Churchill Had It Right

This blog has been mainly about my running, but more than that it also serves as a window into my life; albeit one made of frosted glass panes.  This post, therefore, is a departure from the norm.  As the title says, "Life.  One mile at a time."  Not all of those miles are flat and smooth.

People say that I'm stubborn, hard-headed, and sometimes extremely inflexible.  The stark reality is that I'm not a quitter and I absolutely do not like giving up.  On anything.  When I give up bad things usually happen and sometimes things even die - relationships, animals,...people.

My "resolve" has many times been personally detrimental because not only do I champion the just, I also have a propensity for wading into battle for the seemingly hopeless and lost causes as well; especially if I feel it is right.  And whatever I'm behind, I'm behind 100 percent; sometimes more.  That normally negatively impacts me because I've never been a good judge of when to quit.  When it comes to running and racing that has never been a bad thing, but in other aspects of life a person just has to accept that there are terminal points.  This is a lesson that in my later years I am begrudgingly beginning to learn.

Wiley engaged in his favorite pastime.

Thursday was a good example.  The family cat, that we rescued from a shelter in 2009, became ill after having an adverse reaction to a rabies booster.  We had already had some health problems early on with Wiley and had spent quite a bit on his medical care and he had been an otherwise healthy cat.  Last week, after what we thought was a routine rabies booster, his health took an acute turn for the worse and we rushed him to a nearby veterinarian hospital.  He was hospitalized over-night, diagnosed with an intestinal disorder, and returned home the next day with medications.  Thursday he became unsteady and began bleeding from his nostrils.  The family rushed him to the ER again and I met them there after work.

The diagnosis was grim.  He was anemic and his platelet count was falling.  He needed a transfusion.  The vet wasn't sure why it was happening.  I asked the vet if it could have been related to the rabies booster and he replied that it was very possible; that the immunization could have launched his immune system into over-drive causing it to attack his own body.  He stated that Wiley would need a transfusion and would have to be hospitalized for up to five days while they determined the cause of his condition.  The estimate for this treatment was between $1500 and $2000.

The wife and I went into the hallway, to get away from the kids, and began to debate what to do.  She was torn.  We had already spent over $800 on his treatment in the last seven days.  Spending another $2000, with the possibility of needing to spend more at the end of five days, was something that she didn't want to do.  She also didn't want to make the call to not treat Wiley either.  She would feel guilty, she explained, either way.  She became increasingly emotional and I was becoming angry (my default coping mechanism) because I was frustrated.  If it was money that was the issue, I could always work overtime or put the cost of his treatment on a credit card.  I didn't consider that a factor.  But my step-daughter was having major surgery the next week and my wife's concerns were that she would be left alone, while I'm out keeping the peace, nursing a child just out of surgery and an anemic cat that might or might not have a chance at making it.  For her that was a factor.

As the wife became increasingly emotional I made the decision to send her and the kids home and to take this one on my own.  I spoke with the veterinarian again and he said that Wiley only had a 40% chance of surviving even with treatment.  He also couldn't promise me that what was afflicting him would have a terminal point; meaning that after the treatment and the expense that further treatment might be necessary.  I then asked what would happen without treatment.  The vet assured me that Wiley would succumb to the anemia that night.  I then, reluctantly, asked him if Wiley could be humanely put down.  He suggested from a professional position that it would be best to do so to avoid further suffering on Wiley's part.

Hello Kitty.  Get it?

I knew what was happening in that moment.  I could feel the inevitability that I was crashing toward.  It was one of those damned terminal points that I talked about earlier.  I agonized.  Caught between what I wanted to do - be the hero who said, "Do whatever it takes.  We're not losing him," - and the quitter who just gives up and takes the easy road out.  The cards were stacked against Wiley.  That he might not make it no matter what decision I made was a real possibility.  This was the kind of fight that I liked.  But there was more at stake here than just my own stubborn ego.  The wife, the step-daughter, the finances, potentially extending Wiley's suffering...  So I did what I rarely, if ever, do.  I gave up.  I told the vet that we would move forward with the euthanasia.  The doctor nodded his head and left the room and then I did something else that I rarely do - I cried.

I have pulled bodies from wreckage, stood in the middle of gruesome homicide scenes, and watched autopsies performed on infants.  I have worked up to my elbows in other people's blood and looked down the sights of weapons pointed at other human beings.  All of it with a professional detachment that comes from exposure.  But this act of inaction, this decision not to fight, this choice of terminating the life of an innocent animal who had brought so much joy, so much frustration, so much love into our family struck something deep within me that the hardened walls of compartmentalization, that have served me so well for most of my life, failed completely.

They brought Wiley to me so that I could say goodbye to him.  He was weak and just laid in my arms as I stroked his fur.  They had placed an IV line in his leg through which to administer the fatal cocktail.  I'm not sure how long it was before the vet came in, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes.  He told me that he would give Wiley an injection of Propofol that would relax him and then on my "go" would give him the injection of Euthasol that would stop his heart in about 20 seconds.  I nodded for him to go ahead and he injected the Propofol.  Wiley's body shuddered and he gave a deep sigh, then his eyes became very heavy almost immediately.  I paused only for a moment before I told the vet, "Whenever you're ready."  He injected the small syringe of green chemical slowly into the IV and placed the stethoscope on Wiley's chest.  It didn't take 20 seconds.

They brought Wiley's body to me in a cardboard box.  Inside he was wrapped in the blanket that the family had taken him to the hospital in, and had been placed in a black plastic bag.  I sent a text to the wife and told her to pick a spot in the backyard to bury him.  The ride home was filled with rapidly developing scenarios in my head for how to approach the children about Wiley.  The end result was there was no predetermined scenario.  I walked in the door and my youngest daughter asked where Wiley was.  I told her as softly as I could that he had died.  She cried and as I held her she repeated over and over again that it wasn't fair.  I agreed.

We buried Wiley in a quiet and shady spot in our backyard.  There was little ceremony.  The kids wrote notes to Wiley that they placed on the box before I covered it over and then the wife and kids planted irises on top of his grave.  Adding to my guilt my wife would tell me later that my youngest daughter asked if daddy was going to lock up the people who had killed Wiley.  How do you explain to a six year old that you're the one who pulled the pin?

The days following Wiley's death have seen the children bounce back, as kids do.  They still talk about missing Wiley and visit his grave, but they have moved on to an acceptance that I wish I could share.  I know that some would consider this crazy; making this big of a deal over putting down a sick cat.  Perhaps it is deflection or transference on my part; not so much about Wiley as it is about all the times that I should allowed myself to be emotionally connected and didn't.  I don't know.  But I can't shake the feeling that I gave up on him and that the result of my giving up was that this animal who was as much a fixture in this family as anyone died.  Never mind the rationalized logic of the decision.  I still feel like I failed him, and in turn my family who loved him as much as I.

I had just returned from a pre-dawn run and was changing clothes.  Wiley began rolling in my sweaty Under Armor running shorts.  If only my wife loved me as much.

It was Sir Winston Churchill who said, "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense."  I have done my best to stay true to those words, even if I have stumbled and fallen a few times along the way.  And while I will miss Wiley and his annoying nipping at my hand for attention, his passing (and my guilt over it) will serve as a reminder of the consequences of giving in and giving up.  And that reminder will strengthen my resolve.

Goodbye, my friend.  Thank you for all the love that you shared in our home, and the lessons of how a good nap, especially in the sun, is sometimes more important than anything else.

Wiley Cat (2009 - 2012)