Ballet, Piddle-Kitten, Boo-boo Girl, Gabriella-Just-So. She had a lot of nick names, but she was first and foremost, Gabriella. Her origins were dodgy. One day in January 1993, I received a call at work from HeWhoShallNotBeNamed*. There were these two kittens that someone found outside and there were people who were willing to take one cat or the other, but not two together, and he thought they really should stay together, can he bring them home?
I "reasoned" to myself: we already have three cats. One more isn't much work and really two more is just a little more work than one..."OK, bring them both."
When I came home there were two kittens in a cardboard box. Gabriella was a brown and black tabby with the cutest white paws that looked like she was wearing slippers. She looked up at me with her big green eyes and started meowing. "She's talkative," I said. Some how "talky" became "gabby" but that didn't sound dignified. So "gabby" became "Gabriella" and it instantly seemed like the perfect name.
Friendliest of the bunch, she would jump up on visitors and paw at them until they gave her the attention she craved. She loved teaser toys and chased them long into her senior years. She overcame diabetes and accepted blood tests and insulin shots with grace and dignity. When I was in nursing school, she loved to sit right next to me on the couch as I studied or wrote up care plans. She loved to be brushed and groomed. Just the site of the comb and she would come running and purring and nuzzle you until you brushed her.
She and Bijoux were engaged in a love affair. Many times I came home to find them curled up together on the couch or the bed. The sound of the door would wake them out of their sleepy rapture and they would through a guilty glance at me before one or both of them would jump off the bed...the spell broken.
Late last year, we started noticing that Gabriella was walking into us or not getting out of our way like she used to. She also wasn't responding to her teaser toys. I brought her to her vet who immediately suspected retinopathy related to high blood pressure. We took her to the specialty vet, who confirmed the original diagnosis. We started her on a course of blood pressure medication and her sight was restored within a few weeks.
Early this month, she started vomiting and having diarrhea and wouldn't eat. We went back to the vet and what I suspected was confirmed, lymphoma. We started her on prednisone, prilosec, and metronidazole to help control the diarrhea. We also started her on fluids. Her appetite was restored after a few days. She went back to eating her old food if it was watered down into a slurry. She did very well for a couple of weeks until this past weekend, when she stopped eating and stared throwing up blood tinted vomit. I made an appointment with her vet on Tuesday morning. On Monday night, she still would not eat. Out of desperation, I offered her ice cream. She ate it. I gave her milk, she lapped up two cap fulls and then would not eat any more. She walked back to the bedroom and crawled under the bed.
On Tuesday, I woke up at 4am to the sound of Gabriella breathing. She was under my side of the bed. I went to the floor and checked her. I knew what was happening. I put my hand on her to let her know I was there. She left us at 6am.
She was a companion of mine for almost 18 years, traveling from wherever she came from in New York to New Jersey to Pennsylvania. I can still remember the first time I saw her sitting up straight and tall, with her white paws in perfect alignment with her chin and I thought "well doesn't she look prim and proper and just so?"
She was precious and we miss her.
*A former companion.
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