"Her kidneys are failing and you need to put her to sleep." she said.
"Her kidneys are failing from what? I started to panic.
“Her age maybe? She is almost eleven years old and in cat years that’s….”
I cut her off, “In cat years? She was perfectly fine a week ago!”
I was devastated and torn with having to make such a final decision. Instead, I chose to take her home for the night and get another opinion the next day because I didn’t believe she was that sick. It happened so fast.
Kiki didn’t hide like I have seen other animals do when they were sick. She wanted me to hold her, so I did, and spent the night on the bathroom floor with her. She wasn’t hungry and wouldn’t take any food, but she was terribly thirsty. I held a small bowl of water to her mouth because she was so weak and couldn’t hold her head up. She lapped up almost all of the water and then wiggled out of my lap and threw up every drop she had just taken in. She looked up at me and then slowly wandered back to the blanket I had put down for her. I noticed that her hind legs were wobbling and she could barely walk.
By morning Kiki was worse and her hind legs were almost paralyzed. I called the Veterinarian and took her in. I spent my last moments with her hugging her and telling her that I was sorry I had to make such a retched decision and hoped that she understood, then I handed her over to the doctor.
I didn’t realize it at the time that only a few months earlier I lost my other cat, Felix, to the same symptoms. The only difference was that the Veterinarian recommended exploratory surgery because he kept throwing up and wouldn’t eat, and, he was terribly thirsty. A week later, during the second suggested operation, the Veterinarian called me and said there was nothing further that could be done and said it would be best to not bring him out of the anesthesia.
Unfortunately, there’s more. Less than a month after Kiki died, our dog, Oscar, came down with the same symptoms and had to be put to sleep.
Three pets, all the same age, had to be put to sleep because of the same symptoms and diagnosed with unknown causes.
Both cats were fed the special diet cat food that was recalled after their passing. Sadly, my dear Oscar had a bad habit of eating the cat’s food when no one was looking.
I didn’t realize that I was feeding my pets poisoned food until months after their deaths.
I'm so sorry.
I miss you guys so much.
