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.

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Iris was spayed yesterday.  I was worried about the process, moreso than for our other cats.  For some reason, I have emotionally tied myself to Iris in a similar way to how I did with Whisper years ago.  And Whisper ultimately broke my heart when her little body gave out after her spaying operation.

Iris came home from the vet acting like nothing had happened at all- in fact, she was acting like she had to catch up on everything she couldn’t do for the eight hours she was at the vet.  I’ve tried to slow her down a bit, but it is a losing battle.

She has shown no signs of discomfort.  The surgery site itself is tiny: barely an inch long incision.  Iris is running around, playing with toys, eating like nothing has changed at all.

I’ll start feeling “safe” in four or five days.  Intellectually, I know that Iris comes from completely different circumstances than Whisper.  Whisper was born to a malnourished mother, starved during her first few weeks locked in a horse stall, and burdened by malformed organs as a result.  Iris, on the other hand, has had every possible advantage, and all the evidence is that her health is perfect.  Right now I’m trying not to think fearful thoughts.  And I’m enjoying the exuberance that is Iris…

Our cat, Rommel, has had a rather checkered past when it comes to his own health.  He entered our house as a basically healthy twelve week old kitten nearly twelve years ago.  Within a few months he had fractured his kneecap (resulting in six weeks in a cast), and within a year he’d had several abscesses, various stitches added and removed, and numerous x-rays.  In more recent years he’s developed a growth in his mouth called a stomatitis, for which he has had several surgeries, regular steroidal treatments, special hypoallergenic food, and periodic doses of anti-biotics.

Irene noticed a couple of weeks ago that he seemed to be losing weight rapidly, and the stomatitis had re-blossomed.  Having a big sore in your mouth, scale wise about the equivalent of having a thumb stuck between your teeth, probably doesn’t have a positive effect on a cat’s appetite.  But when the vet checked him out we found he’d lost nearly two pounds in three months.  Blood tests showed the cause…Rommel is now diabetic.

Steroid treatments can, apparently, induce diabetes, possibly pushing a borderline cat over the threshold.  Rommel may possibly go into “remission” at some point in the future, but for now we are starting him on twice-daily insulin injections.  If he tolerates the regular injections well it’s not a big deal: but if it becomes terribly stressful for him and us…well, there has to be some kind of measure of quality of life.  I’m optimistic, based on how he handled the shot at the vet, that Rommel will deal with the process well.

I was really hoping that Rommel’s health would settle down, but he seems prone to all sorts of challenges.  I love the guy…despite or perhaps because of his prickly personality. 

I have a couple of kitten pictures of Iris and Bilbo that show how a fourteen year old and (at the time) a 14 week old kitten can co-exist.

 This is a pretty common way for Bilbo and Iris to curl up together.  Bilbo basically flattens Iris…for her part, Iris purrs and licks Bilbo. 

And this is Bilbo and Iris on Irene’s lap.  In this case, Bilbo was there first- Iris came and wormed herself in, and the both started purring. 

It’s worth noting that, the first few days Iris was in the house, she arched her back and hissed at nearly all the cats in the house.  It took a few days for them to settle in, and Bilbo was very kind to her throughout the process of adjustment.  Within a week, the kind of behaviour you see here was normal.

… and no, this post isn’t an excuse to put the word “pussy” on my website

Our kittens are growing up…Nimbus goes tomorrow to have his “bits” removed.  

 

It’s a comparatively minor operation for the male cats, with very little risk.  It’s also essential if you consider yourself an even remotely responsible pet owner. 

Mind you, I’m sure he’ll have a few things to say about my “minor” comment tomorrow evening…

Update: Nimbus is safe and sound, and seems none the worse for wear…

On Thursday Iris woke up with a limp.  She was favouring her right front paw, and was acting somewhat depressed.  We took her to our friendly vet, Doctor Michelle, who couldn’t find an obvious problem, but suspected a puncture wound hidden somewhere.  Dosed with an anti-inflamatory and a prescription of antibiotics, we took the little one home.  She perked up, had a big dinner and seemed much happier.   I gave her the first dose of antibiotic. Part of the “prescription” was to keep her calm…yeah, right- Iris is a million mile an hour kitten, so slowing her down was about the best we could do.

On Friday morning, Iris refused to eat and was very lethargic.  Her limp was pronounced again, but had migrated to her left front leg.  She was shivering uncontrollably, and it took a lot of cuddling to get her to stop.  She seemed stiff and uncomfortable all over.  I ran her in to the vet, who checked her again and was puzzled: Iris’ temperature was now elevated a couple of degrees, and the “migration” of the pain from right to left leg suggested something other than a normal injury.  The vet asked to keep Iris at the clinic for observation and to begin rehydrating her.  Blood tests and a change in antibiotic was also part of the plan.

By Friday evening, Iris was resting comfortably at the vet: one good thing about being born at the clinic is that it seems like “home” to her, and she knows all the people there.  The best guess at that point was that she had experienced a systemic reaction to one of the vaccines she had been given the previous week.  Basically, all of her joints were irritated and inflamed, and she was reacting as if her body was fighting an infection. 

Iris is still at the vet this morning- they just called to say that she’s eating again, and seems to be doing well.  They are going to observe her during the day, and we might be able to pick her up tonight.  The vaccine reaction seems pretty certain as the cause of her problems.

The house seems empty without Iris, even though we have six other cats.  Nimbus has been (by his normal standards) very friendly the last 48 hours: I think he’s wondering where Iris is at.  A tiny little 1.3 kilogram critter surely can disrupt my life, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Nimbus has noticed her absence as well.  The last week or so, I’ve been laughing every day as Iris discovers new things and finds different ways to cause havoc.  I think the laughing has been good for me. 

UPDATE: Iris came home with us Saturday night, and is back to her usual self (I.E.: getting into all sorts of mischief).  She’s eating well again, and bouncing around with nearly the same energy she had a week ago.  A week or so of medication should clear up the last of the problems.

Nimbus has been with us for over a month now, and has been doing a great job doing what kittens do.  It seemed like a good time about four or five days ago to take a batch of photos of him, and I’ve just finished putting them into the gallery.

If you click the above image, you’ll be directed to a folder full of images of Nimbus and several of our cats from the other day.  Nimbus is the “star” in this collection, though…

We weren’t going to adopt another cat.

You know we are in trouble when my post starts off “We weren’t going to adopt another…”.  And once again, it’s Irene who wedged the chisel into the cracks in my steely resolve.  There were feral (semi-wild) kittens, you see, at the rescue shelter where she volunteers.  And one of them was very scared, and curled up and buried his head in her sweater and purred when she was there.  And it was very sad, and very cute, and couldn’t she please bring her home?

This went on for a day or so, and of course I finally relented.  Irene promised the kitten would go to the vet, and there she’d confirm that it was a female kitten since that’s what Irene wanted- another girl to round out our now male-dominated family.  Guess what?  The kitten is a boy.  But by that point, it was apparent that gender is not a good enough reason to reject a kitten that needs a home. 

He was very, very terrified when we first got him.  He basically was playing possum every time a human picked him up: going limp, trying to hide his face, and purring not out of comfort but out of fear.  He didn’t play or do any of the kitten things you’d expect: he basically just hid.

That’s changed quite a bit in two weeks.  He’s still quite nervous, but he will play with all the cute energy you’d expect a kitten to have.  And if you play with him with a cat toy, he’ll let you pet him, and will purr out of happiness.  And if you lie very still, he’ll come out and lay down next to you.  Great progress for a kitten that met his first human just a handful of weeks ago when his Mom was torn out of his life.

We haven’t settled on a name yet, although “Nimbus” (Nim, also “nim nim”) is currently the favorite.  This came from us deciding he looked cloudy: he’s a part-siamese, part grey tabby fellow, with tabby and grey points.  I also thought he reminded me of a certain type of Leopard, but I see now that I have the type mixed up.   I was thinking he looked like a cloud leopard, but he really looks more like a snow leopard. 

I mentioned a couple of posts ago how our cat Susu had fought back from a serious illness.  A few days ago, she took a turn for the worse and stopped eating again.  Susu didn’t have the strength to fight back this time.  We took her to the vet just a few hours ago, and released her from her pain.   Irene and I were there with her at the last breath. 

I’m sitting here now, with the little cat bed she was sleeping in earlier beside me.  The heating pad I was using to keep her warm is still on…there, I just turned it off.   

It shouldn’t be this way…she was supposed to live several more years.   She came into our lives as a kitten along with her brother Bilbo.  It’s just not right having one Siamese sibling: Bilbo and Susu are part of a whole.

Sharing our life with animals is rewarding…but I’m not good at this.  Each time I say goodbye to one of our critters it feels like a piece of me is ripped out.  There’s a piece of me that was attached to Susu, her purr, the way she curled up in the crook of my arm, how she licked my chin sometimes.  I want her back.

Our dog Sadie has been suffering increasingly from debilitating pain in her right front shoulder during the past few months. We’ve had her on several increasingly strong arthritis medications with no obvious beneficial effect.

Irene took Sadie in to the vet on Thursday. We had already talked about the possibility of cancer and decided that, if she was diagnosed with it, we wouldn’t prolong her pain unnecessarily. Unfortunately, the examination showed a large growth in Sadie’s shoulder joint which hadn’t been there two months ago. The vet diagnosed bone cancer with a poor prognosis- it was growing quite rapidly. Irene was there at the vet alone- I was at work. She made the decision we had already agreed to,
and had Sadie euthanized.

I wasn’t as close to Sadie as Irene was, but the dog was definitely part of our family. I miss the hand-lick ritual- every time I let Sadie in to the house or came home from work, she would bump her head on my hand and lick it. It was like she was saying thank you for bringing her in to the house. I’ll miss that.

Farewell, Sadie- you run freely and without pain forever in our hearts.