Flakes' Story (long and lots of pictures)

jersharocks

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Flakes crossed the rainbow bridge 2 and a half weeks ago after a short battle with cancer. He was a major part of my life for well over a decade and I miss him so very much. Let me tell you his story.

He started out at a shelter where my mom's neighbor adopted him. He had been declawed by a previous owner and he was young, maybe a year or so old. I'm not sure how long he lived with her but the neighbor ended up giving Flakes to my mom because she was moving into a college dorm that didn't allow pets. My mom had 2 other cats (Garfield - a long and fat orange kitty who lived up to his name and Peaches - a long and thin ditzy orange kitty) and Flakes was nervous around them but he eventually settled in. I don't have any pictures of them all together (I do have one of Flakes and Peaches) but I have very fond memories of the 3 of them running around the house together.

Here's Peaches and Flakes snuggled up on the couch together. Peaches sadly passed from cancer earlier this year. She was a sweet girl but as dumb and ditzy as could be, lol. We got her and her brother when they were kittens about 15 years ago. She eventually went to live with my husband's brother, my mom is not so great at keeping pets for life. *sigh*
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Flakes took a particular liking to me. I think it's because my room was like a sanctuary. I rarely let the other cats in and he was a bit nervous at times so he loved just chilling with me knowing that he could relax and not worry about the other cats. When I got married and moved out a couple years later, I took Flakes to live with us. He was a fraidy cat for the first few weeks/months. We lived in an upstairs apartment that had a communal balcony and every time someone walked by, the apartment would shake a little bit. He would run and hide when someone knocked on the door. It took quite awhile for him to get more confident.

After a year, we moved to a better apartment (the first of many moves, we like to move, haha), here's Flakes checking out a shelf I had cleared off to pack:
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Our second apartment is where Flakes really started to get confident. The apartment had a private balcony with a sliding glass door that Flakes adored looking out of. Our apartment faced a lake and there were always ducks and geese he could watch. We took him out on the balcony a few times to see the ducks and geese and he loved that. We had visitors more often at this apartment and Flakes started to enjoy having company.

I remember one time that my husband's grandparents came by. Flakes spent half of the time loving on the back of his grandpa's head while his grandpa tried not to react (he doesn't really like cats) and then he slept on his grandma's purse for the rest of the time haha. It was so funny and I really wish we had taken pictures.

We also had friends come by to play board games, Flakes really enjoyed playing with the pieces on the table:
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This apartment is where Flakes started to open up and become more cuddly too. He started climbing on my lap when I was on my computer (I work from home):
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We lived at that second apartment for 3 years, we loved living there but we had to move due to money problems (job loss). We got a much cheaper apartment across town. We didn't live there very long and I don't have many photos from that time period for some reason. I'm guessing I lost a memory card at some point.

I do have this collage of photos from when I made Flakes a catnip toy. I sewed it by hand out of some scrap material and stuffed it with stuffing from an old pillow. He adored this toy, I think we still have it somewhere.

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We moved again to a larger apartment, this was a 2 story 2 bedroom townhouse with tons of space for Flakes to run around. The spare bedroom was practically Flakes' bedroom, lol. He adored running up and down the stairs from window to window. Sometimes he'd see a squirrel or something out one window and he'd come tearing down the stairs to run and jump in another window to get a closer look.

Here he is coming out of one of the windows looking adorable:

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He experienced a lot of firsts at this apartment:

first time he lived in a place with stairs

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first time going on a walk

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first time going out in the snow

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first time climbing on top of the cabinets (that I know of)

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and probably a lot more that I'm forgetting. We all loved this apartment so much. I'm sad that we ever had to move out (another job loss and we moved to be closer to a new job).

The new apartment was kind of crappy (another one with the shared balcony and it was small) but we made the best of it. One of Flakes' favorite things at this apartment was waiting for my husband to come home from work. About 10-15 minutes before, he'd get up in the window and wait (cats have a magical sense of time, I swear). When he got home, he'd make a "reh" noise at him repeatedly and look like this. He looks angry but nope, he was excited lol.

