Oh Charlie boy.

Oh, Charlie boy.

I always hoped I'd never have to write this out but you lost your fight with asthma and heart disease unexpectedly while at home on Thursday morning. 

I really don't know where to begin, but Charlie was actually our neighbour’s cat originally who sometime in 2014 started hanging outside of our place. Over the course of a few months, he just ended up moving in. At the time I thought he was a girl for no reason other than I just assumed haha, I took him to the vet to get his microchip scanned so I could find out who owned him. It was at this appointment they asked if I wanted to know what sex he actually was and I got the news he was a boy lol. I got in touch with his owner at the time and we decided that we were basically splitting custody, but he was full time here. Charlie and I really began bonding over those first couple of years, he was an indoor/outdoor cat at the time and he'd run from the bushes every time I got home and flop over for some belly scratches then come inside and just hang with me. I was becoming a cat person very quickly, I'd always had cats growing up but it felt like Charlie chose me and I was choosing him so we were best buds. 

Fast forward a couple of years, Olivia was living here and we were just getting home where we found charlie hiding under the couch, he crawled out and couldn't walk and was howling. We knew something wasn't right and rushed him to the emergency vet where we found out he had been hit by a car while we were out, when we got home we checked out the front door camera and found a woman frantically looking around our door/bushes. We saw her the next day and she told us she saw Charlie get hit by a car! She said it was the most violent sounding thing she thought he was dead for sure but he jumped up and bolted straight into our house through his cat door. He had to get an FHO surgery which removed the ball of his hip where his leg attached forcing him to be an indoor car from there on out. This ended up being a blessing as cats do very well with this surgery and it gave us that much more time with Charlie, he adjusted really well and didn't even mind being inside all the time because he was with his people always. 

With work and just normal life, Olivia and I felt like Charlie needed a friend so we adopted him a brother named Odin. From the start, it was obvious that Charlie was eager to meet this new friend behind the door of the guest room and it didn't take long for them to just be inseparable. We, unfortunately, didn't get nearly enough time with Odin as he passed away during a procedure at the emergency vet for a blocked urinary tract. This would be a devastating blow to our little family and one Olivia and I struggle with because there's obviously no way to communicate to a cat that his friend wouldn't be coming back. In our minds, Charlie just saw us take Odin away in the carrier and he didn't come home. That really was a hard one for us especially because that night Charlie slept in Odin's favorite spot, which he never had done before; somehow he knew.

We thought from this point on Charlie was gonna just be around forever, he survived being hit by a car and was indoors now so what could go wrong? Turns out a lot could and did go wrong. He was dealt a bad hand by genetics and had genetic heart disease and asthma, having never shown symptoms nobody had any idea and had no way of knowing. After a couple of emergency vet visits, we were given his diagnosis and were told he had a few weeks to a few years (very unlikely), but we remained hopeful and jumped right in giving him every treatment possible. After the emergency vet visits, he was finally able to see his normal vet, Dr. Sellers, at the Cat and Bird Clinic who we can't thank enough. Christine and the entire staff over there was so supportive and understanding with not just Charlie, but Olivia and me. Christine would answer our frantic emails late at night/weekends/whatever and always had a way of calming us down and could always explain to us what was going on in a way we could process and understand. While Charlie was pretty stable with his 5 medications and inhaler 2x a day he'd have days of really struggling to breathe and that was the case this past week. On Wednesday we rushed him down to the clinic where he got a good diagnosis, his lungs were passing oxygen as best as they could but they were full of scar tissue from having asthma his whole life. On Wednesday night Olivia and I were preparing for an end of life situation, he just wasn't able to breathe right and was freaking out we could see it in his eyes and his behaviors he just wasn't right. 

Charlie couldn't fight anymore, his body was losing the fight and he made the call this Thursday while at home. We attempted to get him to the vet, but it was too late. As hard as it was to witness his passing, we feel better knowing he made the decision, so we didn’t have to. We feel the most sorrow and sadness imaginable, everything in our house is a reminder of him and obviously struggle with the lack of routine we had that revolved around him. That said we balance that grief with relief as well because he's not suffering anymore and we got so much time with him the past year. It turns out COVID was the biggest blessing for us and Charlie because Olivia and I were lucky enough to be able to work remotely, which gave us all the time in the world to spend with our little guy and that we did. We want to thank each and every person that reached out, bought stickers, bike fenders, and supported us through this whole thing the past 5 months. It means more to us than you guys could ever know, it's wild to us that hundreds of people that never knew Charlie have stickers of his face on their bikes, cars, water bottles, etc. You guys have been the most incredible community to have around Charlie and it really does mean a lot to us so thank you!

And I wanna end this with something my good friend Ben said: "He will be breathing easy now although it will be harder for us to breath down here." 

That sums it up perfectly and it makes us cry every time we think about it. Charlie we'll never be able to thank you for everything you did for us but we love you so much and we'll never forget you ❤️