Paying Tribute To Pearl

A couple weeks ago our cat, Pearl, stopped eating out of the blue. I noticed a couple of times that she wasn't interested in running over to eat her soft food. What you need to know about Pearl is that she was an obnoxious cat when she decided it was time to eat. If you were sleeping, forget about it. She was hungry.

Fred took her to the vet, and her blood work showed she might have kidney disease. A couple more days went by and she still wasn't eating. I took her back to see the vet, and that's when a different vet said she thought she felt a tumor. She removed a bowl full of fluid from her belly. She also gave Pearl a pill to stimulate her appetite. It didn't work.

I had been giving Pearl milk because she was living off of water only. Aside from not eating, she seemed so normal. Let's just say I was struggling with the choice I was going to have to make. Last Tuesday I heard from the vet who had been treating Pearl, and said she talked to the other vet, and believed that it was time to let her go.

Baby kittens in 1998

Let me tell you a bit about Pearl. We got Pearl and her sister Sammy from a farm from one of my co-workers when we first moved to Minnesota. That was in spring/summer 1998. My girls each became kitty mamas. They treated their cats like babies, I kid you not! I have pictures as proof. I think because of that, they were friendly, easy going cats.

As you can see above, Pearly-girl was a cuddler. Brieanne would go to sleep with Pearl facing her, and Pearl would wrap her arm around her neck like she was hugging her. She'd walk around with Pearl on her hip or laying upside down in her arms. Her nicknames were "P", "pearly-girl", "beedle", "pearl pearl", and "beedly-bee".

I never remember her this small

In a tutu

Sammy passed away on Thanksgiving Day 2012. I can't believe it's been four years already. She'd been sick for quite some time. In March the next year, I had left our other two cats, Pearl and Simba (a stray who wandered into our home around '01-02) with my ex who then couldn't keep them so an old co-worker of mine took them for about 9 months. In December of 2013, we flew the cats to Maryland.

She was always touching

This sweet girl was never sick a day in her life. She got out one day when she was probably a year old and we lived in our house on the lake. We found her a day or two later, and she had a cut on her belly, but that was it. I honestly thought Simba would go first because he's almost died before and currently has diabetes.

Taking her to the vets last Tuesday was incredibly hard. All appearances showed that she was just fine. If she had simply eaten, I would never have taken her to the vets. After a week and a half of not eating, I just knew there was no other choice.

I was incredibly thankful my friend Denise was willing to go with me. I texted Fred to let me know because he was out of town for a few days. He informed me he was about 20 minutes away, and just wanted to be here with me. Not only that, a week later, while he was out of town again for work, he had two Origami Owl charms sent to me to remember Pearl with. That came yesterday. Also yesterday, we got a sweet card from the vet clinic with a package of forget-me-not seeds and the Rainbow Bridge "poem".

Today I had to go get medicine for Peru, our dog, and started cry at the desk. I certainly didn't expect that reaction, but I wasn't surprised. She's going to be extremely missed.