Jonny Numb

It started around 3am and ended around dawn.

I’d arrived home from the Ministry show in Philly (where they played songs off With Sympathy and Twitch) around 1:30, still high from the performance and the conversation I’d had with Lizard about our upcoming trip to Germany during the ride back to his place.

I got ready for bed as quickly as possible, peeling off layers in anticipation of a late arrival to the office.

As I descended the basement stairs, I noticed, curiously, that Kima didn’t emerge to meow accusingly at me, rubbing against my leg and filling me in on whatever gossip had transpired in my absence (as was her common practice).

Lately, she’d been sleeping on the office chair that I sit on to type these posts (with a well-loved lavender towel to warm her up).

Without turning on the office light, I walked inside and stroked her skinny figure. She didn’t do her usual, mildly annoyed grumble of acknowledgment, but I didn’t think much of it.

Curiously, the Temptations treats I’d scattered on the floor before leaving the house that afternoon were still there, untouched. As were the additional morsels my S.O. had placed on the twin bed where “I lay me down to sleep.”

Again, I didn’t think much of it.

I should’ve thought much of it.

I had trouble falling asleep, but I must have fallen asleep, because I was awakened around 3am by a noise I’d never heard before, and hope to never hear again – a pained, high-pitched sound, like a piece of industrial machinery in the throes of severe malfunction.

“Kima!” I exclaimed, startled awake.

I turned on a lamp and got out of bed, my face scrunched up with a mix of drowsiness and concern. On the concrete floor on the other side of the basement were drops of water – not bile – that appeared to have been thrown up.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this, didn’t see Kima within plain sight anywhere, and assumed she’d thrown up, then gone upstairs for some food.

(It wasn’t until later, tears streaming down my face at the emergency vet, that I realized she probably hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day, which was extremely unlike her – she would never turn down Temptations, especially after putting up with her asthma treatment.)

I turned off the lamp and got back into bed, but soon became unsettled and searched the downstairs for her – it was atypical for her not to curl up with me for the night, and several other wet patches on the concrete floor led me to find her laying on her side next to a box – breathing labored; jaw flexing in a bizarre way; eyes wide.

I could tell something was seriously wrong, but had no idea what. She had developed a cough/wheeze in fall of 2024 that the vet speculated might be attributable to an enlarged heart/heart failure. A cardiologist subsequently found no signs of heart issues based on an echocardiogram. The vet went with the next possible option: asthma.

I had been giving Kima puffs on an inhaler (via an Aerokat adapter) twice daily since March, even though she would inevitably revert back to bouts of the pained coughing/wheezing, something that ultimately robbed her of her infectious meow.

I had no problem putting her in her carrier – another red flag – and took her into the rainy night, driving out to Shores Veterinary Emergency Center, a 24-hour facility that was thankfully close by.

When I arrived, there was one other person in the waiting room.

The receptionist took down my information as I tried my best to explain what was happening in the context of the recent changes in her medical history.

Kima was taken back quickly and another woman came out to take down more detailed information. In the midst of this, the vet joined us and explained that her lungs were collapsing, which triggered tears before I managed to nod my head and agree that she do something (I forget the word she used) to “inflate” them again.

The vet went back, and the other woman suggested we relocate to an exam room, which I didn’t argue. She passed a box of tissues as I wiped my eyes and snotting nose, even though I truly didn’t care how disgusting and awful I looked. The ejection of emotion couldn’t be helped – I had spent nearly a decade as Kima’s sole person (certainly the only one she was ever truly comfortable around), and it now felt like that time was drawing to a rapid and unwanted end.

After the woman (I wish I’d caught her name) left with the medical history information, I was left alone in the room for what felt like a long time. Moments of sobbing and blowing my nose were counterbalanced with an odd, numbing calm. I didn’t pull out my phone except to text my S.O. – who was at home sleeping – several times with updates.