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We had one very scary health problem with Flakes at that apartment. We took him in for a routine checkup at a new vet (our normal vet was across town by the old apartment and Flakes HATED long car rides) and got a few vaccines as part of the checkup. It was the last appointment of the day and Flakes had a horrible reaction to one of the vaccines. About an hour after the vet visit, he started vomiting repeatedly and then had diarrhea on the floor. We rushed him to the emergency vet where they gave him subcutaneous fluids, antiemetic medication, and supplemental oxygen. We were terrified that we were going to lose him. We brought him home and he hid under the bed all night but the next day was fine.

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We never did figure out why he got so sick. The emergency vet thought it could have been stress related because vomiting is not a normal vaccine reaction. The vet's office was pretty stressful, they had a loud bird in a cage in the waiting room that scared the crap out of Flakes. We emailed the vet asking them to put the reaction in his file and they never responded so we never went back there. I found out later that the vet that did that checkup was fired from her job, she was new to the practice at that time. We came across her again and had another horrible experience (that story will come up later).

We lived in the crappy apartment for about a year and then moved to a duplex nearby on a quiet, dead end street. At this apartment, we finally got Flakes a cat tree. I don't know why we hadn't bought one up until then but he LOVED it so much. I think we just assumed he was a "beach dweller" (if you watch Jackson Galaxy, you know what that is) because he spent most of his time lounging on the floor in our way or on a couch/bed/chair. Once we got the cat tree, he spent the majority of his time there. This is him about 2 minutes after we put it together, it's smack dab in the middle of the living room and he's taken up residence there, lol:

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We moved the cat tree to my home office so he spent most of the day with me which I loved, of course. We all enjoyed living there until our landlord let a sewage problem get out of hand and we had to move yet again *sigh*

Our last move with Flakes was last fall. We moved to a much larger apartment across town. It has 3 bedrooms and even a garage! Flakes took the move pretty well (he was so used to moving every couple years haha). I think the only thing he disliked (aside from the car ride) is that our new apartment has hard floors which made it difficult to get a running start when he was playing haha.

At our new place, we added another cat tree and that one became his favorite. It was in just the right spot that the sun would hit the little box/condo part and he could catch some rays through most of the day. He would face one direction (head first towards the window) for awhile and then turn around.
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In March, shortly after the pandemic lockdowns started, we decided to try fostering a dog. I won't go into too much detail because I fell in love with that dog but it just wasn't a match between him and Flakes. After a week of keeping them separate, we did a safe meeting and it didn't go well. My heart was broken when we returned the dog to the rescue but I think Flakes was relieved to have the dog gone and his people's full attention back.

Shortly after (maybe a week or two) we returned the dog, we noticed that Flakes was having some tooth pain. Our regular vet was shut down because of a potential Covid-19 exposure so we had to go somewhere else. We went with a place with *amazing* Google reviews, like 100s of 5 star ratings. Unfortunately, the bad vet that we had run into years prior had recently been hired by this practice to work extended hours (evenings and weekends).

Long story short, she extracted a few teeth and she (she blamed the vet tech but after talking to other people who have met this vet, she's apparently a compulsive liar so I think she did it) messed up by not putting ointment in his eyes while he was under and he ended up getting a corneal ulcer. Also, she didn't do *any* X-rays before or after extracting teeth so we ended up getting more teeth pulled when the regular vet opened back up (no way was I trusting here again!)

When our regular vet opened back up, we brought him in to get checked and the corneal ulcer was healing but he also had uveitis (poor little guy) which meant more eye drops and antibiotics. He was such a champ with getting eye drops and eye ointment put in every day but I felt so bad because it felt like it was my fault.

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A few weeks went by and we noticed that he seemed to be having mouth/tooth pain again so we had more teeth pulled. Flakes had FORLs (Feline Odontoclastic Resorption Lesions) and in retrospect, I wish we had just had all his teeth pulled at once because he underwent several surgeries and went through so much stress and pain in the last 5 months of his life (the first teeth were pulled in mid-April, he passed on September 28th), I think he would have had less stress just having no teeth but maybe I'm wrong.

