Error Gizmo.exe Not Found

I lost my cat of six years yesterday in a very frightening and abrupt way. She had been having some trouble breathing the Friday before the start of the week but she had always been weezing here and there since the day we got her. My wife and I didn't think much of it and hoped it would improve on it's own.

That didn't happen. Instead her condition worsened and by the time I was done describing Gizmo's symptoms over the phone to her vet I was told to take her to an emergency clinic immediately. I hesitated because I really didn't want or need any bad news that day and with the knowledge that, in general, if there is anything seriously wrong with an animal the next step is almost always euthanasia. After I shut my feelings off, I scooped her into the carrier and carted her off anyway since that's the logical thing to do when a medical doctor makes a strong recommendation and practicing good sound logic is something I apply daily in my line of work.

After nearly three and a half of hours of waiting at the hospital and getting lost in my head over what this sudden malady could be my wife and I were called into an examination room to get an update from the doctor. The doctor was incredible and did everything she could to explain to us what was happening, what caused this, and the prognosis. None of what she told us indicated anything good was about to happen. It turned out Gizmo had something called immune-mediated thrombocytopenia, of which there are two kinds: the kind with no apparent cause and the kind that is a secondary effect of some other cause (think cancer, feline auto-immune disease, or the ingestion of rat-poison). The disease causes the cat's body to start attacking it's own platelets (blood cells) and can result in internal bleeding. About one-percent of cats get this thing and the treatment involves blood transfusions and medications indefinitely at different intervals if they ever get it.

Next came the x-ray. After showing us what a normal cat lung looks like the doctor gently slid over the printout of what was going on in Gizmo's lungs. Turns out both were completely full of blood which explained the increasing trouble breathing. My wife and I were in total shock and then devastated in short order. This pretty much meant the end barring some miracle, and at eight years old it also meant this was going to be a tragic end. Good sound logic dictates that a) at this point I have received critical information about the state of my cat and b) that the only choice here is to mitigate the suffering and ensure a smooth transition into the after life (if you believe in that sort of thing, I do). This was definitely an edge-case, an oversight, something you can't predict happening that even confounded the doctor; we were asked multiple times if she had gotten into anything, eaten anything, had any other possible exposure to something that could have caused this. All of that led us to the conclusion that this was a rare event in that what Gizmo had more than likely had no other cause. A freak incident. An act of god. Completely random and unexpected (and difficult to detect especially since cat's have a hard time in general of letting you know when something is up).

I kept thinking, "these things happen, there are no guarantees". Chaos exists at the periphery of everyone's life. Every once in awhile it barges in and rearranges the order in which you've structured things (in this sense emotionally and mentally). In my job it's around every corner, every button click, every line of code written, and every feature request. My goal is to prevent it from happening with the aim of providing a structure for how things should behave either through the application of a pattern, data structure, architectural decision, or anything else people in this industry think of to try to reign in a chaotic outcome once our work hits the production environment. Whenever something goes wrong with what I work on I can usually discern pretty quickly what's happening and fix it. Whenever something goes terribly wrong in life there are no such solutions, at least not quick ones, you just have to deal with it, all the dimensions of your grief and everything that goes along with that.

There are two instances in particular with respect to Gizmo's life that came to mind in the aftermath of losing her. The first was that she came to us under traumatic circumstances as the result of the death of a close friend, which happened suddenly. I went over to where he was living after he passed to gather some of his belongings and she was there in the yard. She approached me and I picked her up to jokingly ask her if she saw what happened (her name wasn't Gizmo yet). I really didn't think much of it. A few days later I got a call asking me if I wanted the cat and I said yes as a way to both remember my friend and to take care of something that he also loved. I named her Gizmo after the Mogwai from Gremlins (which had a happy ending).

The second instance involved another friend who was dying of cancer. The day before I found out he was having another surgery I randomly texted him a picture of Gizmo to try to cheer him up:

After he saw the picture he called me later and said, "Hey bud, that's a nice cat", his condition had taken a turn for the worst and there was a good chance this would be the last phone call we would have. The next day I called his number with the hope that he would answer but someone else picked up the phone (his sister) and confirmed the worst. Suddenly, and without warning.

Suddenly, and without warning. That more or less sums up the life of my cat who, in my mind, I considered a friend or at least the representative of someone I cared about deeply. Shortly after the funeral we picked up and left for Los Angeles, California. Gizmo got to fly on a plane in coach (pretty good for a cat that came from the streets of South Philadelphia). She got to experience all the nice weather here. All in all she got to experience all the changes that come from living with people who care. She was with me when I decided to change my life, every step of the way. I'm not going to say that I couldn't have done it without her, but she sure made things a whole lot easier, in ways I didn't realize until now. So thank you Gizmo. You weren't just a cat you were a character.

P.S.

Say Hi to my friends for me if you see them around, wherever you wind up.