Since I've been here I think I've only read this board a couple of times, it breaks my heart so I avoid it.
So I feel like I don't even deserve to post here, but I have to talk about my sweet Lizzie.
Lizzie was the product of MUCH inbreeding, as was her Sister Gracie.
It's a long story that I won't get into now.
As a result of that they both have some health problems.
Up to this point it hadn't been anything major and medication took care of it quickly.
They go once a year for a check-up and at the end of last May all was well.
About a month ago I noticed that Lizzie was drinking TONS of water and then almost over night she was skinny as a rail.
Turned out that her teeth were terrible, I guess it must have had something to do with the inbreeding...like I said they were fine less than a year ago.
I noticed that she wasn't eating dry food at all..I was giving all the cats a little canned food twice a day and apparently that's all Lizzie was eating.
My Vet put her on medication to clear up the infection and she was then fed only canned food.
She started to gain back her weight and was even eating a little dry food.
As soon as she was back up to a good weight the teeth were going to be taken care of.
Monday morning she ate a little canned food, but didn't wolf it down as usual.
Gave her more Monday night and she threw it back up.
As strange as this sounds when I got up Tuesday morning I swear she had lost all the weight she'd gained and then some...she looked like a stray cat that nobody has been taking care of.
I used a syringe that holds 3CC's and was feeding her warm beef broth about once and hour or so...that's all I could get her to keep down.
I called the Vet and he said to bring her in that night at 7.
Gracie and Lizzie were never spayed...the Vet...actually three Vets ..that saw them wouldn't do the operation.
They told me that with the breathing and other problems they had the risk was just to great to put them under for any reason.
At first I thought about doing it anyway, but then the more I talked to the Vet the more I knew that the risk of one or both of them developing cancer was the least of the two risks...so they were never spayed.
Well, that gamble didn't pay off for Lizzie when we got to the Vet that night he told us that he was 99% sure that she had ovarian cancer in the very late stages and even if we spent thousands of dollars on having her kept at the hospital and running test after test after test that those thousands would be spent in vain because he said he knew he couldn't save her.
I of course started to cry and he looked at me and said "This is the part of my job that sucks, when I have to tell someone that there's nothing I can do to save someone they love very much."
The fact that she stopped eating didn't have anything to do with her teeth this time, it was the cancer.
He said she was more than likely sick for some time.
What kills me is she never acted sick....just the thing with her teeth...but apparently she had the cancer even then.
She never changed her behavior in any way to give me a clue that anything was wrong.
You don't know how I've been beating myself up trying to think of some change that would have tipped me off...but there weren't any.
Then second guessing the choice not to have her spayed..they flat out refused to do Gracie...she has more health issues than Lizzie...but they would have spayed Lizzie, only with the understanding that chances were very high that she'd die while she was under.
The Vet assured me he'd have made the same choice that I did to not have her spayed if she were his cat and that it wasn't my fault, but of course even though he said that the "What if's" keep popping into my head.
Then the very next morning Gracie went into heat and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I couldn't remember the last time Lizzie was in heat...why oh why didn't that dawn on me months ago...if it had, would it have made a difference?
Anyway, he told us that the only real option was to have her put to sleep so that's what we did.
They asked me if I wanted to leave the room, but I couldn't bring myself to leave her.
My Husband said he'd stay with her, but I had to be with her too.
They let me hold her and she just went peacefully to sleep...very peacefull for her, but not so easy on us.
I wanted the last thing she saw to be us, I didn't want my baby to die without the people that loved her and the people that she loved.
Just as a side note...if you find out a cat your thinking of taking in is the product of inbreeding PLEASE DO NOT let my story stop you because Gracie and Lizzie are the sweetest most loving cats I've ever had.
Just be aware that they may have health problems..some small problems and some big ones and just watch them like a hawk for ANYTHING that seems out of the ordinary no matter how small you might think it is.
Maybe if it had dawned on me in time that Lizzie hadn't gone into heat for a while we could have saved her.
