Parisa's Blog

My biggest concern with strong affirmative action like this is that it just won't help. Beyond the actual interpretation of our constitutional basis for it (which goes something like, "Equal protection for all equals, but some equals are more equal than other equals.") being a bit, well, contradictory and ironically discriminatory, I don't want to be haunted by whispers and stares taunting, "Well, she's pretty good... for a girl," for the rest of my life. I don't have an answer, but this can't possibly be the way to fix the problem.

Unfortunately, this post results from sad news. I put Max to sleep yesterday, after a quick decline in his health since Sunday. Just six days ago, I noticed him going into mini seizures and losing all sense of balance. I brought him to the veterinarian on Tuesday to get him checked out and found out he was very under weight and had signs of jaundice on his ears, a likely result of liver failure. I had some blood testing done and watched him get worse over the next two days, refusing and seemingly unable to eat food, losing his balance while walking, and otherwise becoming more frail and lethargic. I got the results back on Thursday. All signs pointed to him having FIP, a currently untreatable debilitating virus. He hadn't been running around playing with his toys for some time now, and while I noticed he was sleeping a lot more over the past weeks, he wasn't really doing anything but sleeping since Sunday. The doctor told me the disease was fatal and he would continue to weaken until his body shut down. I don't think he ate more than a few pieces of cat food since Wednesday, and his tiny skeleton was beginning to show through his coat of fur. I just stayed up with him all Thursday night, and even though he was wheezing and panting in the morning, he still was purring while I pet his frail body. If anything, he was helping me make it to the morning.

I brought him to veterinarian at 8:30 yesterday morning, and held him while they gave him an anesthetic and he fell asleep. This whole week has been one of my saddest, and bringing in my little buddy to be euthanized was one of the hardest things I've had to do. I've had a lot of cats and other pets while growing up, but none of them was as friendly or sweet as Max. He would always come to the door to greet whoever came home and let everyone play with him, no matter how foreign or strange (and I have lots of strange friends). We had a routine lunch date every afternoon; I ate my soup while he sat on my lap (or shoulder), and then he waited for his Whiskas Temptation treats afterwards. Lunch just won't be the same for awhile. This semester has been laced with all-nighters and long stressful runs of reading and coding, and Max always stayed up with me until I finished my work, then napped on my extra pillow when I was ready for sleep. Max, you were my favorite kitty, and I will miss you a lot.