auradis

We lost Harley today. (Technically yesterday by the time I post this.)

I’m still in a state of disbelief. It all took a turn so unexpectedly, and right now the grief is still raw. The pain is physical — every time I think about the fact that Harley is gone, forever, I can feel my heart splitting in my chest.

What really stands out to me now is how trusting Harley was from the beginning. She had particular boundaries, sure, but during her first week home, she was already snuggling in bed with me. Clearly she just wanted a safe home to be loved in, and that’s what she got.

I’ve started cleaning up her things, and when I come across another item that she’ll never use again, I feel a paralyzing ache. Neither of us will ever again experience the joy of being together. I can’t bear the sorrow, not only for my own loss but also for her life that should’ve been much longer. Her shelter medical exam guessed her birthday to be February 3, which means she turned 6 just a few days ago.

My time with Harley was so short — just over two years. It was so brief that I feel the need to write it all out in case I forget the details in the future.

In October 2022, Laika underwent emergency surgery to remove a random chunk of plastic that had gotten stuck in her intestines. I can’t say if this is what made me pull the trigger, but I had been mulling over the idea of getting Laika a sister to play with for over a year at that point.

So, in November, with Laika healing up nicely, I went on the Austin Pets Alive website and started looking at adult female cats.

This little face caught my eye. In a residential neighborhood off Parmer Lane, a nice couple were out for a walk when they found her on the sidewalk, scrawny and desperate to follow them home.

They already had two cats, so they quarantined her in the garage with some toys and furniture. Surprisingly, she was already spayed, but not eartipped, meaning she had been a house cat at some point. Her medical exam estimated that she was just shy of 4 years old.

Her fosters named her Hammerhead because she loved to headbutt when she wanted pets.

Obviously, we’ll never know what circumstances in her life until then led her to be found on the streets of North Austin, but if I could’ve asked her one thing that’s definitely what I would want an answer to. I assumed she had a loving owner at some point, as she was friendly toward humans — but she never got along with the fosters’ resident cats. Maybe she was bullied in the outdoors by other feral cats.

I didn’t have any experience introducing cats, but I had watched enough Jackson Galaxy videos on the topic that I felt somewhat confident I could figure it out between her and Laika.

She came home with me on December 3, 2022, yowling the entire car ride. I renamed her Harley, sort of named after Harley Quinn for her playful nature and sort of also trying to honor the first part of her previous name.

I set up the bedroom to be Harley’s territory, and she was quick to explore the space, though she did spend quite a bit of time hiding/resting under the bed for the first few months.

In comparison to my first daughter Laika, Harley was an easy cat to take care of in many ways:
Once I figured out which brands of wet food she liked, she was always excited for mealtime (much less picky than Laika, who randomly decides she hates her food and would rather starve than eat it)
She loved to play and would immediately get excited at the sight of a toy (Laika takes like 20 minutes with a cherry on top to feign any interest half the time)
She was fastidious about grooming and rarely required extra brushing (unlike Laika with her long, thick fur)
She only threw up twice ever (meanwhile Laika pukes at least once a month, usually on the rug)
She even loved our cat-sitter Daria (Laika always acts standoffish for the first few days I’m away!)

There were minor challenges, of course.

Harley LOVED being pet anywhere around her face/head, but if I tried taking her paw to clip her nails, she would bite my hand off. The one time I asked at the vet to clip her nails, they obliged, but upon bringing her back, they said I would need to give her a dose of gabapentin to calm her before asking them to do it again. Yikes!

After that, I would just wait until her whichever claw got long/sharp enough to catch on a toy or blanket, then surreptitiously snip it off while she was distracted. A slow process, but at least she didn’t need to take meds. Because she was absolutely terrible at taking the gabapentin.

I will also never forget the power of her poops. Most of the time her litter activity was normal, but once in a while, she would produce a poop with nuclear levels of odor that spread across the whole apartment. I usually collect the cats’ waste in paper bags, but I had to get plastic sandwich baggies to seal off Harley’s occasional stink bombs. Whew.

But the biggest issue of all was that Harley did not want Laika anywhere near her. She would not hesitate to hiss and growl if Laika got too close, which of course is all Laika wanted to do. Eventually, I think, Laika began to absorb/reflect Harley’s antagonistic energy, and they would get into spats that first year.

Even after I allowed them to mingle freely in the apartment, they kept their distance, and whenever I left the apartment, I made sure they were separated by a closed door. It wasn’t until November 2024 that I finally felt comfortable leaving the bedroom door open when I left for longer periods of time.

I randomly learned just last year that apparently it’s hardest to introduce two female cats because they tend to be territorial. Oops.

My girls were never truly friends, but they eventually settled into a comfortable arrangement, with each cat having their designated spots. Once in a while, though, I would get both of them in bed at the same time, and that was a wonderful treat. Usually it was because Harley was already sleeping in bed and Laika insisted on getting as close as she could while her sister had her guard down.

One of Harley’s favorite resting spots was on the headboard, which wouldn’t be noteworthy but for the fact that she would lie there in the weirdest position, with one arm dangling over the side. She looked like a snail :)

I had actually forgotten about this because after her leg was amputated, she couldn’t jump up there anymore :'( I was only reminded after going through all my Harley photos yesterday.

