I'm beginning to wonder if I am just cursed or if purebred cats don't live as long as domestic short or long hairs. My cat history is Sam-DSH who lived to be 16 and probably died of liver or kidney problems. (a nice long life) The next cat was Icsis, a Siamese, who only lived to be 5 1/2 and who had a malignant adenocarcinoma that had grown on to his small intestine. After the surgery to remove it, we had to put him to sleep because he did not do well. Then came Wally, a Siamese who died very suddenly at age 11 from (the Vet said) probably Cardiomyopathy, or possibly a Myocardial Infarct. In the beginning of this February we had to have Dickens our just turned 6 yr. old Oriental Shorthair put to sleep. In December, he ended up with Cholangiohepatitis (liver problem), some degree of Hepatic Lipidosis and some kind of autoimmune disease. We had a peg tube put in his stomach to feed him with-he did fantastically well (tube was in for about 6 wks. and he was eating on his own again and blood work back to normal) only to get an infection between the stomach wall and the abdominal wall right after they removed the tube. That was horrible! I cried for days! Two weeks ago, I had an extremely tiny growth (looked like a cat nipple but in the wrong place) from my male Siamese named Phantom, that has turned out to be a mast cell tumor. (malignant but supposedly has a low rate of recurrence and spread and the Vet thinks he got it all) I love the Oriental breeds because of their personalities but I'm beginning to wonder if I should go back to a Domestic Shorthair. I am SO discouraged, I love my cats SO much and I never seem to get to have them for very long. So, am I just unlucky or do purebreds not live as long? All of our cats (except possibly the one at 5 1/2 with the adenocarcinoma) have come from reputable breeders-very involved in the "cat fancy". Sorry so long.