TC's origin story:
TC came into my life in January of 2002. My parents and I were living in a renthouse on the coast of Texas, and my mom's beloved cat Martha had disappeared (we believe she ran away to die, because she was very old and sickly) about a week before this. While Mom was in the midst of grieving not only for Martha but for her own mother, who had died exactly a year before, my dad got the brilliant idea (haha!) to bring a scrawny, orange-and-white kitten home one day without letting her know first, as a gift to her, to get her mind off things. All he said was that a coworker's cat had had some kittens; I don't know much about where TC came from than that. I suspect that he was taken to his mother too soon; he was a tiny, little thing.
My mom was not impressed. She was not ready for another cat, she didn't like this scrawny scared little thing that meowed plaintively all the time & had fleas. So she refused to give him a proper name, and called him The Cat, which we later shortened to TC. Then she gave him a fleabath. I wasn't at home when this happened, but I guess he had a lot of fleas, so in her kind of foggy state of mind from the grieving she had been through recently, she thought a lot of flea medicine plus flea shampoo would take care of it. All I know is, when I got home he was shivering like crazy & looked like a drowned rat, having had some kind of reaction to the flea medicine, and my mamma instinct kicked in. It was too late for a vet that night, so I bundled him up in towels, carried him to my room, and huddled with him, giving him cuddles and pets and telling him everything was ok. And that's how TC and I bonded. I guess he looked to me as his mamma after that, and he pretty much was inseparable from me from that point on. Well, except for when I moved out for a while in the mid-2000s.
TC, the most interesting cat in the world. He doesn't always eat salad, but when he does, it's basically just blades of grass.
TC's defining characteristics, or, Why TC is The Most Interesting Cat in the World, or, How an Ordinary Orange and White Cat Ended Up Stealing My Heart Forever and Ever:
TC savoring some grass.
Pictured: Poser
TC's lazy eye
Techno-kitty. I hope he deleted his browser history!
The beginning of the end:
I now realize, looking back, that TC had been very subtly showing symptoms of not feeling well for at least a couple of months before this, but it wasn't until mid-July that we started noticing. No one ever monitored his food intake; he grazed, and anytime the bowl was empty, it would get refilled by whoever noticed it first, so it's possible that he had been slowing down on eating and drinking for a couple of weeks. He had a water fountain, but he preferred drinking from the tub.
The first thing I noticed was when my parents went away for a week-long trip. The morning they left, it was something like 90 degrees outside & 70 inside, but TC was acting like he was freezing, and he kept trying to get in the spot I was sitting in every time I would move, which was not unheard of, but not super-common. Then he was very reluctant to move. I mentioned something to my mom about taking him to the vet, and she said to wait till they got back, because she wanted to go too, and it was probably nothing. I tend to over-react and be overprotective of TC, so I didn't trust my own judgment on this. During this week, I kinda noticed that he was not eating a whole lot, and that he was very lethargic and seemed depressed, but this is fairly common to a degree when anyone in the family is gone, so I just chalked it up to my parents being out of town.
He would have one day where he was just totally lethargic, and then the next day he would be up and eating and his normal self, so I kept thinking, well, he's getting better; no, he's not getting better... maybe he just misses mom and dad? Anyway, the last day of that week, I finally realized there was something really wrong with him. My mom got back, and TC didn't perk up or really even acknowledge her, but she thought he was mad at her for going away, which was uncharacteristic of him. He's not a kitty that holds a grudge at all... anyway, gradually over the weekend he went sharply downhill, and we started thinking he was dying. We got him to the vet by Tuesday, and the blood work they did showed his blood levels dangerously low. They kept him overnight and gave him a transfusion, then sent him home with some meds. The vet was kind of vague and just said he suspected it might be some kind of cancer but didn't say why; just that the only way to be sure was a bone marrow biopsy (because of the non-regenerative anemia)
TC at the vet, 7/31/15
A couple of vet visits and a different vet who finally did an ultrasound and actually said specific things using specific medical words words later, and he had the (tentative) diagnosis of intestinal cancer that had metastasized into the stomach and spleen, with visible masses. The new vet told us this, but she didn't really explain all the implications. The whole time we were kind of just guessing how bad he was based on his behavior and symptoms... This was August 3rd; he got sent home with some meds. Anyhow, with a lot of second-guessing and agonizing indecision and soul-searching, and after consulting with his vet, and trying several things to improve his quality of life & get him eating and drinking again, and another blood transfusion, etc, on August 19th, 2015, we had our TC put to sleep. My mom and dad and myself were all there. It was peaceful. I immediately broke down and was a complete, hysterical wreck for the next 13 hours.
To try to sum up (this was way longer than I intended, but it's hard to stop talking about my beloved TC), I know that I know that TC knew that I loved him. He knew that he was loved, and that we did everything we could to help him at every point. I wish so much that he could have stayed with me/us for a few more years. I wish so much that he could stay with me forever, in physical form, but I will have to make do with the fact that he is waiting for me at the rainbow bridge. Last night my mom had a dream that he was walking across her bed toward her, purring very loudly, and just as he got to her, she woke up, and she said that she could have sworn she heard purring just a couple of seconds after waking, like he was really there. I have been praying for and wanting so much some kind of affirmation that TC didn't just cease to exist 2 days ago, and I'm taking this as such.
If you've read this far, I commend you. I know I wrote a freaking novel. Thanks for reading about my beloved TC. I'm enclosing a link to my favorite pics of him on Imgur if anyone wants to see more. I will always love you, TC, and I will never forget you.
