cats – My Alzheimer's Story

euthanasia

June 26, 2019June 27, 2019 My Alzheimer's Story

Pia Roma sitting on my VariDesk in 2017. She was an excellent catssisstant ❤

June 26, 2019: I wrote this a month or two before I had to put little Pia Roma to sleep on June 29, 2018. I was in anguish for months, hoping she would die a natural death before I had to euthanize her so she wouldn’t suffer. Pia had been Mom’s beloved companion for about eight years, and then mine for seven after Mom went to #DementiaJail.

I still miss her by my side.

euthanasia

This poem is dedicated to everyone who has had to put a beloved animal member of their family to sleep.

euthanasia

your heart beats strong
as the hours grow long
softly you do stride
through this life
with all its strife
and troubles to abide

a feline muse
clothed in silver hews
with golden eyes moon-wide
you helped me write
through days and nights
lay patient by my side

and we played with string
ran around in rings
laughed until i cried
while disease within
like original sin
consumed, then health denied

though it’s humane
to ease the pain
when everything’s been tried
that you must leave
me here to grieve
sickens me inside

friends say i’ll know
when it’s time you should go
but how shall i decide
to cause you to sleep
in the eternal deep
as if god’s hands were mine

after i put them in prison, mom’s bff became mine

one little kitty’s top dementia care tip

7-part palliative care plan works (for people AND cats)

the paws that refreshes

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Care Partnering, Death & Dying, Life & Living, Love

7-part palliative care plan works (for people AND cats)

May 25, 2018May 26, 2018 My Alzheimer's Story

About a month after Mom died in August 2016, her little kitty cat Pia Roma, who had lived with me since late February 2013, began to behave strangely. Coquetishly cute Pia, with her big yellow eyes, had always been a little odd, but this was different. She wasn’t herself at all. There were continence issues, a lot of meowing and more vomiting than usual.

“She has chronic kidney disease,” the vet told me after some blood tests and an overnight stay at the clinic. “And probably a bit of feline dementia too.”

The vet gave me medication for the CKD, and put Pia on a special diet. Pia continued to enjoy an active life for an older cat, despite her dementia. When I took her back for a check-up in 2017, Pia’s kidneys had actually improved. In the four years we’d been together, we’d grown really close, and I was delighted she continued to be so well. I was equally devastated, however, with the results of this year’s check-up, which took place last week. I wrote about it on my personal FB page:

“I took Pia to the vet yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, the news isn’t good. The vet was impressed with the great shape she’s in for a cat her age, which I think is 16. The vet said her heart is in fabulous condition; she was surprised and impressed when I told her that Pia still runs around, plays, and jumps up and down from my desk to the floor and onto my very high bed.

The blood tests, however, told a different story. The results showed that, while her thyroid is fine, her kidney disease has progressed from stage I, which is was two years ago, to stage III, which it is now. The vet reckons she only has about six months more in this world.

The only thing that can be done for her now is palliative care to keep her comfortable. Of course I feel desperately sad, and I can’t stop crying, but what to do? This is life. And death.”

As with any terminal illness (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease, kidney disease, etc.), the patient does not suddenly die the minute she or he is diagnosed. People (and animals!) can continued to live relatively well until they die. I believe our job as care partners is to support those we love in living as they go through the process of dying. If I’m not mistaken, that’s what palliative care should be about. Hard as hell in the midst of our own grief, no doubt about that. But I know it’s possible.

So I have a palliative care plan for Pia. It’s essentially the same as what I tried to do for Mom, even though my hands were tied in many ways. Here’s the plan:

1) watch and listen carefully to try to determine what her needs are and do what I can to meet them

2) focus on what she can do each day

3) make her life as joyful as possible

4) maximize comfort

5) minimize pain

6) let her be the driver

7) respect the process and hold space for both of us

I know all these things worked a treat when I was with Mom, and I believe they’ll help Pia as well. Maybe they’ll be a blessing for those you love too.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2018/02/25/3-wise-thoughts-on-being-with-someone-you-love-as-they-die-which-also-apply-to-being-with-someone-with-dementia-as-they-live/

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2018/04/27/understanding-the-suffering-associated-with-dying/

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Advocacy, Love, Memories, Videos

after i put them in prison, mom’s bff became mine

December 26, 2017June 26, 2019 My Alzheimer's Story

December 26, 2017: In November 2012, I put Mom and her best friend Pia Roma in separate prisons.