We had these extractions done at our regular (trusted) vet's office and they did do X-rays. He got another bout of uveitis after this extraction but no ulcer this time. It cleared up with meds pretty quick.

I can't remember the order of when what teeth were pulled but he did have multiple canine teeth removed so he blepped (stuck out his tongue) a lot.

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In late August, we noticed that Flakes had a bump on his face under one eye and we went to the vet yet again. Our regular vet had the day off so we saw a new vet at the same practice. She thought it was an abscessed tooth and we scheduled yet another extraction. Unfortunately, this time it was not an abscessed tooth. He had a tumor.

I will never ever forget that phone call. My husband took the call while sitting in my home office. We assumed they were just calling to say that Flakes was ready to be picked up. Nope. They were calling to give us the ultimate punch to the gut. Flakes likely had cancer. My husband is not one of those guys who's afraid to cry but oh my, I had never seen him cry like that.

I won't go into too much detail on that because I have a thread on his cancer diagnosis here: Flakes might have cancer - I'm scared and I'm angry

It's short but basically covers everything that happened. The vet referred us to an oncologist but we ultimately decided against it for many reasons. We just tried to give Flakes the best possible days we could. We fed him lots of treats. Took him on lots of walks. Brought out every one of his favorite toys. Gave him kitty milk. Gave him baby food (meat only). We had one last visit with some of his favorite people the week before he passed. We took him for a very long walk and he plopped down in the grass and rolled around for a good bit. It was one of his best days, not just one of the best last days but one of his best days ever.

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We had him put to sleep on a rainy Monday morning. We both had the week off and it seemed like Flakes had held on as long as he could. He barely ate on Sunday and we did NOT want to let him just wither away to nothing so we made that impossibly difficult choice. When we called, they only had an appointment at 10am and we didn't want to wait a day so we took that spot. We weren't ready for it to be so soon but we gave him the best possible time we could. We took him for a walk in the rain, let him explore the garage (a place we'd never let him go), played with bubbles and let him sniff every plant in front of every neighbor's house. Then we fed him most of a package of tuna treats and snuggled while trying not to ugly cry. He had a blast in the rain, I don't think he even noticed that he was wet.

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As we walked into the vet's office (they are only doing curbside service because of the pandemic but they allowed us to go inside for this, thankfully), church bells rang out to strike the top of the hour. We were there for about half an hour. The vet let us have all the time we needed before and after. We cried so much that our cloth masks were completely soaked. As we left, the church bells rang out again and it felt as though my legs turned to jelly.

We sat in the car and cried for a long time and then went to Lowes and picked out an orange mum to plant in his honor (since he loved sniffing flowers/plants so much). It's lighter (like a yellow-orange) than I was hoping but it's blooming beautifully right now and it makes me happy to see it.

We had Flakes cremated and we brought his ashes home later in the week. Since then his urn has been sitting on his cat tree. We've barely moved anything of his. His litter box is still sitting where it was. His toys are still strewn about the apartment. His water fountain was on for days until enough water evaporated that it started making a sound and we unplugged it. The only thing we got rid of was the little rug that his food bowl used to sit on. It had little bits of food stuck to it because his mouth pain made it hard for him to eat so he'd drop bits of food onto the rug. I don't really know why we threw it away, I guess because it was too hard to look at.

We brought donuts to our vet's office a few days after Flakes passed and gave them this picture of Flakes:

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The vet techs loved it and said we turned him into a meme. Our vet loved it too and put it in her office. I've already seen it in the background of photos they've posted on Facebook. It makes me happy to know that his cuteness will be seen by so many people in the future.

Sometimes it still doesn't feel real and other times it feels too real. Our apartment feels so empty and so quiet despite the fact that we live next to an interstate with cars whooshing by at all hours of the day and night. I keep seeing things in the apartment that look like him. Sometimes I'll walk by the bedroom and see a pillow placed just right that it looks like his white chest and him sitting there. Sometimes I'll wake up and think I need to feed him. I still expect to feel him lean up against my leg and gently "beg" for his lunch (he was the most considerate little guy lol).

