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      Saturday, June 20, 2020


catstuff
08:19 AM - 06/20/2020

The topic: The end of an era, a sad goodbye

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Rachel crashed this week. Her kidneys finally quit working.

I mentioned that I had been giving her fluids in my last entry, but she didn't stay hydrated. When she peed, she peed a lot. The fluids were going right through her.

The last thing she ate on her own were a couple of Temptations treats on Monday morning, and she only ate those because I stood there petting her. And she didn't finish what I'd given her. Brian thought maybe she had allergies, because her eyes and nose were watering and she was sneezing. I finger fed her some Fancy Feast, then watered down A/D in a syringe the next couple of days, hoping against hope she'd get her appetite back. She kept it down. The few stools she had this week were really small and very hard and dry. She was having a hard time walking and was in pain. Nothing she did gave me much hope. But she purred.

I called the vet on Wednesday afternoon to make an appointment to get her in as soon as we could. I'd dealt with the lack of hydration, even though fluids had been given, in the past. It didn't bode well. I said "blood work and then, depending on the results, we will be saying goodbye".

Thursday morning, we were at the vet's by nine. One of us was able to go in, with mask. That was me. I explained all that was happening with her, the lack of appetite, the hard stools, the dehydration. She'd only lost a few ounces since last September, which was surprising. They took her into the back and drew blood.

I waited for the test results, Brian was out in the car (only one person at a time in the examining room, unless....) and I called him and told him what was going on. The wait was about twenty minutes or so.

And the results were horrible. The worst part was her phosphorus count, way above ten. The vet explained that it's almost impossible to bring that down to safe levels when it's gotten so high. Her advice was to say goodbye.

I called Brian in (this is the "unless" part - euthanasia you can both be there). Rachel was taken in the back and sedated, brought back into us, we said our goodbyes, petting her and talking to her.

The vet came in, gave her the final injection. She was gone in seconds.

Rachel was the last office cat. The only time she left the office was to go into the bedroom and get a drink from the crock in there or to potty in Brian's bathroom. Sometimes she'd go outside, maybe drink from the fountain, cruise the yard. But, most of the time, she was on her blanket on the desk. A nice big space under the window, spreads and towels and blankets to make it nice and soft. For all of the room that was there, no other kitty spent any time on it. She didn't have any kitty buddies. It was just her and us. She would come to me in the morning for attention when I set up in the morning. Then, when Brian came in, she'd go over to him and just lay in his lap. She'd hang out on our desks, making it hard to type or do paperwork and, most of the time, we'd work around her.

There have been office cats since I started the catcam all those years ago.

And now, there are none.

It's a sad goodbye.

 

rachel    kidney disease    goodbye   



I’m so very sorry for your loss! Rest in Peace Rachel.

Posted by Odie @ Monday, June 29, 2020 - 7:28:09 PM

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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.

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