A year after I adopted Harley, I took her to the vet for an annual checkup. The doctor told me a few things:
Harley needed her teeth cleaned (I do brush my cats’ teeth regularly but clearly she had prior buildup that would require a more vigorous cleaning)
Harley had a small split in her tongue, perhaps from a catfight? (Not with Laika!!) You can see it here:

And most concerning, the vet discovered a small lump in Harley’s hind left leg. So I scheduled a dental cleaning and mass removal for December 2023.

Unfortunately, the lump in her leg was found to be an aggressive cancer. The surgeon had removed as much as they could, but since the area was so delicate, they couldn’t be sure they got all of it.

As it was around the holidays, we couldn’t get in to see an oncologist until January. Those few weeks were pretty stressful, thinking about all the different cancer care options that we might need to take.

The oncologist ended up recommending a full leg amputation. The lump had been halfway down her leg, so taking off the whole leg seemed to be the best option compared to the stress of doing chemo every day for weeks.

In January 2024, Harley became a tripod. She recovered great and didn’t seem too bothered by the missing leg; she could still get around pretty quickly. The big downside was that she couldn’t jump anymore.

I put a ramp next to the bed so she could still get on when she wanted. As for the couch or my desk, she only wanted up when I was sitting there already, so whenever she sat nearby and looked at me meaningfully, I knew she wanted me to pick her up and place her next to me.

And life went on. During the second half of 2024, we developed a nightly routine of ending the day on the couch together, watching TV: Harley on my right and Laika on my left. Just me and my girls.

On Christmas Eve 2024, I took Harley for her annual vet visit. Her bloodwork and kidney values came back as normal, though she weighed a bit above 11 pounds and the vet told me Harley should lose a bit of weight.

A week ago, around January 30, I noticed Harley was eating less than usual. On Saturday morning in particular, I discovered she had barely eaten any of her dinner overnight — and she was usually a very good eater.

I thought maybe she had gotten sick of her wet food, so I switched to kibble for the next few days. She ate it fine the first day but started eating less and less of that as well. She also became less interested in playtime. On February 3, her birthday, I put down a plate of catnip — one of her favorite activities — and she didn’t even bother to go inspect it. All bad signs.

Finally, on February 4, I took her to the vet again.

We had a different doctor this time, and the first thing she noted was that Harley had somehow gained weight since her visit five weeks prior — very strange considering I had been feeding her less food and she also hadn’t eaten much the past few days. Then the vet noticed that Harley’s belly was quite round and taut, like a baby’s belly or a water balloon. Definitely abnormal. So we scheduled an ultrasound for February 6.

During this week I could barely get Harley to eat anything. I tried crunchy treats, bonito flake treats, liquid churu-style treats — she was able to eat the latter, but only like a teaspoon per day. There was no vomiting or diarrhea, but I could tell Harley was uncomfortable. She was lying in sort of stretched out positions (different from her usual) and also spent a lot more time sleeping in the closet, where she normally went to hide or decompress.

I got the bad news on Thursday after her ultrasound. Harley’s belly and the area around her heart were full of excess fluid. Not just random stuff, but her own cells? So that if we drained the fluid she would become dehydrated? Apparently this condition is called ascites, and the fluid always comes back eventually because it’s an underlying symptom of a greater illness.

The doctor said that based on Harley’s history, the cause was likely cancer. The ultrasound had also shown some kind of growth in her chest and an inflamed pancreas. We decided to do an X-ray to look more closely. But the vet could already tell that the prognosis was not good. She couldn’t offer any treatment option other than an appetite stimulant, which I already had been using since Tuesday to no effect.

I was stunned. My baby girl had just turned 6 — only 6! — and now suddenly I was having to prepare for the end???

We had to wait until the next day for the official radiology report, but I was already inconsolable. I cried on the way to pick her up from the vet. I cried on the way home. I cried that night with my hand in her fur, knowing but not wanting to accept that it would be our last night on the couch together.

Early the next morning (I woke up at 4AM and couldn’t go back to sleep), I knew it was time. Harley clearly didn’t feel well. The cancer had come back and spread. There was nothing we could do. So I scheduled the dreaded appointment for later that day.

One of the things the vet had mentioned over the phone was that doing chemo or radiation usually provided an extra two years of life, and limb amputation provided one year. And it had already been 14 months. But I don’t remember anyone telling me those numbers a year ago when Harley underwent surgery. Maybe I was just being naively optimistic, but I assumed removing the leg would take care of the whole problem. I’m not sure we would’ve done anything differently had I known, but at least I would have cherished this last year with Harley more. I thought we would have many more years together.

During this time I finally finished reading Lucy Knisley’s “Woe” — a graphic novel about the life of her cat Linney who passed away in 2019. I was so excited for this book that I pre-ordered it before its July 2024 release, and since then I’ve been savoring it slowly. I tend to read very quickly (sometimes too quickly) but didn’t want to breeze through this one.

Well, on Thursday night I went through the last pages of the book, and they absolutely destroyed me. I hadn’t expected Knisley to depict Linney’s final moments, but she did — with gut-wrenching tenderness that spoke to how I felt in that exact moment. I recommend reading the whole book, but those particular pages are posted on her Instagram here.

I did not choose to partake in any of the cremation or paw print or nose print offerings from the vet, but I did snip off a few tufts of Harley’s beautiful dilute tortoiseshell fur and put them in a small jar with one of her whiskers I found in her carrier on that last day.

And now it’s back to just me and Laika at home. We had a magical, wonderful two years with Harley. She is irreplaceable. I’m so grateful that I was able to experience her love and trust, even though right now trying to find any joy just turns into heartache.

Thank you for everything, Harley. I will always love you and miss you.