Dear Amy,
I went through great lengths to take you home, because I knew you were special. Not only were you strikingly and uniquely beautiful, you were also the sweetest, friendliest, calmest cat I've ever met. Every person who ever came into contact with you was touched by your loving nature.
I also knew you were sick and weak and malnourished and maybe somewhat neglected. But each issue I knew you had was something I could manage. So I combed out your fleas one by one, I gave you a bath, I fed you the best food (and lots of it) and took you to the vet at every sign of a problem. My husband, who had been very hesitant about getting another cat, instantly fell in love with you and helped me take great care of you. We saw you improve, become more active, smell better and look healthier. You always wanted to be near us, you took naps on our laps, and on our keyboards, you played like a kitten and you slept on our pillows with us at night.
Less than a month after getting you, only a few weeks ago, you began to show symptoms of something more serious. Each day it was something else, something new, something worse. Upon seeing your blood work results, the vets had no idea where to even start testing you to come up with an accurate diagnosis, but each possibility was scarier than the last. When a vet mentioned chronic renal failure, I scoured the internet to learn how to best take care of you so that you would live a comfortable and happy life as long as possible with this cruel, incurable, progressive and fatal disease. Nothing could be worse.
Well, so I thought. It turns out the likeliest possibility wasn't CRF. It was an even faster-progressing, more cruel and more fatal disease called feline infectious peritonitis, which kills cats within days or weeks, or at best a few months after the first symptoms begin showing up. I saw you fade away quicker than I could even process all this information. One day you were eating all your food, the next day you barely ate and the day after that you stopped eating altogether. You lost 0.5lb in just those couple of days, withdrew to the closet and just slept.
We gave you appetite meds and tried force-feeding you until you regained some of your appetite. For a week, you showed signs of recovery. You ate and drank and became more responsive, even if still very weak, malnourished, and lethargic.
But then your symptoms came back even stronger. You couldn’t keep your food down, so you stopped eating again. Then one day, the FIP began to affect your neurological system. You could no longer stand straight or walk without losing your balance and tipping over. It all happened so fast, just in a matter of hours…
And there was nothing I could do. Not only was there no treatment for your disease, there was also no way to even relieve your symptoms or make you feel more comfortable for the remainder of your time with us.
We tried our best. But sometimes, the best you can do isn't nearly enough. You were only 3 years old. So young, and such an amazing cat. You deserved to live a full and happy life and die of old age. Instead, you got this.
We didn't even have you long enough to take enough decent pictures of you with the good camera. We didn't even get to make videos. We didn't even get to finish introducing you to Liz. Most of our friends didn't even meet you. We didn't even get to tell many of the people that know us about you. You didn't even get the chance to get fully used to your new environment and new people. But we did have you long enough to love you. It's too bad love isn't enough to save a life… or else you'd still be here with us, healthy, happy, forever.
Goodbye, little one
I went through great lengths to take you home, because I knew you were special. Not only were you strikingly and uniquely beautiful, you were also the sweetest, friendliest, calmest cat I've ever met. Every person who ever came into contact with you was touched by your loving nature.
I also knew you were sick and weak and malnourished and maybe somewhat neglected. But each issue I knew you had was something I could manage. So I combed out your fleas one by one, I gave you a bath, I fed you the best food (and lots of it) and took you to the vet at every sign of a problem. My husband, who had been very hesitant about getting another cat, instantly fell in love with you and helped me take great care of you. We saw you improve, become more active, smell better and look healthier. You always wanted to be near us, you took naps on our laps, and on our keyboards, you played like a kitten and you slept on our pillows with us at night.
Less than a month after getting you, only a few weeks ago, you began to show symptoms of something more serious. Each day it was something else, something new, something worse. Upon seeing your blood work results, the vets had no idea where to even start testing you to come up with an accurate diagnosis, but each possibility was scarier than the last. When a vet mentioned chronic renal failure, I scoured the internet to learn how to best take care of you so that you would live a comfortable and happy life as long as possible with this cruel, incurable, progressive and fatal disease. Nothing could be worse.
Well, so I thought. It turns out the likeliest possibility wasn't CRF. It was an even faster-progressing, more cruel and more fatal disease called feline infectious peritonitis, which kills cats within days or weeks, or at best a few months after the first symptoms begin showing up. I saw you fade away quicker than I could even process all this information. One day you were eating all your food, the next day you barely ate and the day after that you stopped eating altogether. You lost 0.5lb in just those couple of days, withdrew to the closet and just slept.
We gave you appetite meds and tried force-feeding you until you regained some of your appetite. For a week, you showed signs of recovery. You ate and drank and became more responsive, even if still very weak, malnourished, and lethargic.
But then your symptoms came back even stronger. You couldn’t keep your food down, so you stopped eating again. Then one day, the FIP began to affect your neurological system. You could no longer stand straight or walk without losing your balance and tipping over. It all happened so fast, just in a matter of hours…
And there was nothing I could do. Not only was there no treatment for your disease, there was also no way to even relieve your symptoms or make you feel more comfortable for the remainder of your time with us.
We tried our best. But sometimes, the best you can do isn't nearly enough. You were only 3 years old. So young, and such an amazing cat. You deserved to live a full and happy life and die of old age. Instead, you got this.
We didn't even have you long enough to take enough decent pictures of you with the good camera. We didn't even get to make videos. We didn't even get to finish introducing you to Liz. Most of our friends didn't even meet you. We didn't even get to tell many of the people that know us about you. You didn't even get the chance to get fully used to your new environment and new people. But we did have you long enough to love you. It's too bad love isn't enough to save a life… or else you'd still be here with us, healthy, happy, forever.
Goodbye, little one