Pia went to the friend of a friend’s where she hid under the sofa in a cigarette-smoke-filled apartment for a month. My friend rescued Pia from her friend’s, but that didn’t help. Pia hid under my friend’s bed for another month until I rescued her again.

Mom & Pia April 10, 2012, six months before being incarcerated

I didn’t want a cat. Just like I hadn’t wanted to return to Canada to care for Mom in 2011. But I couldn’t bear for helpless Pia who, in Mom’s words, was her “best friend” to live under a sofa or a bed for the rest of her life. So when I decided I needed to stay close to Mom instead of restarting my old life in a new way, I rented a house near the nursing home I would come to call “ElderJail,” and I brought Pia Roma to live with me.

I succeeded in rescuing Pia, but I failed to liberate my mom.

Since then, Pia has accompanied me through ups and downs, never saying anything but “meow” (like Zlateh the Goat said nothing but “maaaaaaa”), or purring loudly, and sharing my morning tea as she often did with Mom, which I captured on video on December 28, 2009, and aptly title “the paws that refreshes.”

Pia is getting old now, and will soon join Mom. I will be devastated when she goes. It can be painful to grieve the loss of those we love, but it’s also normal. For me, grief (and tonnes of other stuff) involves lots of tears.

But none of us should die before we’re dead, and so, in the meantime, Pia and I paws frequently to count our blessings. We hope you do too. We also invite you to remember that, even in prison, there is space between the bars.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2016/12/28/the-paws-that-refreshes/

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Hope, Humour, Life & Living, Love, Videos

one little kitty’s top dementia care tip

October 26, 2017October 26, 2017 My Alzheimer's Story

Pia Roma waking up from her morning nap, September 2017

Mom adored her little cat Pia Roma, who was named for a trip Mom and I took to Rome in the early 2000s. When Mom was placed in ElderJail, I gave Pia to the friend of a friend to care for. She hid under the sofa for six weeks, only coming out at night to eat, drink and use the litter box.

The friend whose friend I’d given her to retrieved her and took Pia to her flat where Pia hid under the bed instead of the sofa. Meanwhile, when I saw what ElderJail care was like, I couldn’t leave Mom, so I rented a house nearby. About a month later, I rescued Pia and brought her to live with me. This time she hid under a big armoire in the living room, thankfully it was only for a few days. That was five years ago, and we’ve grown pretty close since then

Pia’s “getting up there” in cat years, and is starting to have health issues. In fact, she was so ill in the spring that I thought I was going to lose her. But being a fighter seems to run in the family, and lo and behold she bounced back. Like Mom in her waning years, Pia hasn’t lost her playfulness, quirkiness and attitude.

I’ve learned that Moms and cats have a lot to teach us about living right, and fighting the good fight.

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Love, Memories, Videos

the paws that refreshes

December 28, 2016September 3, 2017 My Alzheimer's Story

December 28, 2009: Exactly when Mom acquired her little grey cat with the big yellow eyes is hard to say, but it was sometime after the spring of 2001 when Mom and I went to Rome on holiday for a week. We stayed at a little family-run hotel call the San Pio, saw amazing sights and created wonderful memories which Mom lost over time, but which I still have for the moment. Mom named Pia Roma for the little hotel and the trip.

I also don’t recall precisely how Pia found her way to Mom. She was either discovered in the cedar hedge in front of Mom’s or given to her by a friend who lives on the East Road; I don’t remember which. It doesn’t really matter when or how they found each other. What does matter is that Pia became Mom’s best friend, her stalwart companion in the big red brick house on the hill.

Of all the cats Mom had over the years, Pia proved the oddest. In a strange and quirky way, she was the most endearing as well. She and Mom often had tea together in the morning, a ritual I captured on December 28, 2009, and entitled (tongue-in-cheek) The Paws that Refreshes, in which Pia has her share of tea from Mom’s new Christmas mug.