Cat’s Stories (Part 11)

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Meow! ;)

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Story #32

• From: Patricia Cook
  
• Cat Breed: 
• Story: My daughter’s and myself moved to Illinois after marrying my husband. One day, coming home from work, I saw two kittens, about 10 Wks old. The little tortoise kitten had a huge grasshopper in her mouth and I took both of them home. The little female ended up breeding but she was so small that our vet told us she would only have one kitten. We three came out. One was a little black boy and we noticed that when his sisters played, he observed. My husband and his mother fell in love with him so we kept him. My husband wanted to name Mcgyver (because he said the cat was a real thinker) Well, he was this smoke grey color at first so I called him Smokey. Anyway his name was Smokey because the vet techs couldn’t spell Mygyver and he became Smokey. He was a different type of cat. He did a lot of observing and he was smart. We were all just hanging around and Smokey had found one of those pink foam curlers. Well he brought it over to us and laid it down. Smokey jumped up to where we were sitting so my husband threw the curler up in the air and smokey batted it like he was playing volleyball. After a couple throws he would get off the couch and bring the curler back in his mouth. We thought it was just a one time deal but he kept doing it, again and again. It became his favorite thing to do above any toys. If we wouldn’t play with him, he would make sure we knew he was put out because he pooped in our shower. I had to start closing the bathroom door. He did a lot of different weird things and had his holyer than thou attitude for anything. If he wanted attention, he wanted it on the spot. He actually pushed a jar of spaghetti sauce off the counter and it literally exploded on impact and there was tomato sauces on the ceiling and pretty much all over the kitchen. He was a big black cat and everyone who came to our house knew him because he had to inspect them when the came in. When we adopted our Sheltie, “Gadget” he would get so irritated because Gadget tried to herd him no matter where or what he was doing. It’s amazing because he was a big boy, over 14 pounds and when the dog did try to play with him, he would get up on like a bear and just slap poor gadget in the face 10 or 15 times. After he did that, Gadget who actually ran away from him chased him down to scare the poor dog again.When we moved to Georgia in 2002, he was 10 and we all were very attached to him, especially my husband. Smokey would lay on his back at night and laid on his chest while in the recliner. A few years after we moved, I noticeded that Smokey was sort of listless, and was drinking and peeing more. When I picked him up, I knew he had lost a lot of his weight. In fact he lost a third of his weight. My husband said he didn’t lose that much weight but at the vet after he was weighed my husband had to apologize to me for being wrong. I knew that he had all the classic symptoms of diabetes. It was very hard to find an insulin that was effective and I knew if we didn’t find something that worked he would die. The vet tried humulin N and that did the trick. Two shots of insulin a day, but he didn’t mind. He was his old self. After that, we noticed that he had a growth on his cheek. It was not huge, but it was noticeble. Our vet removed it but never got in analyzed. Well within two years later it had grown back and was huge. It was the size of a golf ball. Our vet recommended a vet surgeon. The surgeon biopsied it and we found it was a low level cancer that was very localized and even though smokey was almost 18 we felt and so did the vet that he was an extremely fit cat That looked like he was less that 10. It was expensive to be sure and when we picked him up after the surgery, he really looked like “Frankin Cat.” He was shaved and had no fir on his shoulders and head. He really amazed me because on the drive home (I forgot the kennel, he was all over me, up the back of my head, lap, on my shoulder in the back windshield, on the dash. He had always loved to go into the car. We had moved to Virginia but I transfered back to Atlanta 4 months later. He enjoyed looking at the scenery but he layed and sometimes stood on his back feet and put his other paws on the arm rest. Those legs and feet felt like to sticks jammed into my thighs. Anyway, he came through the surgery with flying colors. The doctor told me that Smokey’s skin was quite elastic and plentiful and there was more than enough to suture the skin flaps together. Smoke grew his fur back quickly and he looked perfect. Well 4 months later he started panting after he went up the stairs from the the basement. He was filled up with fluid and I knew something was terribly wrong. Our vet sent us to a vet practice that specialized in treating disease and disorders for dogs and cats. The first vet removed the fluid from his abdominal area and he quit panting but the next few days it came back. The fluid that they removed had been clear. When we went back they showed us the fluid they removed that day. It was yellow. I am an environmental microbiologist but from my training in science, I knew it was his liver. They had told us to confirm it they needed to do an ultra sound. It was so expensive but we have never, ever and will never, ever deny our two legged members and our four legged members. We would make payments, just like we were doing to the care credit people from the previous surgery. We didn’t care if we had to give up one of our activities or if we had to work 20 hours of overtime. It was the cancer. The same kind that was on his face. The Vet said we had maybe a week or two before he would die so it was important to use the pain. A week later he was past the point where his quality of life diminished. We put him down. I had to do the same with Gadget and I will always remember how it felt to see the life go out of them. You know, even though he could get into trouble, he did turn out to be quite the character. I still miss him and I always will.

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