Rest In Peace my sweet Angel, I'll love you forever.
So I feel like I don't even deserve to post here, but I have to talk about my sweet Lizzie.
Lizzie was the product of MUCH inbreeding, as was her Sister Gracie.
It's a long story that I won't get into now.
As a result of that they both have some health problems.
Up to this point it hadn't been anything major and medication took care of it quickly.
They go once a year for a check-up and at the end of last May all was well.
About a month ago I noticed that Lizzie was drinking TONS of water and then almost over night she was skinny as a rail.
Turned out that her teeth were terrible, I guess it must have had something to do with the inbreeding...like I said they were fine less than a year ago.
I noticed that she wasn't eating dry food at all..I was giving all the cats a little canned food twice a day and apparently that's all Lizzie was eating.
My Vet put her on medication to clear up the infection and she was then fed only canned food.
She started to gain back her weight and was even eating a little dry food.
As soon as she was back up to a good weight the teeth were going to be taken care of.
Monday morning she ate a little canned food, but didn't wolf it down as usual.
Gave her more Monday night and she threw it back up.
As strange as this sounds when I got up Tuesday morning I swear she had lost all the weight she'd gained and then some...she looked like a stray cat that nobody has been taking care of.
I used a syringe that holds 3CC's and was feeding her warm beef broth about once and hour or so...that's all I could get her to keep down.
I called the Vet and he said to bring her in that night at 7.
Gracie and Lizzie were never spayed...the Vet...actually three Vets ..that saw them wouldn't do the operation.
They told me that with the breathing and other problems they had the risk was just to great to put them under for any reason.
At first I thought about doing it anyway, but then the more I talked to the Vet the more I knew that the risk of one or both of them developing cancer was the least of the two risks...so they were never spayed.
Well, that gamble didn't pay off for Lizzie when we got to the Vet that night he told us that he was 99% sure that she had ovarian cancer in the very late stages and even if we spent thousands of dollars on having her kept at the hospital and running test after test after test that those thousands would be spent in vain because he said he knew he couldn't save her.
I of course started to cry and he looked at me and said "This is the part of my job that sucks, when I have to tell someone that there's nothing I can do to save someone they love very much."
The fact that she stopped eating didn't have anything to do with her teeth this time, it was the cancer.
He said she was more than likely sick for some time.
What kills me is she never acted sick....just the thing with her teeth...but apparently she had the cancer even then.
She never changed her behavior in any way to give me a clue that anything was wrong.
You don't know how I've been beating myself up trying to think of some change that would have tipped me off...but there weren't any.
Then second guessing the choice not to have her spayed..they flat out refused to do Gracie...she has more health issues than Lizzie...but they would have spayed Lizzie, only with the understanding that chances were very high that she'd die while she was under.
The Vet assured me he'd have made the same choice that I did to not have her spayed if she were his cat and that it wasn't my fault, but of course even though he said that the "What if's" keep popping into my head.
Then the very next morning Gracie went into heat and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I couldn't remember the last time Lizzie was in heat...why oh why didn't that dawn on me months ago...if it had, would it have made a difference?
Anyway, he told us that the only real option was to have her put to sleep so that's what we did.
They asked me if I wanted to leave the room, but I couldn't bring myself to leave her.
My Husband said he'd stay with her, but I had to be with her too.
They let me hold her and she just went peacefully to sleep...very peacefull for her, but not so easy on us.
I wanted the last thing she saw to be us, I didn't want my baby to die without the people that loved her and the people that she loved.
Just as a side note...if you find out a cat your thinking of taking in is the product of inbreeding PLEASE DO NOT let my story stop you because Gracie and Lizzie are the sweetest most loving cats I've ever had.
Just be aware that they may have health problems..some small problems and some big ones and just watch them like a hawk for ANYTHING that seems out of the ordinary no matter how small you might think it is.
Maybe if it had dawned on me in time that Lizzie hadn't gone into heat for a while we could have saved her.
Rest In Peace my sweet Angel, I'll love you forever.