We had to say goodbye to our 13-year-old yellow cat, Little Kitty, this morning. He started getting lethargic about 10 days ago, and we thought it was a URI, but the x-rays at the ER showed with about 90% certainty that it was a tumor. He was struggling to breathe, and they weren't sure if it was a mass near his heart or elsewhere. Blood transfusion and oxygen just were not helping. I hated having to make the decision to euthanize worse than anything in the world, but he was so pitiful it was tearing my heart out.
We had to phone our daughter who lives in another state with this sad news. It killed us to hear her cry and not be able to hug her. She always thought of Little Kitty as her baby even though she couldn't take him with her when she moved.
When we adopted him from a free-kitten ad in the paper, the vet said his worms weighed more than he did! So we named him Little Kitty, even though he eventually grew to be medium-to-large kitty and weighed 15 pounds last week before he became sick. In his young and frisky years, what a hellion! He enjoyed knocking things to the ground just to hear them smash, and had such a funny personality -- which is typical of all the yellow tabbies I've known. Nothing fazed him. My husband said that cat cost him more dollars than any animal we've ever had, but we always laughed about it.
I'm sitting here so sad and distracted from work, but thinking about why he developed cancer. We took very good care of him and had him on a good diet. Now I'm researching cat litter online and reading disturbing things about crystalline silica. Maybe I need to switch? I have another girl kitty and I don't want her to go through this suffering.
Goodbye my loving friend. We will miss you always.