I miss him so much and I always will. I'll definitely come back and add more pictures soon. I have thousands of him. I have dozens of videos too.
 

FeebysOwner

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I am so sorry about Flakes - and, I read your previous post about him too. You have shared an amazing story with us and it was worth reading every word!! :hearthrob::redheartpump::hearthrob::redheartpump: What a wonderful commemoration, and homage to Flakes. He was so lucky to have you - and you to have him. RIP baby Flakes (and Peaches, too). :angel::angel3:
 

jefferd18

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I am so very sorry to hear of Flakes' passing. Although he hasn't really left you, (just entered his next journey) I know you will miss him terribly. I had read your previous post about him and his darling little face really really touched my heart, I was praying that he would beat that demon, cancer. I know how much you loved him and you gave him everything, including a very exciting and loving life. It was apparent that both you and your husband always thought of Flakes' feelings, first and foremost. Thank you for sharing such touching memories of him and allowing us to view all of the beautiful photos of that special little feline.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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What a wonderful tribute. I'm sitting here with tears running down my face thinking about your loss, and I'm so very sorry. He was a super special cat (as they all are, really, but some more than others :wink: ). I'm so glad you were able to give him his best day ever there at the end.
He was one very lucky cat the you chose to share your life with him :hugs:
 

di and bob

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What a lovely tribute to a beautiful little soul.......to be mourned over and missed so dearly is a great honor. To have all those wonderful memories will help to comfort you during your times of grief. You all had a wonderful, full life together, good times and bad, but shared and helped by each other's love. Try not to dwell on his end, it's impossible right now, I know, but you had so many wonderful years it would be a shame to make his death more important than his life. Nothing is more important right now than that little boy's love for you. That love is spiritual, so eternal. He lives on through you now, will always be bonded to your soul. He will always be as close as your thoughts and prayers. "Death cannot take that which never dies", and you know that to be true.
His love is a unique and powerful one, shared only by you and your husband. No one else can love him, or mourn that little boy's death as you will. He was in your life for a reason, to have never met him would have spared you this pain, but the rewards of knowing and loving him have made your life so much more rewarding and has added on to the enrichment of your soul.
Time is the only thing that helps with a broken heart. You never get over something like this, you learn to live with it and how to manage it. And in time you will learn that you can cry because of your loss and live in your yesterdays, or cherish your yesterdays and your memories and move forward into your tomorrows, using his love to bring you strength. Time will help you to pick up the pieces of your life and put them back together. It will dull the sharp edges of grief and give you a new perspective on life and how it is meant to be lived. Seeking its joys and beauty, and like a mother with many children, welcoming each and every love into your heart to hold forever. Together they become even stronger, more beautiful, and will help you get through this. Get through the next minute, the next hour, the next day. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time.........
My heart goes out to you, I will keep you all in my thoughts and prayers. I will cry with you and pray for that little boy, and also for the legions that have suffered through losing someone they love too. You are not alone in your sorrow.....RIP beautiful Flakes. you will forever be missed, you will have a secure place in loving hearts for eternity. May the good Lord bless and keep you, until you meet again!
 

les26

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He had a wonderful life with you and you did all that you could for him, he couldn't have asked for anything else, he had all that he needed and wanted. But it sure does hurt so badly when we lose them, especiallt being the only cat. But I think in time he will send you another little one who needs your love and care, not as a replacement but as one who needs you and you will need it, when the time is right.

"Their last breath on Earth is their first breath in Heaven" :rbheart:

I am so sorry for your loss of your special little friend, he is fine now, just fine, no more sickness, and when you see him again one day it will be wonderful.

I hope that your hearts heal a bit more each day, God Bless.....:alright: :grouphug2: :rbheart:
 

Mamanyt1953

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Rest you gentle, Flakes, dream you deep. Your pawprints are on someone's heart forever.

What a handsome boy he was, is, and always will be. I know that right now, the grief is crushing. But I also know that, with time, the sweet memories will so outweigh the bitter ones, and you will know to the depths of your being that the joy of having Flakes was so worth the pain of losing him. And although you miss his physical presence desperately, I also know that love doesn't die, it only changes form is, translated and purified into Love, and continues on. It is with you now, and will be until you meet again. Because Love abide. Always, forever, Love abides.
 
