I just wanted to write a little about my kitten that left us on April 11th at just 20 months of age.
Dalla came to me as a foster, but just after a week with her I knew I had to keep her. She was about 5 months old and only weighed 2 pounds. She was found in the Burger King parking lot when it was 9 degress outside. She was hypothermic, and we warmed her up. She ate and drank well and started gaining weight, but there was obviously something wrong with her because she couldn't walk and her stomach wa very bloated. The vet x-rayed her and found out that she had ingested a foreign body. She also had severe luxating patellas, which is why she couldn't walk. So, at 3 pounds the vet did an exploratory and removed plant material, several rubber bands and a piece of ceramic tile from her stomach and spayed her.
Over the next month it was amazing to watch my other kitty Romeo to get Dalla moving. She healed well from her surgery and kept growing. Romeo begged her to play with him and she slowly learned to walk by dragging her legs, then she started using them more and more. We started giving her glucosamine and she eventually was able to do most everything a kitty should be able to do. She also became more and more friendly. She became my little lap buddy, and she would just purr and purr and bathe my hands and face.
Dalla suffered from what we thought was asthma her whole life, and soon developed diabetes. She tolerated getting pills, "breathing treatments" with her inhalers, having her sugar checked and getting her insulin with hardly any fuss. No matter how much I did to her and how often she had to go to the vet, she never held it against me. I could never have asked for a better cat. She taught me so much about unconditional love and friendship.
One day Dalla started having difficulty breathing. I took her to the vet, but he said her lungs sounded clear and to just increase her breathing treatments. That was on a Saturday, and by that evening it was obvious that she was in trouble. We took her to the emergency vet who also said that she sounded clear, but her x-ray showed that only 20% of her lungs were clear. They put her in oxygen for the weekend and treated her for pneumonia and possible CHF. On Monday morning, I picked her up from the ER to take her to my regular vet. She died in the car on the way there. A necropsy showed that she died of a lung carcinoma. The pathologist said that her lungs were made up entirely of cancer tissue, and she had almost no normal lung tissue. She never did have asthma. She had cancer since at least she was 5 months old.
Dalla died 1 month before I got married, and I think that my mind has been dragging out the greiving process so that I could finish with my wedding planning. I have been angry for the last 2 months, but now this week I am just hurting. I find myself thinking about her all of the time. I have her ashes in a pretty little cat urn with her collar around the neck. Sometimes I just hold her and cry. I wish I could have changed things for her. I wish that she didn't have to spend her as few days at the ER with strangers. I wish I could have ended her suffering humanely instead the awful way she died. I wish I had let her crawl in my lap in the car like she tried to before she left. I wish I could have held her and told her how much I loved her.
I hope she knows that I am missing her.
Thanks for listening.
Dalla came to me as a foster, but just after a week with her I knew I had to keep her. She was about 5 months old and only weighed 2 pounds. She was found in the Burger King parking lot when it was 9 degress outside. She was hypothermic, and we warmed her up. She ate and drank well and started gaining weight, but there was obviously something wrong with her because she couldn't walk and her stomach wa very bloated. The vet x-rayed her and found out that she had ingested a foreign body. She also had severe luxating patellas, which is why she couldn't walk. So, at 3 pounds the vet did an exploratory and removed plant material, several rubber bands and a piece of ceramic tile from her stomach and spayed her.
Over the next month it was amazing to watch my other kitty Romeo to get Dalla moving. She healed well from her surgery and kept growing. Romeo begged her to play with him and she slowly learned to walk by dragging her legs, then she started using them more and more. We started giving her glucosamine and she eventually was able to do most everything a kitty should be able to do. She also became more and more friendly. She became my little lap buddy, and she would just purr and purr and bathe my hands and face.
Dalla suffered from what we thought was asthma her whole life, and soon developed diabetes. She tolerated getting pills, "breathing treatments" with her inhalers, having her sugar checked and getting her insulin with hardly any fuss. No matter how much I did to her and how often she had to go to the vet, she never held it against me. I could never have asked for a better cat. She taught me so much about unconditional love and friendship.
One day Dalla started having difficulty breathing. I took her to the vet, but he said her lungs sounded clear and to just increase her breathing treatments. That was on a Saturday, and by that evening it was obvious that she was in trouble. We took her to the emergency vet who also said that she sounded clear, but her x-ray showed that only 20% of her lungs were clear. They put her in oxygen for the weekend and treated her for pneumonia and possible CHF. On Monday morning, I picked her up from the ER to take her to my regular vet. She died in the car on the way there. A necropsy showed that she died of a lung carcinoma. The pathologist said that her lungs were made up entirely of cancer tissue, and she had almost no normal lung tissue. She never did have asthma. She had cancer since at least she was 5 months old.
Dalla died 1 month before I got married, and I think that my mind has been dragging out the greiving process so that I could finish with my wedding planning. I have been angry for the last 2 months, but now this week I am just hurting. I find myself thinking about her all of the time. I have her ashes in a pretty little cat urn with her collar around the neck. Sometimes I just hold her and cry. I wish I could have changed things for her. I wish that she didn't have to spend her as few days at the ER with strangers. I wish I could have ended her suffering humanely instead the awful way she died. I wish I had let her crawl in my lap in the car like she tried to before she left. I wish I could have held her and told her how much I loved her.
I hope she knows that I am missing her.
Thanks for listening.
