We knew it was a possibility, perhaps even probable. But that didn’t make losing Jasmine at the end of May any easier.
Irene and I both noticed something wrong as soon as we came back from our week-long cruise. Jasmine looked “puffy” around her chest, and seemed somewhat disinterested and dull. After a few days, she seemed to be having problems breathing. An X-Ray showed fluid and a possible mass in her chest cavity. Fluid was drawn, and ultrasound performed. The mass was quite large, 4 cm by 2 cm, and looked like a tumor. The fluid drawn from the chest, which eased Jasmine’s breathing for only a day or so, was also tested: it confirmed the worse.
We had our kitten Harley, barely five months old, euthanized last night. His last ten days of life were full of subcutaneous fluids, forced feedings, several antibiotics, and lots of love. In the end I was faced with a decision I never want to have to repeat. Harley’s immune system was damaged beyond repair by the feline leukaemia virus and, although we had managed to keep him alive for a few extra days, it wasn’t going to get better.
I’ve been really enjoying my motorcycle riding this year. So much so that I started planning for my “ultimate” touring motorcycle. I was weighing different features, reading dozens of forums and reviews, and lamenting the several years which I’d likely have to wait in order to save up the cash. As you might imagine, this non-stop motorcycle this, Harley that, whining and complaining started to get on the nerves of my lovely wife Irene. Finally, after hearing one too many “<sigh>I wish I didn’t have to wait another two years” noises from me, she snapped:
“Kelly, if I can have two kittens, you can go buy your Harley on terms”
Obviously, my lovely wife doesn’t snap in a mean way. And that’s how we ended up adding two more kittens to our already cat-crowded home… and it marks the beginning of a stressful period of uncertainty that is still not over.
Last weekend we made the decision to have our cat Bilbo euthanized. I’m still dealing with it, and probably will be for several weeks if not months. He was, after all, my friend for the last eighteen years.
Our cat Willow died today. Two hours ago, I was in Chilliwack visiting family, and Irene called me to tell me to come straight back and meet her at the emergency clinic. She had found Willow thrashing on the floor. Irene tells me that Willow was gone by the time she was at the clinic, less than fifteen minutes after she called me. There was nothing to be done.
I have added a cat banner which will appear periodically at the top of this page, along with my various tree and flower images. Here is a teeny tiny version for your enjoyment:
A couple of notes about these “rotating” images
if you have Javascript enabled, the image should rotate (change) every 20 seconds. If you don’t have Javascript enabled, the image will change each time you refresh the page or navigate to a new one
the banner images are 1920 x 150, and the cats are spread out across almost the entire width in their image. That means that most people won’t see all seven of our cats. Sorry: all I can suggest is that you get a larger/higher pixel count monitor 😉
All of the photos in the banner are taken by either Irene or myself. Thus they are not professional- that’s what you get on an amateur blog. All of the pictures are “photoshopped” to varying degrees to adjust lighting, size and (in the case of the cat banner) to frankenstein several images into one
in order, from left to right, the cats in the image are: Nimbus, Elcee, Coco, Bilbo, Iris, Tuxedo, and Willow. Bilbo is the oldest at 17 years, and Coco is the youngest at about a year and a half I believe. Scale is not accurate: but if you pretend the cats are at varying distances from you, it sort of works…
I will eventually add a “computer stuff” banner, with photos of all of my various computers and computer-related gadgets. No promise on exactly when, though. Creating a photoshopped image like the cat banner takes me a couple of hours, and although it is sort of fun, it isn’t something I want to do regularly.
I was cleaning through some old CDs and came across a batch of photos of Irene’s horse Spirit that a friend of Irene’s had taken. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed them the first time around, and for some reason they had never made it into my gallery. I corrected that oversight, and here is one of the pictures I liked the most:
click the photo to see more pictures from this set
Our cat, Rommel, died on Wednesday. Irene raced him to the vet when she found him in a diabetic coma early in the afternoon. The vet was unable to revive him.
Rommel has been with us most of his life: over 13 years. We adopted him from the SPCA in Edmonton when he was about twelve weeks old.