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jersharocks

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Flakes was never really a snuggly cat, at least not while we were awake, haha. He usually slept in our bed, wedged behind my husband's back so he was forced to stay on his side all night. But there were some rare occasions where Flakes would snuggle with us during the day. I think this is my favorite one, it was around Christmas time last year and he got on my belly while I was laying on the couch:

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Flakes always tried to get in the Christmas tree and chew on the branches so we only had a small 4ft tree and we put up many "cat defenses." We tied bells on the bottom branches because he hated the sound bells, we put the tree on a tall table and then put presents around the edges so there was nowhere to jump and land, we also had one of those motion detector air sprayer things, lol. After many years we finally succeeded at keeping him out of the tree but man oh man he was enamored by it.

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I don't know if I want to put up the tree this year. I love the process of decorating it but this year is just so different. No family visiting. No Flakes. Maybe it will help me feel more in the Christmas spirit though. We did just adopt two new cats (a bonded pair of 5 year old girls) so we'll have the challenge of keeping two cats out of the tree. I don't know if I'm up for that challenge just yet. We shall see.
 

di and bob

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Putting up the tree may distract you from your grief for a while since Flakes was so enamoured with it, I'm sure it reminds you of him and may bring some pain, but also the joy of your wonderful memories.
But sharing the excitement of a tree with your girls may be what you need to bond with them a little closer, I would put it up for them. My cats completely ignore the tree, so you never know, that may be what happens with your two after the initial newness wears off. Bless you, for opening your heart to two more little ones, it perpetuates Flakes love. He will be with you in spirit this season that he loved so much.......
 
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jersharocks

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Putting up the tree may distract you from your grief for a while since Flakes was so enamoured with it, I'm sure it reminds you of him and may bring some pain, but also the joy of your wonderful memories.
But sharing the excitement of a tree with your girls may be what you need to bond with them a little closer, I would put it up for them. My cats completely ignore the tree, so you never know, that may be what happens with your two after the initial newness wears off. Bless you, for opening your heart to two more little ones, it perpetuates Flakes love. He will be with you in spirit this season that he loved so much.......
Thank you! I did decide to put up the tree. I put it up on the table like I did for Flakes, they have barely even looked at it. I haven't decorated it yet but it's pre-lit and they seem grossly uninterested lol. I think I'll put it on the floor and see if that piques their interest. If it doesn't, I think I'm going to finally get the big tree I always wanted. Then I can put the small tree in my office and decorate it in Flakes' memory.
 

di and bob

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That would be wonderful! You can get ornaments that hold his picture, I have one for each of my little ones that passed, they're bittersweet to look at but get more precious as the years go by.
 

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He was a very handsome boy and so sorry for your loss, kinda reminds me of my orange boy. Glad you put up a tree, God probably has Christmas Trees at the Rainbow Bridge for our kitties to enjoy until we can join them.
 
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jersharocks

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That would be wonderful! You can get ornaments that hold his picture, I have one for each of my little ones that passed, they're bittersweet to look at but get more precious as the years go by.
I'm glad you mentioned that! I actually did buy a pawprint memory frame ornament at Hallmark a couple weeks back. The box was marked 2019 so it was 70% off but the ornament itself doesn't have a year on it (other than a tiny copyright date on the back). I need to get a photo printed to put in there. I have lots of large prints of Flakes (one wall in my living room is 8x10s of him lol) but nothing small.
 

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Flakes crossed the rainbow bridge 2 and a half weeks ago after a short battle with cancer. He was a major part of my life for well over a decade and I miss him so very much. Let me tell you his story.

He started out at a shelter where my mom's neighbor adopted him. He had been declawed by a previous owner and he was young, maybe a year or so old. I'm not sure how long he lived with her but the neighbor ended up giving Flakes to my mom because she was moving into a college dorm that didn't allow pets. My mom had 2 other cats (Garfield - a long and fat orange kitty who lived up to his name and Peaches - a long and thin ditzy orange kitty) and Flakes was nervous around them but he eventually settled in. I don't have any pictures of them all together (I do have one of Flakes and Peaches) but I have very fond memories of the 3 of them running around the house together.