I have a terrible memory for details, made even worse when I’m in an emotionally compromised state, so my interpretation of what the vet said when she returned was: “the lungs are in bad shape, but they could be treated with a stronger steroid. But the stronger steroid could induce cardiac arrest.”

It didn’t sound optimistic, and I could tell she saw the doubt all over my pained, contorted face.

I thought of how we were halfway through May, and I would be out of the country for two weeks at the beginning of June. I thought about how I was the only one she would let administer her asthma meds (and sometimes just barely). I thought of putting the burden of treatment on someone else while I was miles away, knowing I’d be unable to stop thinking about Kima, and running the most catastrophic scenarios over and over in my mind (it’s what I do).

It wasn’t fair that I had to think about things in those terms.

Moreover, I thought of how it seemed like she’d been declining for some time. Last year, my S.O. commented on the weight she’d lost, and even though my vet never expressed concern over this, her frame had basically been reduced to skin, bones, and fur.

Perhaps it was more difficult to admit it wasn’t fair for Kima to go on suffering just so I could selfishly keep her around for my own comfort. Especially the fleeting comfort of an animal in a clearly pained state.

The vet said that, even with a stronger steroid and treatment, her time was likely limited (maybe a month).

“I don’t want her to suffer,” I blubbered.

Like everything else that happens at an emergency vet when the prognosis isn’t good, things move very quickly and it is hard to remember the specifics of how subjects are raised, discussed, and agreed upon, but euthanasia felt like the humane – not easy, but humane – choice.

I had had to make the same choice for her FeLV+ sister, Weiss, back in 2018 – also in the cold sterility of an emergency clinic.

I signed off on paperwork, and the woman brought a revived Kima into the room, wrapped up in a yellow blanket.

Seeing her eyes alight once more, her breathing mostly normal, and that awful jaw-flex subdued, I was reminded of the girl I loved, and who loved me like no other, in her most comfortable and preferred position: curled up in the comfort of Dad’s lap.

I stroked her fur, told her how much I loved her, and got a few clumsy pictures as she tried to nuzzle my armpit, and rested her neck across my wrist. These were the things she would do as she’d curl up on my lap every night, falling asleep as I watched a movie.

She was restless, but didn’t make any attempt to shed the blanket or get out of my lap. She seemed strangely content, perhaps prefiguring what was to come.

Facing away from me, Kima went limp in my lap while the vet administered the pink substance that concluded her life.

As I did with her sister back in 2018, I held on to her for an untold period of time after, touching her fur, looking at the tip of her right canine resting against her lower gumline, mourning her through my sobs.

I left Shores with a lock of Kima’s fur, her paw prints, and a now-empty carrier. The light of dawn was coinciding with the uptick in traffic on I-83, and I made my way home, exhausted but notifying the necessary people that I would be absent from work.

I managed to sleep a little (I’d been awake for around 20 hours), and emerged later on the morning of the 14th, reciprocating my S.O.’s tears and hugs. She had undergone the loss of Willow just 4 months prior, and while Kima merely “tolerated” her, it was obvious – Kima was still family, and familial loss is the hardest loss of all.

I’ve sobbed in the hours since waking, looking at toys and furniture and rooms and seeing the “specter” of where she would emerge, stretching like an accordion on the carpet and letting loose with her accusatory yet irresistible meows, rubbing against my legs and flopping down next to her best-loved toys. Or seeing her glowing eyes glaring back from a relaxed position on my bed, the burst of white fur on her neck clearly exposed against pale lighting.

My S.O. took a half-day, and we ventured out into the drizzling, 60-degree weather to walk at a local park and run some miscellaneous errands. It just felt good to spend time out the house; to not self-medicate with alcohol or excessive movie-watching or doom-scrolling. Observing the ebb and flow of the Yellow Breeches provided a sort of tranquility that put me at peace, and made me hope my dearly beloved Kima was also in a place free of pain and suffering, where she could cuddle once more with her sister, Weiss, and her brother, Cooper.