- Joined
- Feb 18, 2019
- Messages
- 47
- Purraise
- 134
I made a post some of you may have read about how I am the director of a cat rescue volunteering 80-120 hours a week. I can take the hard work and long hours. But the one thing that has stayed with me is the loss over the last few years. Loss in inevitable and only accounts for a small percentage while the biggest number of the cats we rehome end up doing very well.
Recently we lost one of my favorites who was already 10 years old and had a femoral head removal because it was in 100 pieces. He was found in -10 degree temperature and his name was Frost. He was terribly beat up. His recovery was 2 months then afterwards he lived very comfortably and was spoiled beyond imagination with bird watching, canned food, and so on. He died 6 months later from late term diagnosed kidney failure. I tried every diet imaginable - the only thing he would eat after hours and hours and hours of trying? Purina. It is all he ever knew. The weird thing is he came into our life on the first it started snowing in 2019 (Feb/March) and died the first day it started snowing again (just recently). He lived to see it snow and not be part of how bitterly cold it can feel to be caught up in that. It is almost like he came into our lives to teach us something about how life values its quality and not its length. But I am still sad and honestly it revisits me everyday how if I caught the kidney failure earlier that we could have introduced fluids. But I know that is not logical.
Any thoughts are welcome...how do you deal with this kind of loss in rescue? Been at it 13 years. No loss as hard as this one. Still looking for ways to cope.