Hi all. It has been just over a month. I miss him just as much if not
more every day. Here's Dudley's story for those who wanted to read about
him. :)

First off, I have to preface this by saying we had no intention of
getting another cat. I have had my Luna since she was about 6 months old
and at the time we did get Dudley, she was about 6 years old. She is a
much happier single cat, but bless her for tolerating Dudley like she did.

A friend of the family's mother passed away (Virginia was the mom, Linda
the daughter...and Linda is a dear friend of my mother-in-law.) Linda
mentioned to us that her mother was ill and did we want a beautiful
Siamese if and when she passed away. At the time we had no real interest
(for many reasons besides Luna). When Virginia finally passed away, we
went to the wake. Linda approached us right away, telling us all about
Dudley (whose name was then Jasper...i often refer to him on here as
JasperDuds or J-Dud :) ) Linda said he was a wonderful cat, a bit older,
and just needed a lap to live out his time on. I was like, NO WAY. But
then she said that I should "just go see him!!" and like a TOTAL
SUCKER...I agreed.

When we arrived at Virginia's apartment (very close to the wake, so we
literally went DURING the wake) we found Dudley just sitting on
Virginia's bed, which was one of those hospice kind of beds, not even a
cushy comfy one. Oh god my heart is breaking again just thinking about
it. He just had this look on his face like, where the HELL is my mom?
When is she coming back? From what I understand, Dudley spent just about
every moment attached to Virginia's side. :(  My heart broke when I saw
him. I just KNEW I had to get him the hell out of there. Oddly, there
was another cat there, too, named Max. Max was younger and more active.
He was running around and having a jolly time. Plus, the two were NOT
bonded at all. So, right then I decided, hell yes we are getting this
cat out of here. Linda would take care of getting Max adopted. But I had
to take Dudley. He absolutely needed a home.

We brought him home and isolated him in a small room away from Luna
until we could get him in to the vet. That ended up being about 4 days
later and in that time, DH and I began to think that Dudley couldn't
see...and we also thought that he couldn't really hear!!! Apparently
Linda was not aware of this...but Dudley was deaf and blind. A
wonderful, beautiful purebred seal point Siamese whose mommy just
died... (and that mommy was his 2nd mommy...his first was ALSO an
elderly woman who died!!)...and he couldn't hear OR see and clearly had
no idea what the hell was happening to him.

We got him checked out at the vet and it was confirmed that he was
almost completely deaf and blind. Otherwise, he seemed to be in decent
health so we integrated him as best we could to the rest of the home.

Luna was never fond of him. But she is not an agressive cat, rather a
scaredy cat! So, basically they just "worked" together. Sometimes if
Dudley was walking down the hall towards Luna, she would hiss and swat
at him because she clearly had no idea he couldnt even see her.
Sometimes he would bump into her while her back was turned so neither
knew the other was there. Ahh. Such memories.

About 6 months after we got him, Dudley got sick. He was lethargic and
wouldnt eat and had thrown up quite a bit. We took him to the vet who
ran blood tests and suspected Pancreatitis. Dudley was a TERRRRRRIBLE
patient at the vet. I would be too if I could not see or hear but kept
getting poked by strange things that smelled funky!!!! So, they gave him
some fluids and some meds and sent him home to recuperate with us. This
was on a Friday and by Sunday he was not doing better and I took him to
the emergency vet. He ended up there for 2 nights and saw a specialist
who worked there during the day. She suspected pancreatitis as well and
did an ultra sound which showed some thickening of tissue in the I
HONESTLY CAN NOT REMEMBER which organ!!! :)  (stomache? liver? i really
think liver) At the time, Dudley was about 12.5 years old and I could
not justify extensive and invasive testing to see if he had cancer or
not when I felt it was cruel to put him through any kind of serious
treatment. DH and I decided together then that our mission was to give
Dudley the best we could for whatever time he had left in life. We would
give him all supportive/palliative care, but we would not subject our
elderly, deaf blind cat to such stuff. When he recovered from the bout
with pancreatitis, we also had a dental done in which they removed all
of his teeth except his fangs. He was now toofless!!!!

Dudley recovered well and did not have a flare up until this past March.
He got sick and we took him to the vet immediately. He got meds and
fluids and literally bounced back within hours! It was fantastic.

Then, DH and I went on vacation to North Carolina in the middle of
August. The day we left, Dudley got sick. We had a cat sitter, but we
still didn't find out until the next day and by Friday, I had our
neighbor take him to the vet. We really hoped he would bounce back
again...but alas this time he did not. We came home from vacation early
and had him back and forth to the vet for just over another week. But
his systems were just not working properly. He was constipated and quite
frustrated about it. I was giving him fluids at home and then eventually
was also giving him all of his meds at home via injection. Just over a
week later, we really started to realize this was not going to get
better. On a Monday night, we knew it was time. His breathing was
labored, he could barely eat and he kept trying to use the litter box
but couldnt. We decided we would take him in the morning to be
euthanized and we cried all night about it. Late that night we said good
night and my DH told Dudley it was okay to LET GO. We pet him and we
told him we loved him and that he should stop fighting.

He died shortly thereafter. We were in the next room sleeping. My Dudley
died on his own terms in his own home with his loving mommy and daddy
just down the hall. We awoke the next morning prepared to take him to
the vet and he was gone.

We loved Dudley SO DAMN MUCH. His ashes are now back at home with us
where he belongs.

I'm bawling.
I miss him.
He was such a wonderful creature and I learned SOOOO much from having
him. Two years was not enough.

Here he is....happy and (relatively) healthy:

http://public.fotki.com/kitkatluna/animals/jasper_dudley/window4.html
that is the picture on his special urn

http://public.fotki.com/kitkatluna/animals/jasper_dudley/dscf0007.html
he loved the window!

http://public.fotki.com/kitkatluna/animals/jasper_dudley/dscf0019.html
his infamous buddha pose

http://public.fotki.com/kitkatluna/miscellaneous/random/jasper.html
the day we brought him home