The biggest news of break is not happy news.

I got it just as I came in, and called my parents to let them know I had gotten home safely.

Their not-quite-22 year old cat had been fighting an infection for some time. Apparently it was an antibiotic-resistant infection; several antibiotics worked for a while, then her white count started going up again. She had made several trips to the vet when I was up there, and I kind of whipsawed between hope that she'd get better and a sense that she wouldn't.

The vet had managed to get a culture of the bacteria; it was a Pseudomonas species. She said there was one last antibiotic to try, but it was formulated for humans and she'd have to figure out how best to dilute it.

Well, that never happened. This morning, when my mom woke up, the cat was comatose. Either the infection finally overwhelmed her, or her kidneys gave out. (She had fought kidney disease for years). The vet had originally made plans - even though it was her day off - to meet with my mom to discuss the plan of action for the antibiotic, so instead she met my mom to have the cat put to sleep.

I guess the good thing is she didn't know what was happening. And she had a catheter port already (from an earlier rehydration treatment), so it was easy for the vet to administer.

I'm sad about it, but not devastated the way I thought I might be. (I "knew" this cat from my days in grad school - both she and her sister, who predeceased her, were middle-aged cats at that time).

In a strange way - and some people might find this a little cold - I'm sort of relieved. For one thing, there was no guarantee the antibiotic would work, or that it wouldn't have horrible side effects on the cat (the vet said she had never used that antibiotic on a cat before). The cat had suffered some from nausea in the days before and she had gotten very dehydrated over the weekend I was up there.

And also, there's the sense of, "I knew it was coming some time, now it's over, I can cry about it and then move on." Better now when I have a little free time to process it than while I was actually in the middle of teaching.

And I got to say goodbye to the cat. (Well, actually, before I left I said "Please get better because I want to see you when I visit in August" but we don't always get what we want.) She did purr for me one last time the night before I left, and she purred for my mom one last time last night. I don't know but sometimes I suspect that animals somehow "know" and manage to say goodbye the best they can.

Another thing that's maybe kind of horrible to say, but I'm also relieved this didn't happen while I was up there. Especially that it didn't happen yesterday morning, while I was hurrying around trying to get everything together for coming back. And I'm just glad I didn't have to be there for it. 

This is going to be hard on my mother; she was really the caretaker for the cat, especially lately, where she would put towels down for her (in case she couldn't get to the box in time when she needed to urinate) and gave her all her medicines and everything.

I don't think my parents are getting another cat - at least, they've said up to this point that they wouldn't. That might change, I don't know, but I know it will take a while.

It's still a little bit unreal to me.