Here's Peaches and Flakes snuggled up on the couch together. Peaches sadly passed from cancer earlier this year. She was a sweet girl but as dumb and ditzy as could be, lol. We got her and her brother when they were kittens about 15 years ago. She eventually went to live with my husband's brother, my mom is not so great at keeping pets for life. *sigh*
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Flakes took a particular liking to me. I think it's because my room was like a sanctuary. I rarely let the other cats in and he was a bit nervous at times so he loved just chilling with me knowing that he could relax and not worry about the other cats. When I got married and moved out a couple years later, I took Flakes to live with us. He was a fraidy cat for the first few weeks/months. We lived in an upstairs apartment that had a communal balcony and every time someone walked by, the apartment would shake a little bit. He would run and hide when someone knocked on the door. It took quite awhile for him to get more confident.

After a year, we moved to a better apartment (the first of many moves, we like to move, haha), here's Flakes checking out a shelf I had cleared off to pack:
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Our second apartment is where Flakes really started to get confident. The apartment had a private balcony with a sliding glass door that Flakes adored looking out of. Our apartment faced a lake and there were always ducks and geese he could watch. We took him out on the balcony a few times to see the ducks and geese and he loved that. We had visitors more often at this apartment and Flakes started to enjoy having company.

I remember one time that my husband's grandparents came by. Flakes spent half of the time loving on the back of his grandpa's head while his grandpa tried not to react (he doesn't really like cats) and then he slept on his grandma's purse for the rest of the time haha. It was so funny and I really wish we had taken pictures.

We also had friends come by to play board games, Flakes really enjoyed playing with the pieces on the table:
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This apartment is where Flakes started to open up and become more cuddly too. He started climbing on my lap when I was on my computer (I work from home):
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We lived at that second apartment for 3 years, we loved living there but we had to move due to money problems (job loss). We got a much cheaper apartment across town. We didn't live there very long and I don't have many photos from that time period for some reason. I'm guessing I lost a memory card at some point.

I do have this collage of photos from when I made Flakes a catnip toy. I sewed it by hand out of some scrap material and stuffed it with stuffing from an old pillow. He adored this toy, I think we still have it somewhere.

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We moved again to a larger apartment, this was a 2 story 2 bedroom townhouse with tons of space for Flakes to run around. The spare bedroom was practically Flakes' bedroom, lol. He adored running up and down the stairs from window to window. Sometimes he'd see a squirrel or something out one window and he'd come tearing down the stairs to run and jump in another window to get a closer look.

Here he is coming out of one of the windows looking adorable:

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He experienced a lot of firsts at this apartment:

first time he lived in a place with stairs

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first time going on a walk

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first time going out in the snow

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first time climbing on top of the cabinets (that I know of)

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and probably a lot more that I'm forgetting. We all loved this apartment so much. I'm sad that we ever had to move out (another job loss and we moved to be closer to a new job).

The new apartment was kind of crappy (another one with the shared balcony and it was small) but we made the best of it. One of Flakes' favorite things at this apartment was waiting for my husband to come home from work. About 10-15 minutes before, he'd get up in the window and wait (cats have a magical sense of time, I swear). When he got home, he'd make a "reh" noise at him repeatedly and look like this. He looks angry but nope, he was excited lol.

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We had one very scary health problem with Flakes at that apartment. We took him in for a routine checkup at a new vet (our normal vet was across town by the old apartment and Flakes HATED long car rides) and got a few vaccines as part of the checkup. It was the last appointment of the day and Flakes had a horrible reaction to one of the vaccines. About an hour after the vet visit, he started vomiting repeatedly and then had diarrhea on the floor. We rushed him to the emergency vet where they gave him subcutaneous fluids, antiemetic medication, and supplemental oxygen. We were terrified that we were going to lose him. We brought him home and he hid under the bed all night but the next day was fine.

