The tiles are all installed and they look great.

There of course has to be a dark lining behind this silver cloud.

Yogi has died.

The day before the job was to be finished, Yogi asked me if he could go outside. I had not allowed him in previous days because of all the noise and activity. Yogi is the kitty who came home partially paralyzed a few months ago. He’d been doing so well, adapting to being an indoor/outdoor kitty, so I stupidly thought that, since the guys were almost done, they surely would be done making a lot of noise and he’d be fine out there.

I’m having a hard time dealing with this because I made the conscious choice to let him go out. He went out. I had a couple of appointments that morning, so I wasn’t home to hear what was going on out there.

Doors had been taken off an outdoor closet and the pump room, and the tile guys were nice enough to cut the doors and replace them (they did a great job, too). But at some point, Yogi must have gotten scared and hidden in the pump room and then maybe tried to jump to a high shelf with his weakened back legs. Then he must have fallen on something in there and really hurt himself.

When I got home from my appointments, I was thrilled that they were able to cut the doors and put them back on. They left and I started to sweep the dust and pieces of concrete and hardened thin-set out of the laundry room, where they had also removed, cut and replaced a door.

I heard Yogi crying from outside and opened the door. He wasn’t there, but I heard him from inside the pump room, so I opened the door and called him. He was crying and in pain, but he was able to drag himself out from under the water tank. He was again only using his front legs. He was covered with vomit and urine and thin-set or grout, but he bravely dragged himself out of the pump room and into a carrier. I called the vet, and the receptionist (this one I really don’t like) reluctantly told me to come in with him, since it “seems to be an emergency”.

Yogi and I talked all the way to the vet. He was really brave about the whole thing, so I hoped that it would be like last time and he’d be able to make a miraculous come-back.  I wasn’t ready to let him go. Dr. Stacia was not nearly as optimistic as I.

She explained a couple of possible reasons for his paralysis, but the prognosis was not good at all. I wanted her to x-ray him and give him some more steroids since they helped him last time. She said that he’d have to stay overnight, and I agreed since I knew he’d be more comfortable there. It’s a pretty cushy animal hospital, after all.

Anyway, my poor little Yogums didn’t make it through the night. So I’ve been beating myself up for letting him go outside that day.

Michael dug a hole while I went to get his little body. The Sugar Mill staff had picked some flowers for us, and we got another little gravestone, too. Nice touches.

I still feel responsible. He didn’t have to die like that. He knew I loved him, but it still really sucks.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 2:28 pm and is filed under St. Croix, Terry Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.