Loki

[bookofmirrors]

That's her in the icon.



I got Loki in 1995, sometime after June. I remember the weather was nice, and I remember it was after my divorce to Leo was final. A friend of ours, Ranae, said that there was a kitten living in a bunch of auto parts in her back yard, and did I want to take her home. I did, of course. One of the reasons I know I got Loki after the divorce was that Leo said we couldn't get a third cat. I took her to the vet, and they got her cleaned up. She had an eye infection, which was easily cleared up. To the best of my recollection, that was really the only time she was ever sick.

When she came home for the first time, she walked right up to Mika, who sniffed her, and they became instant friends. Neg wanted no part of her, and I sat both of them on my lap, and chastised Neg every time he hissed at her, until he tolerated her. Strangely enough, Neg seemed to take this to heart, and every other cat that came into the household learned the ropes and was taken in by him. But I've already told Neg's story.

I would come home from work and find Loki wherever she'd hidden (usually under my desk), and cuddle her and get her used to people. She grew up to be friendly, and often greeted people when they came in. Our friend Dawn suggested the name, and it just stuck, even though Loki is a male god. I didn't know any Asatru back then, to tell me that Loki isn't this cute little mischievous creature, and that calling anything Loki was just asking for trouble.

But, with one exception, she never was any trouble. She loved it when I'd lie down; she'd curl up in my hair, milk-tread, drool, and puuuuurrrrrrrr in utter bliss. She loved hair. If she could somehow get her face in someone's hair, she would. She was tiny when we got her, so her nicknames ended up being Smallness and Be-Be (pronounced bay-bay, for baby) Cat; nicknames that I use to this day. The guys used to call her Squeezy Toy, 'cause when you hugged her too tight, she'd squeak. (I discouraged this, of course, but they never actually hurt her, and I have to admit, it was an adorable sound.)

The one exception was her failure to use the litterbox. This didn't occur until I moved to Atlanta. She (and all my other cats) had always been great about the litterbox (except for Neg, with clothes on the floor). But when I moved to Atlanta, all hell broke loose. It started mostly in my closet; I had to throw away I-don't-know-how-many pairs of ruined shoes. But every apartment I've lived in since I've moved here bears the mark of this problem, including my current one, although it really hasn't been much of an issue for quite some time now. This problem, among other things, is why I moved out of the apartment with EvoMethod; it was, understandably, becoming very hard for him to tolerate. This also caused her to go live at Safe Harbor for a while until I got my own place. I'll always be grateful that WalkingBear, Waterfall_SH, Eloreen, and Meadowhawk (and the kids) were able to take her in during that time.

I am ashamed to say that, at one time, I had had enough as well. I didn't think I could live with my apartment smelling and looking like that anymore. I thought it over long and hard. I couldn't give her away to anyone - who would want a cat that peed all over the place? And, not realizing at the time that she wasn't quietly ruling the roost, I thought her a submissive cat that would be eaten alive at a no-kill shelter, even assuming there were any openings. I couldn't turn her loose, even if I didn't think that was cruel to begin with, since I had de-clawed her (something which, knowing what I know now, I'd never do to another cat, but back then, I was ignorant). A shelter would likely put her down, or give her to someone who either might not take as good care of her, or would realize she had behavior problems, and put her down, or worse. Given the other choices, the kindest option, in my mind, was to put her to sleep.

I went so far as to make an appointment at the vet. BlckwngdOrcl went with me, and we sat in the waiting room, not at all happy about this, but feeling helpless. We got her into the waiting room, and explained to the vet, Dr. Weigner, what was going on. He said, and I can't ever express enough how grateful I am to him for this, that there was another option. He gave us the name of an animal behaviorist, John Wright. We were terribly relieved, and made an appointment right away. Now, let me say, she never got perfect. But it got better, and we/I didn't feel so helpless in the face of it anymore. The thing that really ended up pretty much "curing" her was the discovery of Cat Attract cat litter. I highly recommend it to anyone having similar problems. I literally watched Loki once, about to pee on a spot about a foot or so away from the litterbox, suddenly stop and act like she was hypnotized, and go straight to the box, and use it. It's amazing. And this was after a good 6 years of problems. I'm happy to say that she's lived several years past that horrible day. I know, in the end, I never would have forgiven myself for it.

But, back to the story.

Due to whatever fortunate genetics she had, along with the fact that my cats have always eaten very high-quality food, her fur was always sleek and shiny. Absolute satin. More recently, she had the bearing and energy of a dowager empress, and it suited her well. Whimsy, my next oldest female (beta to Loki's alpha) seemed to challenge her more often, and I could see that a changing of the guard was probably going to take place soon.

Around 3 months ago, I did a Journey with my cats. Mostly just to practice Journeying, to check in, see how everyone was, etc.. I may have also been mentioning the move to them, since we were set on moving to Illinois at that point. Loki said at that time that she wouldn't be moving with us. She had no intention of going. She also said that she was going to be the one to teach me what it's like to put an animal to sleep. She told me she was going to get cancer. She was very adamant about that; I asked several times.

I didn't mention it to anyone. Partially, I didn't believe it, and mostly, I didn't want to believe it. After all, when we moved to this apartment, even without the benefit of animal communication or shamanic journeying classes, I got the message loud and clear from Neg that he wasn't going anywhere. Again, I set it aside, and didn't believe it. But, just a few days after we signed the lease on our current apartment, he had a heart attack, and died suddenly. I figured I was just projecting a similar scenario on Loki; she's my next oldest cat, after all, so, in spite of all Silver's medical problems (which are all much better, thanks), she would be the next one "due" to die. She's 14 now, a year older than Neg was when he died.

More recently, I had Carol do a communication with all my cats to talk about the move, so they'd know what to expect, and I could make sure that I didn't need to address anything for them. Loki didn't say a word about not going at the time, so again, I set aside what I'd been told. Clearly, I'd been mistaken.

A month ago, we took all 5 cats to the vet, because the new apartment in Champaign wants proof that they're all healthy, up-to-date on their shots, etc.. All had clean bills of health, negative-everything-bad, etc.. Again, another sign that I was just making shit up in my head.

So, earlier this week, I think Wednesday (strangely enough, just after talking about Loki with my mom on the phone, and mistakenly telling her she was 19 instead of 14 - math was never my strong suit), I petted Loki as I came in. And felt bones. Clearly, it couldn't have happened overnight, but all the sudden, I could feel her spine and ribs very clearly. And as I continued petting her, feeling her all over, I noticed that her fur was duller, and somewhat coarse. Now, keep in mind, for a cat with a satin coat, "somewhat coarse" is still silky soft compared to most, but now that I was paying attention, I could definitely feel and see a difference. Of course, everything came back to me about her not going with, and what would happen next.

I had to call my parents anyway, to talk about the movers, and while I had my dad on the phone, I told him that I knew the vet bills were adding up, but could I please have Loki looked at. He reluctantly agreed. So, I planned to take her in on Friday, when the vet opened.

Thursday night, I did a Journey. It was hard at first to settle down to it. I already had a feeling what I was going to hear, and not only did I not want to hear it, I didn't want to pre-judge anything. I did a lot of grounding and trying to keep my own head out of the process, both before the Journey, and during.

When I got to my Place in Nature, in the Middle World, I was asked if I wanted to do everything in the Middle World. This was something I'd never been asked before, but I remembered how Carla had said in the last class that it was easy to be deceived in the Middle World, and I said no. I went off to the pond to cleanse myself. There was a koi in there, who had come in other Journey that Carla had done for me, and he helped me to shed any "bad" energetic residue, until I was able to emerge just feeling Love and Acceptance, without my own Ego getting in the way. At that point, my Power Animal asked if I wanted to see Loki's Heaven. I was a bit surprised; I didn't think that could be done while she was still alive, but he assured me it could. I asked for my Teacher to come along, which he did, and we left.

We got there, and it was a beach. Ocean, palm trees, miles of white sand. Loki was frolicking about. I was surprised, and told her that I never would have taken her for a beach cat. She'd certainly never been to one in this lifetime. "Are you kidding?" she asked. "It's great. There's no *wrong* place to use the litterbox!" I had to laugh at that, since that certainly was something to consider in her case. I asked about her health, what was going on. I didn't get words, really, just impressions, and most of them were something to the effect of "We've talked about this already." (I may get the sequence of events on this wrong, but the message is what's most important.) I asked about going to the vet; what if there were tests, treatments, etc.? What if they were expensive, what with my father (understandably) not wanting to keep spending a lot of money at the vet. She told me that this would be a decision I would have to make, but there was a fatalistic sense to her words. I asked if she wanted to move with us. "I thought I did, but......." she trailed off. I started to do an energetic scan of her body. I got as far as her head (which was where I started), and it seemed red, when she cut me off. "Wait. Stop. Watch," she said. Then she jumped into the ocean, and went completely under for a few seconds. When she emerged, her entire body was like glass, crystal. "If this is what I have to look forward to," she said pointedly, "then why would I want to fix my current body?"

We took her to the vet the next day, Friday. She hadn't eaten or drunk anything that I could tell, and she had barely moved from the spot she was lying. We told the vet the whole story. She had lost about a pound and a half in a month, which is very significant for a cat, and he could tell her fur was a little off, too, but other than that, no symptoms. I told him about the Journey, and part of me felt like the best thing to do would be to put her down right then and there... but we didn't even really know what was wrong with her. The vet talked about running the usual blood/urine tests to see what was wrong. I felt like I was betraying her, being weak by not doing what she was asking, so I connected with her, and got the impression that she was willing to humor me, that she knew the tests wouldn't take that long, and she could tolerate that. So, he took blood and urine samples, gave her subcutaneous fluids for her dehydration, an anabolic steroid to help her feel better and to hopefully stimulate her appetite, and gave us some high-calorie, apparently very tasty food to see if she'd eat it, but said that he really didn't care what we could get her to eat, that something was always better than nothing. Colleen, the office manager, had finally gotten her to take a few sips of water while we were waiting, but that was about it. So, we took her home. She went back to the spot she'd been lying in the day before, and continued to refuse food and water.