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We never did figure out why he got so sick. The emergency vet thought it could have been stress related because vomiting is not a normal vaccine reaction. The vet's office was pretty stressful, they had a loud bird in a cage in the waiting room that scared the crap out of Flakes. We emailed the vet asking them to put the reaction in his file and they never responded so we never went back there. I found out later that the vet that did that checkup was fired from her job, she was new to the practice at that time. We came across her again and had another horrible experience (that story will come up later).

We lived in the crappy apartment for about a year and then moved to a duplex nearby on a quiet, dead end street. At this apartment, we finally got Flakes a cat tree. I don't know why we hadn't bought one up until then but he LOVED it so much. I think we just assumed he was a "beach dweller" (if you watch Jackson Galaxy, you know what that is) because he spent most of his time lounging on the floor in our way or on a couch/bed/chair. Once we got the cat tree, he spent the majority of his time there. This is him about 2 minutes after we put it together, it's smack dab in the middle of the living room and he's taken up residence there, lol:

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We moved the cat tree to my home office so he spent most of the day with me which I loved, of course. We all enjoyed living there until our landlord let a sewage problem get out of hand and we had to move yet again *sigh*

Our last move with Flakes was last fall. We moved to a much larger apartment across town. It has 3 bedrooms and even a garage! Flakes took the move pretty well (he was so used to moving every couple years haha). I think the only thing he disliked (aside from the car ride) is that our new apartment has hard floors which made it difficult to get a running start when he was playing haha.

At our new place, we added another cat tree and that one became his favorite. It was in just the right spot that the sun would hit the little box/condo part and he could catch some rays through most of the day. He would face one direction (head first towards the window) for awhile and then turn around.
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In March, shortly after the pandemic lockdowns started, we decided to try fostering a dog. I won't go into too much detail because I fell in love with that dog but it just wasn't a match between him and Flakes. After a week of keeping them separate, we did a safe meeting and it didn't go well. My heart was broken when we returned the dog to the rescue but I think Flakes was relieved to have the dog gone and his people's full attention back.

Shortly after (maybe a week or two) we returned the dog, we noticed that Flakes was having some tooth pain. Our regular vet was shut down because of a potential Covid-19 exposure so we had to go somewhere else. We went with a place with *amazing* Google reviews, like 100s of 5 star ratings. Unfortunately, the bad vet that we had run into years prior had recently been hired by this practice to work extended hours (evenings and weekends).

Long story short, she extracted a few teeth and she (she blamed the vet tech but after talking to other people who have met this vet, she's apparently a compulsive liar so I think she did it) messed up by not putting ointment in his eyes while he was under and he ended up getting a corneal ulcer. Also, she didn't do *any* X-rays before or after extracting teeth so we ended up getting more teeth pulled when the regular vet opened back up (no way was I trusting here again!)

When our regular vet opened back up, we brought him in to get checked and the corneal ulcer was healing but he also had uveitis (poor little guy) which meant more eye drops and antibiotics. He was such a champ with getting eye drops and eye ointment put in every day but I felt so bad because it felt like it was my fault.

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A few weeks went by and we noticed that he seemed to be having mouth/tooth pain again so we had more teeth pulled. Flakes had FORLs (Feline Odontoclastic Resorption Lesions) and in retrospect, I wish we had just had all his teeth pulled at once because he underwent several surgeries and went through so much stress and pain in the last 5 months of his life (the first teeth were pulled in mid-April, he passed on September 28th), I think he would have had less stress just having no teeth but maybe I'm wrong.

We had these extractions done at our regular (trusted) vet's office and they did do X-rays. He got another bout of uveitis after this extraction but no ulcer this time. It cleared up with meds pretty quick.

I can't remember the order of when what teeth were pulled but he did have multiple canine teeth removed so he blepped (stuck out his tongue) a lot.

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In late August, we noticed that Flakes had a bump on his face under one eye and we went to the vet yet again. Our regular vet had the day off so we saw a new vet at the same practice. She thought it was an abscessed tooth and we scheduled yet another extraction. Unfortunately, this time it was not an abscessed tooth. He had a tumor.

