I didn't realize that Dante was quickly moving towards the end of his life. I had noticed some slowing down recently; he didn't play with the intensity he had, didn't run around the house as frequently but I dismissed these as both products of the sudden higher temperature and his advancing age.
When we went to the vet on Thursday evening he was having some breathing difficulty and he was slightly dehydrated. They put him on a saline drip and gave him oxygen which all seemed to help. In the morning they took him off the oxygen so they could X-ray him and once complete he started having breathing problems. They gave him oxygen again and a few minutes later his heart failed. The post mortem review of the x-rays showed a dark spot on his pancreas which may have been cancer.
Tuesday evening we were sitting on the couch together while I watched the evening news. Dante decided to go out onto the balcony and within a second or two of him going out the door a cat fight broke out. Within a few seconds I broke the fight up and the strange white cat bolted off the balcony while Dante ran to the bedroom. How the cat even got up on the balcony is a complete mystery since it's 14 feet (4.3 meters) off the ground with nothing to climb up. Dante was, of course, upset but recovered his composure in about a half hour then spent the next hour and a half by my side. I had closed the screen door to the balcony right after the cat fight and he sat at the screen for quite a while late in the evening.
He had no physical injuries from the altercation but I suspect the stress from the fight did him in sooner than the cancer would have. He may even have had a minor heart attack from the scare. He quickly declined within the next day and a half although I thought the lethargy I saw Wednesday evening might have been from standing guard all day. It wasn't. It continued into Thursday although I got him to eat some food on Thursday morning and he perked up a lot. By the time I got home early Thursday evening (I bailed out of work early) he wasn't doing well at all. We went to the vet at that point.
The vet offered me the option of having blood drawn and taking him home to bring him back in the morning or to hospitalize him. He would have died at home that night and I would have never forgiven myself for not having given him the chance that he may have had at the hospital. I did sign off on the DNR given that he's about 10 years old and FIV positive, two large hurdles to overcome in desperate times. Only thing is that I did promise him I'd bring him home.
Just after he died the vet at the VCA Animal Hospital called me with the terrible news and asked me if I wanted to see him. I told her I'd be there shortly. I was escorted to a nicely furnished, softly lighted room and in a few moments a woman carried Dante in wrapped in a pink blanket and laid him on the couch next to me. Poor baby. I sat with him stroking him for a while, said goodbye, kissed him on the cheek a few times - something I have done a few thousand times in the last three years - tucked the blanket in around him and told the attendant that I was ready to go. I asked them to hold him until I decided what to do. I did promise to bring him home.
I talked to a pet mortuary in the Marina del Rey about cremation this afternoon. It's affordable so I asked them to pick up Dante. The guy who runs the business lives nearby me and said he'd bring the ashes in a satin covered box to me as well as a plaster paw print of his right front paw in a few days. At least I can keep my promise to bring him home.
I can't believe how much I miss him.
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