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Read more about the article A very bad week

A very bad week

Life does not organize itself for our convenience or happiness. The past seven days have delivered two losses that have left my wife and I bereft.

Irene’s Mum, Celina, died on Thursday, November 28 after a brief stay in the ICU at Trail Hospital. My sister Judy passed on Tuesday, December 3 in the Agassiz Senior’s Community after a short couple of months of extreme decline from rapidly progressive dementia.

I’m trying to figure out how to deal with these events, bumbling my way through being supportive of other family members, and generally feeling quite lost and rather irrelevant.

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Pippin: A Loving Tribute to Our Beloved and Quirky Feline Friend

Our sweet cat Pippin passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, June 20, while Irene and I were away. She died in her sleep of uncertain causes, and I miss her in ways that are difficult to describe.

I’m writing this in the hope that a few notes about Pippin will help me rationalize my feelings.

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The loss of a friend in a grey and white coat

I lost a dear friend on Wednesday, November 5.  We lived under the same roof for over two decades, and the fact that he wore fur and occasionally killed and ate rodents in his youth did nothing to detract from our bond.  I’m talking about my cat, Tuxedo.

The Spring

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I first met Tuxedo when he was six months old, and I was thirty.  Irene and I had been living on our acreage East of Sherwood Park for a couple of years, and decided it was time to add to our furry family.  We went to the SPCA in Edmonton, and Irene had already picked out a funny-looking, emaciated female cat who had recently given birth (Sasha).  I was still wandering about, and walked past several cat kennels when I felt a tug on my arm.  A small grey and white paw was reaching out between the bars and had caught my shirt: I looked in this child-cat’s eyes and couldn’t walk away.  I unlocked the bars of the cage and took him in my arms, and that was that.  Tuxedo, née Sylvester, was mine, and I was his.  

There is some debate in our household regarding whether we adopted Tuxedo in the October of 1994, or April of 1995.  Either way, he was born in 1994, and to say we met 20 years ago is sufficiently accurate at this point.  

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And Jasmine too…

We knew it was a possibility, perhaps even probable.  But that didn’t make losing Jasmine at the end of May any easier.

Irene and I both noticed something wrong as soon as we came back from our week-long cruise.  Jasmine looked “puffy” around her chest, and seemed somewhat disinterested and dull.  After a few days, she seemed to be having problems breathing.  An X-Ray showed fluid and a possible mass in her chest cavity.  Fluid was drawn, and ultrasound performed.  The mass was quite large, 4 cm by 2 cm, and looked like a tumor.  The fluid drawn from the chest, which eased Jasmine’s breathing for only a day or so, was also tested: it confirmed the worse.

Jasmine kitten- October, 2010

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Letting Harley go…

We had our kitten Harley, barely five months old, euthanized last night.  His last ten days of life were full of subcutaneous fluids, forced feedings, several antibiotics, and lots of love.  In the end I was faced with a decision I never want to have to repeat.  Harley’s immune system was damaged beyond repair by the feline leukaemia virus and, although we had managed to keep him alive for a few extra days, it wasn’t going to get better.

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