drove 4.5 hours on the UHaul, and she continued meowing loudly in protest for 2 hours non-stop before losing her voice. We settled into the new place -- a cute small one-bedroom apartment in a heritage building quite nicely. In 2004 the first child was born, and Nonie and I really learnt to get used to baby noises.

2005
In 2006 the second child was born, and Nonie had to learn to toughen it up a bit.

She then moved with us to the Midwest, and enjoyed seeing all the autumn leaves and snow,

2011

and then to the Pacific coast.

2013

At the end of November, Snowball (Nonie) started excess drooling, and as a white kitty she has always cleaned herself quite well so she also attempted to control drooling.

On November 30 I took some photos, in two of them she was licking, but we did not realize that her licking was a sign of the beginning of the illness. I got her a new blanket to make a nest in our room but mostly she has other favorite spots.

At the beginning it was clear drool, but somehow drooling left bits of black stain on her right chin. We wondered about it and sometimes tried to clean her a bit because she likes to stay clean.

watching a film projected on the wall with us recently

One of her favorite spots: in the middle of the down comforter; because of the color, she surprised hubby and the younger boy often when they approached the bed without realizing she was there.

On January 11, 2014, Saturday night, however, a bit of blood was mixed in her drool and shocked us. On Sunday morning, we took her to the only vet we could find open on Sunday. The vet thought it was either a dental issue which requires complete dental cleaning, or a tumor which in most cases would be malignant. We decided to put her on antibiotics on January 13, to see if it's a dental issue or something uncontrollable. Within a week, however, more blood came out of the right side of her mouth, and she could barely eat. At this point I asked my colleague who's been around here for a long time for a trustworthy vet, and he recommended a cat clinic. We took her on the following day on January 20 to see a vet. The experienced vet identified the problem as carcinoma (鱗狀細胞癌), a very aggressive kind of cancer that is painful for cats. I burst into tears and cried, even though we both had a feeling that it was not something with easy fix.

January 21 Currently we are working with palliative care, following the vet's instructions to give her two kinds of pain relief and one antibiotic treatment. I spoke to a couple colleagues who had experiences of losing their beloved pets before. We are still grappling with it and wonder how to say goodbye, and how to let her know how much we love her.

On January 23, even with the pain medication she cannot eat. She still walked upstairs from the basement to try the cat grass a bit but didn't touch her food. We are waiting to speak to the vet right now in the beautiful sunny morning of January 24.

January 24, Noon: the vet thought she's in pain, especially it seems like it has got to the bones. She thought if it's her cat she would think it's time, but left the decision to us. I asked about the amount of pain Nonie is currently suffering, and the vet thought it's quite a lot when the bones are hurting. We made an appointment for later this afternoon, and I am looking up to find ways to help us get through this and say good bye.

Afternoon: we shared the vet's opinion with the kids and encouraged them to say goodbye. It was a heartbreaking moment. The younger one fell on the pile of pillows next to Nonie and couldn't stop crying, just like I did in the morning after the conversation with the vet. The older one had to go to a class so we checked with friends and one of them came right away to stay with the younger one when we went to drop off the older one at her class and to the vet clinic.

On the way

We stayed with Nonie throughout the process, during which the vet did a very good job of keeping it a very calm and peaceful and quiet process. We are very grateful to this vet because when I looked up about this disease there were situations where vets didn't get the diagnoses correct and the animals had to suffer lots through tests and wrong treatments. The tumor in Nonie's mouth grew rapidly in the last 10 days that surprised even the vet.

Nonie, rest in peace. Our prayers and love go with you. You always live in our hearts.

To Snowball (1999-2014)