I will never ever forget that phone call. My husband took the call while sitting in my home office. We assumed they were just calling to say that Flakes was ready to be picked up. Nope. They were calling to give us the ultimate punch to the gut. Flakes likely had cancer. My husband is not one of those guys who's afraid to cry but oh my, I had never seen him cry like that.

I won't go into too much detail on that because I have a thread on his cancer diagnosis here: Flakes might have cancer - I'm scared and I'm angry

It's short but basically covers everything that happened. The vet referred us to an oncologist but we ultimately decided against it for many reasons. We just tried to give Flakes the best possible days we could. We fed him lots of treats. Took him on lots of walks. Brought out every one of his favorite toys. Gave him kitty milk. Gave him baby food (meat only). We had one last visit with some of his favorite people the week before he passed. We took him for a very long walk and he plopped down in the grass and rolled around for a good bit. It was one of his best days, not just one of the best last days but one of his best days ever.

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We had him put to sleep on a rainy Monday morning. We both had the week off and it seemed like Flakes had held on as long as he could. He barely ate on Sunday and we did NOT want to let him just wither away to nothing so we made that impossibly difficult choice. When we called, they only had an appointment at 10am and we didn't want to wait a day so we took that spot. We weren't ready for it to be so soon but we gave him the best possible time we could. We took him for a walk in the rain, let him explore the garage (a place we'd never let him go), played with bubbles and let him sniff every plant in front of every neighbor's house. Then we fed him most of a package of tuna treats and snuggled while trying not to ugly cry. He had a blast in the rain, I don't think he even noticed that he was wet.

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As we walked into the vet's office (they are only doing curbside service because of the pandemic but they allowed us to go inside for this, thankfully), church bells rang out to strike the top of the hour. We were there for about half an hour. The vet let us have all the time we needed before and after. We cried so much that our cloth masks were completely soaked. As we left, the church bells rang out again and it felt as though my legs turned to jelly.

We sat in the car and cried for a long time and then went to Lowes and picked out an orange mum to plant in his honor (since he loved sniffing flowers/plants so much). It's lighter (like a yellow-orange) than I was hoping but it's blooming beautifully right now and it makes me happy to see it.

We had Flakes cremated and we brought his ashes home later in the week. Since then his urn has been sitting on his cat tree. We've barely moved anything of his. His litter box is still sitting where it was. His toys are still strewn about the apartment. His water fountain was on for days until enough water evaporated that it started making a sound and we unplugged it. The only thing we got rid of was the little rug that his food bowl used to sit on. It had little bits of food stuck to it because his mouth pain made it hard for him to eat so he'd drop bits of food onto the rug. I don't really know why we threw it away, I guess because it was too hard to look at.

We brought donuts to our vet's office a few days after Flakes passed and gave them this picture of Flakes:

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The vet techs loved it and said we turned him into a meme. Our vet loved it too and put it in her office. I've already seen it in the background of photos they've posted on Facebook. It makes me happy to know that his cuteness will be seen by so many people in the future.

Sometimes it still doesn't feel real and other times it feels too real. Our apartment feels so empty and so quiet despite the fact that we live next to an interstate with cars whooshing by at all hours of the day and night. I keep seeing things in the apartment that look like him. Sometimes I'll walk by the bedroom and see a pillow placed just right that it looks like his white chest and him sitting there. Sometimes I'll wake up and think I need to feed him. I still expect to feel him lean up against my leg and gently "beg" for his lunch (he was the most considerate little guy lol).

I miss him so much and I always will. I'll definitely come back and add more pictures soon. I have thousands of him. I have dozens of videos too.

Thank you for sharing Flakes's story with us. You and your husband were great "parents". You gave Flakes a wonderful life.
 
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jersharocks

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I wanted to share some of the gifts I received this Christmas to memorialize Flakes. The first is a beautiful watercolor that was done by a local artist. Half of the cost went to the local humane society. The second is a wooden ornament with his name and a quote that is oh so true. Both things made me cry so much. I miss my boy and wish he was still here.
 

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