Returning from a long trip around the world is very hard. However, I had the cushion of returning to my old place and was able to start working right away on remodeling a house. But the best part of coming home was, in a word, Grover. He made my return home a joy. I was so fearful that something would happen to him while I was away. I missed him a lot while I was gone, and coming home early wasn’t really so bad because it meant seeing my Grover again. He’s been my constant home companion for the last 14 1/2 years. I love the little guy so much. He has gone through more of life with me than most other people, and it’s not a stretch to say that he is my kid, and I am his dad. So it is with great pain and sadness that I now have to live without him.

Grover died on Saturday morning. I’m still in shock from it, because it all happened so fast. He stopped eating so I took him in. After a blood test the following day came back with alarming levels, I decided to take him to the emergency care center where specialists could try to help him. They did tons of tests on him and still couldn’t figure out why his abdomen was filling up with fluid, and why his liver appeared to have normal levels but wasn’t working properly. He was put on antibiotics, but they didn’t seem to be helping. By last Thursday, after 3 days in the hospital, I was faced with Grover quickly slipping away. He wasn’t getting enough food in him, still no diagnosis, he had developed a heart murmur, and there was little else they could do except exploratory surgery to see if they could find anything. I wanted everything possible to be done to help the little guy and said that if it might save him, then of course go ahead with the surgery. That evening I went in to see Grover again, and his health had deteriorated sharply over the last day. I was fearful that he might not even make it through the surgery. The surgeon called the morning of his scheduled operation and expressed a lot of hesitation about going ahead with the surgery. Grover had gone downhill very quickly. Even if Grover survived the surgery, which was in doubt, the surgeon wasn’t at all sure he could do anything once he got in there that would help Grover. So, reluctantly, I decided not to put Grover through that. The next option, other than putting Grover to sleep, was to try giving him steroids to see if it would stop the inflammatory fluids in his abdomen, and get him on a feeding tube. This also meant putting Grover out for about 15 minutes while they put the tube in. So they did this on Saturday morning. When I went in to see him Saturday evening. I was taken to the back where he lay in his cage, too drugged out and weak to even lift his head. He looked completely out of it. The doctor said that he was still drugged out from the anethesia, but he was also just really really sick. His blood pressure was dangerously low. I began to doubt if I should have even had them put the feeding tube in. Maybe I should have just put him down. But now that the tube was in, and we were trying something new with the steriods, I figured it was worth a try… as long as Grover wasn’t suffering. Was he suffering? I don’t really know. Probably he was. Cats don’t cry and they don’t talk, so you can only guess at how they are feeling, and what they would want. I knew that if he didn’t get better overnight, I would have to put him to sleep. I went to bed after calling in to see if his blood pressure had gone up, it hadn’t…it had dropped even more, so they were going to give him some dopamine to try to get his pressure back up. Dopamine also meant that he’d feel a little better. I slept about 4 hours that night. I awoke at 5 am and felt an overwhelming fear that he was dead. I cried most of the morning. I was afraid to call the hospital. I figured no news was good news. At 10:15 AM a doctor called. Grover was going though cardiac arrest. There was still a tiny heartbeat; they wanted to know if I wanted them to try to resuscitate him. I told them to let him go. It was time. We had tried our best to save the little guy but there was just nothing we could do. I went and got his body and brought him back home. He was still warm, still soft, still. Shane and Dianna and Rachel and Lyle attended the burial in the back yard. Grover was finally back home. Before I put him in the ground I kissed his sweet face one last time and smelled his soft black fur one last time. I will miss that boy for a long long time. He was a sweet, loving cat and he brought a lot of joy and love into this world.

Now I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand to be home, but I can’t stand to go out. Home just doesn’t feel like home without my Grover here. After living here for nearly 15 years, I think it’s time to move.