My TC album:
TC came into my life in January of 2002. My parents and I were living in a renthouse on the coast of Texas, and my mom's beloved cat Martha had disappeared (we believe she ran away to die, because she was very old and sickly) about a week before this. While Mom was in the midst of grieving not only for Martha but for her own mother, who had died exactly a year before, my dad got the brilliant idea (haha!) to bring a scrawny, orange-and-white kitten home one day without letting her know first, as a gift to her, to get her mind off things. All he said was that a coworker's cat had had some kittens; I don't know much about where TC came from than that. I suspect that he was taken to his mother too soon; he was a tiny, little thing.
My mom was not impressed. She was not ready for another cat, she didn't like this scrawny scared little thing that meowed plaintively all the time & had fleas. So she refused to give him a proper name, and called him The Cat, which we later shortened to TC. Then she gave him a fleabath. I wasn't at home when this happened, but I guess he had a lot of fleas, so in her kind of foggy state of mind from the grieving she had been through recently, she thought a lot of flea medicine plus flea shampoo would take care of it. All I know is, when I got home he was shivering like crazy & looked like a drowned rat, having had some kind of reaction to the flea medicine, and my mamma instinct kicked in. It was too late for a vet that night, so I bundled him up in towels, carried him to my room, and huddled with him, giving him cuddles and pets and telling him everything was ok. And that's how TC and I bonded. I guess he looked to me as his mamma after that, and he pretty much was inseparable from me from that point on. Well, except for when I moved out for a while in the mid-2000s.
TC, the most interesting cat in the world. He doesn't always eat salad, but when he does, it's basically just blades of grass.
TC's defining characteristics, or, Why TC is The Most Interesting Cat in the World, or, How an Ordinary Orange and White Cat Ended Up Stealing My Heart Forever and Ever:
TC savoring some grass.
Pictured: Poser
TC's lazy eye
Techno-kitty. I hope he deleted his browser history!
The beginning of the end:
I now realize, looking back, that TC had been very subtly showing symptoms of not feeling well for at least a couple of months before this, but it wasn't until mid-July that we started noticing. No one ever monitored his food intake; he grazed, and anytime the bowl was empty, it would get refilled by whoever noticed it first, so it's possible that he had been slowing down on eating and drinking for a couple of weeks. He had a water fountain, but he preferred drinking from the tub.
The first thing I noticed was when my parents went away for a week-long trip. The morning they left, it was something like 90 degrees outside & 70 inside, but TC was acting like he was freezing, and he kept trying to get in the spot I was sitting in every time I would move, which was not unheard of, but not super-common. Then he was very reluctant to move. I mentioned something to my mom about taking him to the vet, and she said to wait till they got back, because she wanted to go too, and it was probably nothing. I tend to over-react and be overprotective of TC, so I didn't trust my own judgment on this. During this week, I kinda noticed that he was not eating a whole lot, and that he was very lethargic and seemed depressed, but this is fairly common to a degree when anyone in the family is gone, so I just chalked it up to my parents being out of town.
He would have one day where he was just totally lethargic, and then the next day he would be up and eating and his normal self, so I kept thinking, well, he's getting better; no, he's not getting better... maybe he just misses mom and dad? Anyway, the last day of that week, I finally realized there was something really wrong with him. My mom got back, and TC didn't perk up or really even acknowledge her, but she thought he was mad at her for going away, which was uncharacteristic of him. He's not a kitty that holds a grudge at all... anyway, gradually over the weekend he went sharply downhill, and we started thinking he was dying. We got him to the vet by Tuesday, and the blood work they did showed his blood levels dangerously low. They kept him overnight and gave him a transfusion, then sent him home with some meds. The vet was kind of vague and just said he suspected it might be some kind of cancer but didn't say why; just that the only way to be sure was a bone marrow biopsy (because of the non-regenerative anemia)
TC at the vet, 7/31/15
A couple of vet visits and a different vet who finally did an ultrasound and actually said specific things using specific medical words words later, and he had the (tentative) diagnosis of intestinal cancer that had metastasized into the stomach and spleen, with visible masses. The new vet told us this, but she didn't really explain all the implications. The whole time we were kind of just guessing how bad he was based on his behavior and symptoms... This was August 3rd; he got sent home with some meds. Anyhow, with a lot of second-guessing and agonizing indecision and soul-searching, and after consulting with his vet, and trying several things to improve his quality of life & get him eating and drinking again, and another blood transfusion, etc, on August 19th, 2015, we had our TC put to sleep. My mom and dad and myself were all there. It was peaceful. I immediately broke down and was a complete, hysterical wreck for the next 13 hours.
To try to sum up (this was way longer than I intended, but it's hard to stop talking about my beloved TC), I know that I know that TC knew that I loved him. He knew that he was loved, and that we did everything we could to help him at every point. I wish so much that he could have stayed with me/us for a few more years. I wish so much that he could stay with me forever, in physical form, but I will have to make do with the fact that he is waiting for me at the rainbow bridge. Last night my mom had a dream that he was walking across her bed toward her, purring very loudly, and just as he got to her, she woke up, and she said that she could have sworn she heard purring just a couple of seconds after waking, like he was really there. I have been praying for and wanting so much some kind of affirmation that TC didn't just cease to exist 2 days ago, and I'm taking this as such.
If you've read this far, I commend you. I know I wrote a freaking novel. Thanks for reading about my beloved TC. I'm enclosing a link to my favorite pics of him on Imgur if anyone wants to see more. I will always love you, TC, and I will never forget you.
My TC album:
