Been a while since I've posted.
You might recall we lost Harley last year. Sadly, today his brother Benji was PTS. Benji was just a few weeks shy of his 19th birthday.
Last night Benji had been sitting on my son's lap, happily getting petted and purring. He jumped down, sat on the floor under my son's computer desk...then fell over sideways and had a massive seizure. We have Alexas in every room so son called me to come up. I took one look at Benji and knew it was really bad. Benji was having major seizures every 3 - 5 minutes and I noticed he had nystagmus. Definitely a huge stroke. Unfortunately, vets here don't do house calls anymore and the 24 hour vet - well let's just say they are worse than useless and extremely expensive. In any case, we would not have been able to get Benji into the cat carrier due to the seizures which really were violent. We laid Benji on the floor and surrounded him with thick pillows to stop him injuring himself on the furniture.
We sat up with Benji for most of the night, me grabbing about 3 hours sleep as I knew I'd have to phone our vet early in the morning and drive us to their surgery. Between 3am and 4am, the seizures became less frequent and less violent.
An appointment was made for Benji at 2.30pm this afternoon. The vet weighed Benji and was surprised at how heavy he was - 6.9kg (15.3 lbs) and not a piece of fat on him anywhere. Benji was half-Bengal. They took him into another room to insert a catheter. The vets nurse said he was aware they were there because when they moved away from him he meowed. They brought him back to the room we were in and we held him while the vet helped him cross the Bridge. As he made his final journey, a vision came before my eyes as I remembered picking Benji from the litter when he was only 2 days old. I couldn't hold the tears back. 19 years just gone in a flash. When we collected Benji at 12 weeks old, we were given his brother Harley too. My son's cat Chico took the kittens under his wing and the three were inseparable, earning them the nickname "The Three Amigos".
Today The Three Amigos were reunited at Rainbow Bridge and for us, it's the end of an era.
Our vet has arranged Benji's cremation and his ashes will be home on Tuesday. They also do a lovely souvenir box which will have a cast of his paw, an inkprint of his paw, clippings of his fur in a lace baggie and Forget-me-Not seeds.
We knew since Harley passed last year that Benji probably wouldn't be far behind but we did not expect that last night - it was just so sudden. One minute he was fine - the next - this.
You might recall we lost Harley last year. Sadly, today his brother Benji was PTS. Benji was just a few weeks shy of his 19th birthday.
Last night Benji had been sitting on my son's lap, happily getting petted and purring. He jumped down, sat on the floor under my son's computer desk...then fell over sideways and had a massive seizure. We have Alexas in every room so son called me to come up. I took one look at Benji and knew it was really bad. Benji was having major seizures every 3 - 5 minutes and I noticed he had nystagmus. Definitely a huge stroke. Unfortunately, vets here don't do house calls anymore and the 24 hour vet - well let's just say they are worse than useless and extremely expensive. In any case, we would not have been able to get Benji into the cat carrier due to the seizures which really were violent. We laid Benji on the floor and surrounded him with thick pillows to stop him injuring himself on the furniture.
We sat up with Benji for most of the night, me grabbing about 3 hours sleep as I knew I'd have to phone our vet early in the morning and drive us to their surgery. Between 3am and 4am, the seizures became less frequent and less violent.
An appointment was made for Benji at 2.30pm this afternoon. The vet weighed Benji and was surprised at how heavy he was - 6.9kg (15.3 lbs) and not a piece of fat on him anywhere. Benji was half-Bengal. They took him into another room to insert a catheter. The vets nurse said he was aware they were there because when they moved away from him he meowed. They brought him back to the room we were in and we held him while the vet helped him cross the Bridge. As he made his final journey, a vision came before my eyes as I remembered picking Benji from the litter when he was only 2 days old. I couldn't hold the tears back. 19 years just gone in a flash. When we collected Benji at 12 weeks old, we were given his brother Harley too. My son's cat Chico took the kittens under his wing and the three were inseparable, earning them the nickname "The Three Amigos".
Today The Three Amigos were reunited at Rainbow Bridge and for us, it's the end of an era.
Our vet has arranged Benji's cremation and his ashes will be home on Tuesday. They also do a lovely souvenir box which will have a cast of his paw, an inkprint of his paw, clippings of his fur in a lace baggie and Forget-me-Not seeds.
We knew since Harley passed last year that Benji probably wouldn't be far behind but we did not expect that last night - it was just so sudden. One minute he was fine - the next - this.