I got a hold of Carol. I wanted a second opinion about whether Loki was ready to go. I still wasn't ready to trust myself. I also knew that I'd always wonder. So, she did a reading. She said that Loki was very anxious about the move, and that there was a lot going on, and she just wanted to be still. She did a scan, which Loki apparently let her finish (she hadn't let BlckwngdOrcl finish one either, when he had tried), and said that she was getting some discomfort, and that the problem seemed to be lower down, near her kidneys. She said it wasn't necessarily her kidneys, and that she might be projecting that, since she'd had a cat who'd died of kidney problems; but that it was in that area. I asked if she could get her to eat/drink, and she reported that Loki said she wasn't going to be doing either thankyouverymuch. I asked if she wanted to stay in her body, and Carol said that she was ambiguous about it. Carol said to definitely wait to see what the labs said.

Since the trip to the vet, there's been no change. She hasn't been interested in the repeated offerings of food or water. She's pretty much stayed in the same place without getting up. When she does get up, she's wobbly, unsteady. She tried to pee on the floor near where she was, but I couldn't see that anything came out. She sniffs politely at what I offer her before turning away and/or moving away. She did go outside a couple of times when I took the other cats out, but didn't venture as far as she normally does. Tonight, when she got close to Silver, he hissed at her, so I know she must smell sick to them.

So, today, the lab results came back. High white blood count, which usually says infection, but she's afebrile, and none of the other tests back that up. The vet said that usually indicates cancer. Yeah. *sigh* He said that her bilirubin was about double what it should be, and that, along with a few other results, led him to believe that all signs point to liver cancer. He said he basically couldn't be sure, of course, without x-ray/ultrasound (or, I'm assuming, biopsy), and we could do that on Monday. He did say that he thought he'd felt a mass in that area on Friday, but he hadn't been sure, so he hadn't said anything, but that that would also point to liver cancer. I told him about the message I'd gotten about cancer a few months ago, and that, based on that, plus what Carol said, plus what he said, led me to believe that it must be true. I said that, at her age, I saw no reason to put her through the treatment for that. Liver cancer in humans is one of the most horrible ways to die, and I didn't want to put her through either the treatment, or any more of the disease than I had to. He said, thoughtfully, that, based on his own knowledge, intuition, and experience, that he felt I wouldn't be jumping the gun to put her to sleep.

So, Monday at 1:30pm, we're going to take her to the vet and help her end her suffering. BlckwngdOrcl will do whatever feels right to him. I'm going to hold her, to whatever degree that's possible, and do everything I can to make sure that her head is buried in my hair when she dies.

She's told me that she wants her ashes to go into a container like Mika's, but something a little more off-beat, asymmetrical. I'll go shopping for it next time I'm in Warsaw, because that container can only be bought there. I have a tattoo for Mika, and one that's been planned for Neg (but no money yet), and wondered what to get for Loki, since nothing immediately came to mind. As soon as I began to think about it, though, I got, very clearly, a picture of a palm tree in my head, just like in her Heaven.

To some degree, I'm grateful that I had this slow lead-up to this moment. I'm sad, and I've cried, and I'm sure I'll cry more, but in honesty, I've had several months of a cat in (what seemed to be, at least) perfect health, acting like herself, and I've cherished that. To another degree... well, I hate being right.

Anyone who's gotten through this rather long story, that I'm honored to save for posterity, please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She has no desire to get better, and I will honor her wishes. But I do want her to be as comfortable as possible in the meantime, and I want her passing to be peaceful.

Pray for that.

Comments

[judaslovesme.livejournal.com]

You were right. I actually knew before I heard the voice mail tonight what was going on with Loki. In fact, I mentioned to yon blond beastie upon your return from Champaign that Loki hadn't greeted me when I came over to give the cats petting, and that she had remained sitting under the table all the time I was there. I gave her a hard look, which she'd returned with one saying, "Yeah, you've seen this before, and you know what's coming."

I'm sad with you.

[hopeinfreefall.livejournal.com]

It's never easy, losing one like that...and I can't say that I would have paid anymore attention to the pre-warnings were I in a similar situation. Cats tend to become such a vital part of one's world and frequently the thought of letting one go is almost too much. I also know that there aren't really a lot of words that will make it better...except perhaps to offer a bit of sympathy and energy and a sense of knowing...I've walked similar roads before.

I hope that her passing is as peaceful as possible for her and you.

-Brekke

[drlaurac.livejournal.com]

Hugs to y'all. Any chance the vet could do a home visit at the end of the day? I recently lost my Artemis, and the best part was that there was no car ride, and she was just sitting at home on my lap.

[aerialmelodies.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear this. My brother's cat is actually dying of tongue cancer as we speak and the family is just trying to make him as comfortable and feel as loved as possible in his final days. I hope she passes peacefully with as little pain as possible... She knows she's loved. *hug*

[lupaloo.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry. Peaceful journey to Loki. *hugs*