On the Sad Side

[3113]

I'm afraid I'm going to be on the sad side for a while, folks. The vet informed us today that our kitty, a lively 17 year old senior citizen, has a kind of jaw cancer. She is still purring, preening, eating, and chasing moths and it may be a few months yet before her time comes, but we are facing the fact that we're going to lose her.

Next week is the anniversary of the day we found her sixteen years ago. She's been a part of the family ever since, and this...this is going to be very hard. http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/crying.gif

 

[TE999]

I'm afraid I'm going to be on the sad side for a while, folks. The vet informed us today that our kitty, a lively 17 year old senior citizen, has a kind of jaw cancer. She is still purring, preening, eating, and chasing moths and it may be a few months yet before her time comes, but we are facing the fact that we're going to lose her.

Next week is the anniversary of the day we found her sixteen years ago. She's been a part of the family ever since, and this...this is going to be very hard. http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/crying.gif

I'm so sorry for you, 3. We lost a kitty to feline leukemia once, others to kidney failure, injuries and poisoning. It's never easy. Our last cat lived 18 years and some months. We recently adopted a 7yo stray from the Humane Society; I hope he's with us for quite a while.

I cried like a baby every time one of our cats died or had to be put down. I loved them all.

 

[AngeloMichael]

I'm a pet lover having had dogs almost my entire life. I love cats too and I go to the local shelter to play with the cats every now and then, but my allergies couldn't handle having one around permanently.

Anyway, having lost several pets, one to cancer, I completely sympathize with you. I love my dogs with all my heart and they really are family.

My best wishes to you and your kitty and all my sympathy.

 

[SweetMaj]

I'm afraid I'm going to be on the sad side for a while, folks. The vet informed us today that our kitty, a lively 17 year old senior citizen, has a kind of jaw cancer. She is still purring, preening, eating, and chasing moths and it may be a few months yet before her time comes, but we are facing the fact that we're going to lose her.

Next week is the anniversary of the day we found her sixteen years ago. She's been a part of the family ever since, and this...this is going to be very hard. http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/crying.gif

I have a cat myself, so I can imagine what you're going through.

My thoughts are with you.

 

[sr71plt]

I hear you. Yesterday we had to put one of our Siamese cats to sleep. She had been dragging for the last eleven months and when we went on a long vacation in September, we assumed she'd be gone when we got back (and prepared for it). But she hung in there and the vet kept advising that she wasn't uncomfortable--just that her back legs were slowly giving out on her. She had radiation four years ago and we thought she might go then. Yesterday, though, they found a tumor blocking her intestines, so we let her go.

We had gotten her from a Siamese rescue center thirteen years ago and they thought then that she was four years old. My wife picked her out and after she'd done so, I told her that I didn't think one cat would do as well as two (we had had a pair of Siamese we'd brought home from Thailand that we then took around the world twice in eight years of foreign service--both living to about nineteen).

I looked around the rescue center, my motivation being that we'd pick out the cat that looked like it needed a home the most. I pulled a small, trembling one from underneath a cage. The woman at the rescue center said that they thought it was a kitten of the one we'd already picked and was about a year old.

When we got them home, the younger one proved to be the most playful and active, although they were both "people" cats. The older, bigger one became my wife's cat and the little one (never getting large), became my cat--by the cats' choices, of course.

They were beautiful, friendly, affectionate cats, but both had respiratory trouble because of the environment from which they had been rescued, and for thirteen years we were fighting one infection after the other with both of them. When we got them, we were warned that they might not live long.

Six weeks ago, as we were carefully monitoring the "enjoyment of life" factor of the older cat, the younger one's systems suddenly shut down and, within a week, we had to have her put to sleep.

So, after thirty-five years and two sets of Siamese cats, as of yesterday afternoon and within the space of six weeks, we are petless.

Don't mean to steal your grief, but there's a lot of it going around. Our children are long gone. The cats were family.

