Now For A Happy Story

Be Careful What You "Know" Is Happening. Maybe Not.

This is a simple story, and I want to tell it to you now. Exactly as it happened.

Some of you who know me from Facebook know my two cats Jack and Lewis. I found Jack as a kitten under a car in 2009 or 2010, and Lewis, also a rescue, 5 years later. They have held my heart and soul together, all these years, and I have taken hundreds of photos and videos, documenting their relationship. I love them so much.

In late May, I went to Spain, a month before my son married, and stayed two months after, during which time, Jack and Lewis were very happy and comfortable at my sister Bibi’s house. Jack has always bonded with my sister’s rabbits, his “cousins,” most recently, his white rabbit cousin Boxer who he just adored.

About a week ago, the boys came back to live with me, (where I am living now, temporarily) and I was concerned that Jack’s heart would be broken to be separated from Boxer. He stayed in a corner, was very subdued, and by the next day, was declining fast. (Jack is about 13 or 14.) He was very emaciated and lethargic.

Doug and I took him to an ER clinic where they drew blood and took x rays, and asked us to return after an hour and a half. When the vet came out and spoke to me, she told me his blood showed many serious problems, including signs of cancer, diabetes, and kidney failure, possibly also fatty liver.

In tears, I asked what she would do if it were her cat. She said she would put him down. Euthanize him. In a trance, I said I would do so, the next day, that I wanted him with me for the night, and to allow Lewis to see him. Another voice was telling me to not extend his pain, and so forth. But I took him back, and the next morning, he was motionless, not eating, not drinking a drop of water, clearly dying.

I decided to let him die naturally, in Doug’s house, or else maybe I was just putting it off. For two days I sat with him, we sang to him, I told him how much I loved him, and half heartedly, I prayed. Just for his death to happen and fast and painless as it could be. Each morning I woke up expecting to find him dead. Always so relieved he was still alive.

Part of the reason I didn't euthanize him was the fact that the blood tests and x rays had cost close to $700 and I didn’t have the money for euthanasia and ashes and so forth. Also, something about it was bothering me. Actually, everything about it.

So I was thinking we would let him die at home, and then bury him on Doug’s land. One of the saving graces, it turned out, was that I was myself extremely sick with whatever to call it. Flu? Covid-ish flu? Fever, sinusitis, vomiting, loss of appetite, smell, taste—all of it.

I was exhausted. And deep in grief. I could barely get dressed.

So we just stayed on the bathroom floor, Jack and I. Sometimes Doug took my place—he would talk to Jack about the rainbow bridge making me cry.

A thought form had enveloped us all: Jack was dying. I didn’t question this. It was like an idea that had no windows.

Then Dagmar called.

I remember her saying: “If you can get some Celtic sea salt and water into him, and some egg yolk, you’d be amazed how it can revive and old cat.”

I sort of shut her down.

“No, no. He’s dying. He’s on his way out,” I said. “He’s not…coming back.”

Very unlike me. But that’s what I heard myself say.

“Well,” Dagmar said, and sighed, “I’m telling you. You’d be amazed..”

I heard her words but my heart was catatonic.

Still, I did it, robotically. Mixed Celtic sea salt, which I found, in all the chaos of the kitchen, in water, and got some into him with a squeezer. Then I got some egg yolk into him. Then some more salt water.

Well lo and behold, he got up, and walked to the kitchen. Then he went to the back door to see where Lewis was, why he still wasn’t home. His energy and personality were back!

I stared like I was seeing an apparition. But still, I thought it was only a matter of time… He still would not eat. Best not to get too hopeful. But at least I stopped speaking death over him.

I added some sea moss, chlorella, and a drop of activated CD, in water. (CD =Chlorine Dioxide)

He patiently let me do all this.

At the pharmacy that day, I (again robotically) picked up a box of liquid shredded chicken. Put it on a paper plate and to my abject astonishment, saw Jack use his tongue for the first time in days—he was licking the food off the plate! He finished it, in fact. I called for Doug and said: “Looooook!!!! He’s eeeeaaating!!!”

Now the story was changing, just when I least expected it. He was eating? Now I understood.

We only believed he was dying. It had seemed that way. Nobody even explicitly said that, no even the vet. Perhaps he just had the flu. Like I did.

Doug said, “Maybe he had a mini stroke.”

Now I was getting confident.

I took him into the bathroom, put a few inches of cold water in the bath and a bag of ice cubes. Stood him in the ice water, and held ice on his shaved neck where they had drawn the blood. After about two minutes, he jumped out, and went right for more food. That night, he did has standard Jack thing of waking me at 5 am to be fed. I have never been happier to be awakened.

From that point on, he’s been eating and eating: Raw grass-fed beef, veal, egg yolk, some cat food, raw milk, raw butter and infusions of nutrients—also CD and DMSO. He goes outside, he sits in the sun, he looks for Lewis, sleeps, jumps, uses the cat pan, even punches me in the face sometimes when I annoy him or he wants more food.

It was all thanks to those few words Dagmar said, that opened the first window of perception, against the well built brick-wall idea of what we were supposedly witnessing, namely Jack’s imminent death. Usually I’m the one preaching salt water. But I had no hope this time around.

I had to ask Jack: “What do you want to do?” And he showed me. He didn’t even object to the ice bath. He wanted to get back eating.

He’s eating more, as I write this, and will soon get another drop of activated CD, which I’m taking as well.

By way of a miracle, I got to keep my boy, a while longer. Jack is our patriarch.

And I learned a powerful lesson: Try. Even when you think there’s no point, try anyway.

And Dagmar is right: Sea salt and water should always be the very first thing we offer, a sick person or a sick animal.

Electrolytes. And an open mind.

And here’s Jack yesterday venturing out into the autumn sun, alive and well, if a little scraggly.

Thank God I didn’t do it.

PS: I’ve posted this video before, it is a must see: