Jan is in Need of Support Sad 2024 update

"New year, heavy heart

Sad goodbyes to dear old friends

Trust bright days ahead"

See message below from Jan:

I am writing to ask for your continual support for Jan. Since losing her husband Jan has been living alone in a rural desert adobe and tire home that her husband built. Jan receives a minimum pension but it is not enough to pay for her and her animal’s food and medicine. Jan has severe COPD and requires daily oxygen as well as she has limited vision due to uncorrected cataracts. Any monies will help sustain her daily care and save up for needed eye surgery.

Dear Donors, Friends,

January 2024 had been unusually difficult and heartbreaking for me. The poor health conditions of two long time feline friends began to worsen and the difficult decision to euthanize or not had to made. I decided to relieve their suffering while also knowing that my loss of their companionship would weigh heavily on my heart. In doing so, I set aside my hope to pay my property taxes for the year and lose the discount offered for early payment. After saying a sad goodbye to Suzy, my assistants helped me get her into the cat carrier. On the 3rd of January Suzy made her 25-mile trip to the vet in town and after crossing over in a very tranquil and painless manner came back home to me to be buried in my special pet cemetery behind the house.

Suzy had been walking in circles since September 27th of last year. Only on two days of all that time, did she walk a straight line. On those two days she managed to walk into and get stuck in every corner; under the table and caught up in the stools, behind the open door. She would then just stop as though she was trying to find a place for her head to hide. I would go and help her out, put her in her favorite sleeping place and she would be quiet and rest for a while. I watched her to make sure that all else was functioning normally. Aside from her circling travels, all was going well. On the first two days of this new year, I noticed the lack of litter box deposits that she normally left and early morning on the 3rd, she refused to eat, began to vomit and strain to eliminate, so I had to choose. She had been with me for 16 years and 11 months of wonderful friendship and I miss her sorely.

Pumpkin, my oldest companion of 19 years and 11 months, had experienced her 29th epileptic-like seizure on January 7th at the half hour after midnight. She had recently been sleeping in my bed and during a seizure, she always urinated. Fortunately I was awake when I felt the beginnings of another event and I quickly lifted her down to the throw rug by the bed. It was cold in the room and I covered her with a towel to help her dry off and keep her warm. She had begun having these seizures in November of 2022, at first one every two to three months. During the last few months, they had increased to two and sometimes three a month. One event happened in October or November while she was on the kitchen counter and she fell off on to Sugar the Maltese/Poodle throwing off her normal "land on the feet" ability and she went down on her side. That fall damaged her left front leg and made it difficult to use for jumping, scratching, climbing; all those things that made her daily life happy and interesting. She continued to walk, jump up to the counter for food and onto my bed to sleep, get in and out of the litter box, but she no longer climbed the desert plum tree in the garden running up and down and scratching its big limbs and that was her number one most favorite thing to do. It made me really sad not seeing her in that tree everyday, but she was eating well, depositing normally in the litter box. So I enjoyed her company even though I watched her get slower and more disoriented little by little. By the end of December last year, she was having more trouble and had to be picked up to the counter to eat, lifted in and out of the litter box, slow to walk across the room to the water dish and when she did finally arrive, she would lick the outside and somehow miss getting her tongue inside to the water. So I would go and help her with that also. On the 30th of December, she had experienced her number 28th seizure. starting in the bed that time also. I made my decision to euthanize during her attack on the 7th and when Rafa and Maria arrived on the 9th, that was the number one priority. Rafa called me from the vet's after she had passed to tell me that she went peacefully and without pain. I had been trying to recover from a flu that I fell prey to in December, and now grieving terribly as well when they arrived back, for Pumpkin and also still for Suzy. It was very windy that day and, again as with Suzy, I didn't even go out for the burial. I didn't want to have a relapse, so I stayed inside saying my prayers for her spirit's safe passage to its new destination.

It was strange, but life went on as usual minus two little ones. Breakfast for the menagerie happened everyday, dishes got washed, litter boxes were cleaned, the loss dulled just a little. Suddenly at 11:45am on Sunday the 28th, I hear my feline friend Coco screaming loudly from his home in the outside pantry. I am sure he is being attacked by another animal. I grab my walking stick, the water sprayer weapon, and ran to his aid. He is alone on top of his sleeping box, writhing in obvious excruciating pain. I have no idea what has happened or what is happening to him. He stops screaming and calms a bit as I talk to him trying to reassure him that all is going to be okay. Puzzled by all this, I stay with him awhile and then return to the house. I had just prior to his screaming gotten out on the counter all the ingredients to bake some banana bread; butter, beaten egg, and other goodies. My felines love butter, so I was concerned that I would find them helping themselves in my absence.

All was as I had left it. Good. I started measuring out the flour, sugar and then Coco started screaming again. Back to the pantry to try to calm him again. He kept sliding halfway down between his box and the wall. I picked him up and put him gently inside the box on his sleeping cushion and he got quiet again. Two more times I heard him crying loudly, but not screaming as before, so I continued with my baking project and got it in the oven. I checked on him a little later and he was curled up facing out in my direction looking at me in a very calm and normal way. I felt a wave of relief go through me as I thought that the event had passed and all was well. An hour and 20 minutes later I had the bread out of the pan and onto a rack to cool, so I went to check on Coco and see how he was doing. He wasn't doing. I found him dead in his box. I carefully pulled him back out and examined every part of him. I found no marks or injuries, no blood, no vomit, only a little urine on his belly. I have no idea what could have taken my beautiful little Coco in such a short time without leaving a trace of anything. He had always been so healthy. He had joined the others as usual for breakfast that morning. He had acted, eaten and had seemed totally normal in every way. Maybe a heart attack, or a blood clot to the brain. What could cause such pain that must have attacked him in waves. Well he is gone after 15 years and 11 months of companionship and again my heart is hurting and my face is swollen with my tears for his leaving so suddenly.

January has gone and I have great hopes for February to be a much happier and more peaceful month. It would help tremendously if some donations came through this month enabling me to pay some of the expenses accrued so far this year. I saw a very small increment in my pension starting the first of the year, but that 3.2% additional makes hardly a difference up against the 11% to 20% in the cost of just about everything here where I live. Without additional help financially, I will still find myself up that proverbial creek without a prayer's chance of having a paddle.

Please donate for the sake of my menagerie if you can. If you are strapped too, please send good thoughts or prayers their way. I am sure that your goodness will certainly be repaid, even though in sometimes most unexpected ways.

Abrazos,

Jan Schleifer & the Menagerie

February 2024