 

[SydneyBlake]

:-(

A lot of pet grief going on here. We had to have our dog put down a little over a week ago. In nearly 20 years, this is the first time for us to be petless. That will likely be remedied in the near future, but I will still miss my Shadow. He was the sweetest puppy in the world.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

We've had to put down two dogs, two cats and a white rat. It's heart-wrenching. The current terrorier, being a small dog, will likely last for a fair number of years more but having had to go through the loss before, this time we are already making contingency plans. It won't make the loss less but it gives hope for the future.

 

[rgraham666]

Well, crap. *HUGS*

 

[cloudy]

Our cat died in her sleep last week...you have my sympathy.

 

[sadangel]

Sending my sympathy to you all who have lost pets this past little while or are in the process of it happening. I went through this in October of 2008 with a dog that I loved dearly. Had to watch her slowly die, because we knew trying to get her into the truck to take to vet would hurt her more, and vet agreed. We sat round the clock with her for two days so she wasn't alone. Four cats sat with her the whole time also. They loved her like a momma. (sigh and sniffle)

I hate losing family, and as pilot said, the cats/dogs, they are our family. The ones who chose us or we chose them or some fashion of the two.

Sending up prayers for you all. Pets and people alike. It's not easy.

 

[Pure]

this is very sad news, 3113. the loss of a pet is unbelievably affecting.

 

[3113]

Many thanks everyone for sharing and hugs and your own stories. It looks like I'm not the only one on the sad side this month hugs and sympathies back. We're certainly going to spend as much time and give kitty as much affection as we can. I only hope we can make her remaining time as pleasant for her as possible.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

It is sad to lose a friend, especially one that has been around for 16 years.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I hear you. Yesterday we had to put one of our Siamese cats to sleep. She had been dragging for the last eleven months and when we went on a long vacation in September, we assumed she'd be gone when we got back (and prepared for it). But she hung in there and the vet kept advising that she wasn't uncomfortable--just that her back legs were slowly giving out on her. She had radiation four years ago and we thought she might go then. Yesterday, though, they found a tumor blocking her intestines, so we let her go.

We had gotten her from a Siamese rescue center thirteen years ago and they thought then that she was four years old. My wife picked her out and after she'd done so, I told her that I didn't think one cat would do as well as two (we had had a pair of Siamese we'd brought home from Thailand that we then took around the world twice in eight years of foreign service--both living to about nineteen).

I looked around the rescue center, my motivation being that we'd pick out the cat that looked like it needed a home the most. I pulled a small, trembling one from underneath a cage. The woman at the rescue center said that they thought it was a kitten of the one we'd already picked and was about a year old.

When we got them home, the younger one proved to be the most playful and active, although they were both "people" cats. The older, bigger one became my wife's cat and the little one (never getting large), became my cat--by the cats' choices, of course.

They were beautiful, friendly, affectionate cats, but both had respiratory trouble because of the environment from which they had been rescued, and for thirteen years we were fighting one infection after the other with both of them. When we got them, we were warned that they might not live long.

Six weeks ago, as we were carefully monitoring the "enjoyment of life" factor of the older cat, the younger one's systems suddenly shut down and, within a week, we had to have her put to sleep.

So, after thirty-five years and two sets of Siamese cats, as of yesterday afternoon and within the space of six weeks, we are petless.

Don't mean to steal your grief, but there's a lot of it going around. Our children are long gone. The cats were family.

HIS CAT AINT ASLEEP. HIS CAT IS DEAD.

 

[SweetMaj]

Some people are so careless, like the post above me.

 

[3113]

Some people are so careless, like the post above me.

Which is why the gent is on so many ignore lists

 

[jomar]

We've all been there and it's never easy. My sympathies.

 

[Handley_Page]

Like others, I've had both cat & dog (once at the same time).
When my Dog had to go (cancer), it was the only time my Grandson had seen his Grandad cry. (You don't own a dog; you borrow it from God for a while).

My cat got poisoned (garden pest control stuff; it might have survived if it had not been for the car that got him. That was not funny at all.

You have my sympathy.