Aftermath

A week passed before I could face the sad task of dealing with physical reminders of Lexie Lee’s passing. There were many. She liked to eat out of small bowls. When she got sick, I put her food in vintage flat glass bowls that accommodated smaller portions. That practice continued for six months. I found bowls in the bedroom under a bench and under the bed and by a water dish. Another bowl was under the dining room table and two more were in the kitchen.

A large shoe box was under the coffee table. How she loved to stuff herself in that box! The sides were beginning to collapse, but it was still one of her favorite boxes. Her blue pet carrier had been a familiar fixture in the kitchen for months for easy accessibility for weekly vet appointments.

When you have a sick kitty, you try all kinds of food—just praying you find one that is gobbled up. There were extra cans of A/D and baby food that were not suitable for Chauncey and Grace. Left over baked fish and chicken were tossed from refrigerator.

Then there’s all the medicine: B-12 shots, prednisolone tablets, prednisolone liquid in red and also tuna flavor, appetite stimulant pills, nausea pills, and morphine. Assorted sizes of syringes rounded out the home pharmacy. A bag of Pill Pockets had not worked out. Well if you count once, I guess they did! I chuckled as I removed these from the kitchen cabinet and recalled Lexie’s reaction to them. I had wrapped a prednisolone tablet in one and placed it along with one torn up into smaller bites with no pills. She ate everything on the plate. I thought I had found my miracle vet assistant in the disguise of a Pill Pocket. The next day I prepared the same smorgasbord of pockets and pills. This time Lexie bit into the bite with the pill. She spit it out, looked at me with disdain and walked away. I tried a couple more days, but she was on to me! I was reminded of the saying: Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on me.

There was laundry to tackle. The towel from the pet carrier was removed. The kitchen rug had been a popular spot for me to wrap Lexie Lee up in a papoose towel and administer daily meds. Her bedding was set up in a hallway the last two days of her life. Her pink velour bed from the living room was taken apart for cleaning. Several other throw rugs were tossed in the washer. Some serious vacuuming followed laundry.

Finally, I filed away a veterinary file chock-full of weekly chemo treatments, discharge instructions, lab reports, bills and receipts. I often referred to it as the “hope” file.

So the physical reminders are minimized. The house is back in order. Chauncey has claimed the pink velour bed. Life goes on. The psychological reminders—well that’s another matter.