Sadly, our seven-year-old Bengal named Tesla died today. A week and a half ago, he seemed to rally a bit with the CBD oil, but then he took a turn for the worse. All the tests were inconclusive – maybe kidney, maybe malabsorption syndrome, maybe a cytokine storm.

We spent over a thousand dollars – trying Prednisone and pancreatic enzymes, but his time was up. We sent him over the rainbow bridge to cat heaven.

He was an unusual cat, as all cats are. We called him The Cheetah. He was a good eater and a good traveller. He loved going to the cabin. We used to joke that we bought it for him.

We will process the grief by playing our three hour Sad Songs iTunes mix and just sit together and cry our eyes out, feeling like the loss will kill us. But it won’t because loss is a part of life, and eventually we will recover and move on with the happy memories of being blessed with the opportunity to love a beautiful cat.

In the meantime, we will shower love and attention on our remaining cat Gwaihir the Egyptian Mau.

All of you who have loved and lost will understand.

That was the title of a blog post I wrote for Tuesday July 14, 2020. We had an in-home euthanasia appointment booked for our very sick Bengal cat (who we have always referred to as the cheetah.)

But I cancelled it. I happened to phone an independent pet food store that I shop at for an unrelated enquiry. I told her about poor Telsa, and she asked me if we had tried CBD oil. We had not, but I did have some on hand, so we decided to try it a few days before the ‘cat goes to heaven’ appointment.

Amazingly, after months of diarrhea, the cat had a normal bowel movement. And then the next day, he seemed better again. He was quite zonked out – I think the CBD we gave him has THC.

So we decided to give the cat at least a week on the CBD oil before we rescheduled the appointment. I bought a few different versions that do not have THC.

He is still with us, although he is still quite skinny and not what you would call a robust cat. But he is eating, and grooming, and using the litter box, and he can climb the stairs.

I weigh him once a week to check his progress. I don’t think he is out of the woods, and if his weight declines, it will clearly be a bad sign. But if the CBD oil can give him a few weeks or months of life with us, it is worth it. We do love the cheetah.

I had a wonderful friend who died a few years ago from cancer. She was only in her forties, and it was really awful, and I miss her a lot.

But I’m thinking about it now and I have a dilemma.

Do I keep my clothes that are now too small, as a cancer wardrobe, or do I donate them? Because of stress eating from the Covid LIErus, I have gained weight. If I get a wasting disease, I will need something that fits, and all of these clothes are really nice – a Burberry skirt bought at a Buffalo outlet mall, and several other things that might come in handy if I lose forty pounds from cells that go haywire. Like many others in her situation, my friend lost a lot of weight when her cells went crazy and attacked her immune system.

I was with her for 10 minutes, in the palliative care unit, 12 hours before she died. Weirdly, it was the same room her dad was in a few years earlier when he died. I have a book written by palliative nurses who say that you should pay attention to the final things that a dying person says. My friend said “Is there going to be a party”, and “I’m sorry”. Maybe she was apologizing for something she felt guilt about and perhaps she was anticipating a reunion in heaven since she was a Bible believing Christian.

We will never know.

Hospital beds should be double, so you can lie with the dying and touch them with your whole body. Let them drape their arm across your chest and rest their head on your shoulder. It would make passing from this life so much kinder.