Poor Oliver

We have a stray cat that lives in the parking lot at the pharmacy. He is a straggly looking black and brown haired cat that looks like he has had a tough life. His hair is always pointing in multiple directions, he has a notch in his ear and a scar on his head from a fight, and he always looks dirty. He was the sort of cat that nobody really likes, because he looks dirty and sketchy, but I always really liked him because I felt so sorry for the poor guy. The other stray that lived in the parking lot was cute, but I always liked the black straggly guy better because I figured he never got any attention and needed it more than the cute cat.

He never would let anyone touch him. Over the past couple months, whenever I saw him I would try to get him to let me pet him. He would walk within five feet of me, meow a lot, then walk away. If I came towards him, he would run away. I keep thinking that I should bring some food with me in the mornings and try to bribe him into letting me pet him. I always forget, because there seems to always be something that is more important at the time.

This morning, when we arrived at work, the black cat was sitting on the far side of the parking lot, unmoving with his head down. Nat said he was probably sick, as one of the techs at work had told her that he had looked sick the previous day. We walked up to him, and instead of running away like he normally did, he just slowly tried to lift his head to look at us, and then made a few pathetic meows. He was obviously very sick, and was too weak to even move. He looked like he was in really rough shape.

We set up an appointment at a local vet, and I took him in. The vet said that his best case scenario was that he may *possibly* get better after about a two week hospital stay and a bunch of tests and treatment. She said that likely he has a parasite, and that since he has a parasite he likely also has other very bad things that have allowed him to get the parasite. She said he was in kidney failure, and was anemic. When they weighed him, he was only five pounds (should have been about 10), and was too weak to even sit up without fighting for his balance.

Saddest of all, he was so afraid of being touched by the employees at the vet that he had a few anxiety attacks, where he was really struggling to breath. The poor guy had probably gone the last few years without any human interaction, and now he had a ton of it forced on him, but he was too weak to do anything about it. He seemed to respond ok to me, so I pet him as much as I could. A couple times when I rubbed his neck, he tilted his head into it like he was enjoying it. I couldn't really tell, but I thought he may have purred a bit, though his breathing was rather loud so it was difficult to know for sure. When I was rubbing his back, one of his paws did a little kneading motion twice, which I hoped meant he was at least a little happy. He was so weak though, that I may have just been reading into his slight motions what I wanted to see.

The only real option we had was to put him to sleep. The vet said he would live for a few more days if we didn't do anything, but that things would get worse and they would be absolutely miserable days. I couldn't let the poor guy suffer like that any longer. He already had a really tough life, he didn't deserve to have it end with even more pain.

The lab decided to name him Oliver today, because he was a lonely orphan boy.

I wished he had let me be his friend a few weeks ago, so that we could have been buddies while he was healthy. I wish I had remembered one of the mornings to bring him some food as a treat. I wish I had thought to take a picture of him before he was gone. It's only been a half a day now, but I miss seeing him wander around the parking lot.