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Cleo |
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I believe that animals appear to us when we need them, but I guess Cleo was my bonus. Puss came at a point when I was very lonely. Gizmo and Simba came after Cleo died, when I needed more to fill my days then tending to Puss. In fact, I like to believe that Cleo left my life to make room for Gizmo and Simba. Our friends' cat was having kittens, and they'd asked us if we wanted one. I told them no, Cleo was too sick to even consider that. In many ways I also think Cleo's life was cut short, despite the fact that she lived to 16. But I realized how much for granted I had taken Puss and Cleo, and vowed I wouldn't do the same with my next cats. We used to think that Cleo and Puss had such great lives, but compared to Gizmo and Simba they had nothing, although they were well loved. 
A month before I was to move from Maryland to Vermont to get married, a Momma cat showed up with a litter of kittens near my apartment. I fed the kittens and played with them, but no one was adopting them. Although my fiancee said no, I just couldn't bear it. Cleo used to growl when I fed the kittens, making sure no one got at her food. So I figured she could hold her own against a 1-year-old cat, and I took her in. Unfortunately, she was crawling with fleas. Fiancee helped me to give her a flea bath. All those jokes are true! It seemed as though she grew ten arms, all armed with needle-sharp claws. But we got the deed done and she was flealess. I knew we were in when my fiancee worried about her after the bath, and though someone should stay with her (we had her in my bathroom to dry off). 
Cleo was as playful and extroverted as Puss was quiet and a one-woman cat. She could entertain herself for hours with twist-ties, and she was an incredible flirt with everyone she saw. She was pretty, and she knew it. Cleo wasn't much of a lap cat, but she loved to be held. I used to call her my stress ball. 
We made the mistake of letting Cleo lick clean our plates after we ate, and she turned into a terrible beggar. She'd lay quietly at our feet during dinner, but the minute one of us got up she would begin meowing. Pepperoni, potato chips, potato skins, and twinkies were a few of her favorites. Cleo had the ability to get at whatever she wanted in the garbage, no matter how far down the object of her desire was. 
Cleo was always a vomiter. At first it wasn't too bad, every few months or so. The vet said she ate too fast. But as she got older, it began to get worse and worse and she began to lose weight. No one could figure out what was wrong with her. She'd gone from 12 pounds to just a little over 5, a huge weight loss for a cat, and was vomiting weekly. During a vacation, she "crashed" and was finally diagnosed with CRF (chronic renal failure). Her numbers weren't that bad, but she was clearly dying, and somehow I just knew it wasn't her time. I took her to an internist, who thought she was hyper-thyroid despite the fact that she tested normal for it. I suggested IBD, and the internist agreed to put her on steroids. Cleo immediately began to gain weight and vomit less. Initially given about 6 months to live, she went on to live 11. When my parents came to visit in April, they couldn't get over how good she looked. Three weeks later we were forced to put Cleo to sleep; she was 16, and her good days would never again outweigh her bad days. It's been more than a year, but I still miss Cleo very much. I always will, of course, but the boys brought a lot of laughter back into our house and helped heal the hole in my heart. You can read more about Cleo and her battle with CRF and IBD at Living with a CRF cat.  |
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