this was a weird one. please say a little prayer or ring a bell or chant the Shingyo or whatever you do when a being departs... Willow, my half-tailed tortoise-shell cat,cat was only 3 or 4 years old,and we had her almost a year. she was healthy and happy, except for being allergic to many kinds of food,manifested as chronic loose bowels, her only symptom. she had good weight and a beautiful coat.I had her and my other cat on a fancy low-allergen dry cat food that you can only get through the vet. switched to the venison formula just a day or two ago, because they were out of the rabbit one at the vet's and the duck one didn't work as to preventing the runny stuff.
so Lia had fallen asleep on my bed and I was reading. Willow and my other cat, Muffin,were sitting on the bed with me.she;d been running around getting into usual cat trouble, like chasing the other cat and knocking things over and spilling Lia's juice. around 11:40 or so,I heard a strange sort of squeaky, baking noise, twice. I looked up and Willow was lying next to the litter box,kind of limp.I thought she was still breathing but wasn't sure. I called the vet (there's one she's seen about a mile or so away with 24 hour emergency service) and bundled her into the car (unfortunately I was parked a few blocks away) pretty sure she was gone by the time I got there...walked in doors at the vet around midnight, and no heartbeat.
the vet on call was busy with other animals,but the tech took a look in Willow's mouth and said it looked like my hypothesis, an anaphylactoid allergic reaction that closed off her breathing, made sense...her throat was blocked so you couldn't see the trachea. I talked with this young vet tech for a bit and held my cat to say goodbye, and left her off to be cremated.
I don't know what else she could have gotten into...no toxic plants in the house, nothing different than the stuff she's usually around...I'll see if the veterinary doctor has time to have an opinion on it but it looks like the allergies just went nuts so fast she didn't know what hit her. maybe an epinephrine shot would have saved her but I don't usually keep epi-pens around. and i had no idea anything like this was about to happen, and i suspect neither did she.
whew...wheel of karma takes some interesting turns. my grandma used to say she wasn't coming back as a person, she was going to come back as my cat because they had it good...don't think this was the one if such a thing is really literally true, but who knows?
so Lia had fallen asleep on my bed and I was reading. Willow and my other cat, Muffin,were sitting on the bed with me.she;d been running around getting into usual cat trouble, like chasing the other cat and knocking things over and spilling Lia's juice. around 11:40 or so,I heard a strange sort of squeaky, baking noise, twice. I looked up and Willow was lying next to the litter box,kind of limp.I thought she was still breathing but wasn't sure. I called the vet (there's one she's seen about a mile or so away with 24 hour emergency service) and bundled her into the car (unfortunately I was parked a few blocks away) pretty sure she was gone by the time I got there...walked in doors at the vet around midnight, and no heartbeat.
the vet on call was busy with other animals,but the tech took a look in Willow's mouth and said it looked like my hypothesis, an anaphylactoid allergic reaction that closed off her breathing, made sense...her throat was blocked so you couldn't see the trachea. I talked with this young vet tech for a bit and held my cat to say goodbye, and left her off to be cremated.
I don't know what else she could have gotten into...no toxic plants in the house, nothing different than the stuff she's usually around...I'll see if the veterinary doctor has time to have an opinion on it but it looks like the allergies just went nuts so fast she didn't know what hit her. maybe an epinephrine shot would have saved her but I don't usually keep epi-pens around. and i had no idea anything like this was about to happen, and i suspect neither did she.
whew...wheel of karma takes some interesting turns. my grandma used to say she wasn't coming back as a person, she was going to come back as my cat because they had it good...don't think this was the one if such a thing is really literally true, but who knows?
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SF Bay Area
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 4:01 AMbenydril slows it down the swelling enough in humans sometimes . That is so sad =peaceful blessings and thoughts go out to you and your dear passing kitty.
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 11:25 AMmaybe it was the juice?
I'm so sorry, no one expects to lose so young a pet. -
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 1:13 PMSo sad and sorry for you, we lost a horse this way a couple years back and she pretty much went within a matter of minutes ;-(
Again, sorry for your loss, it sucks. -
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 4:16 PMthanks to all of you for your kindness and support.
I think the hardest thing for me when i have to deal with an animal's illness or death is the people who just don't understand why anyone would care that much about a dog or cat or bird or whatever pet. the idea of stewardship and the kinship of people and the animals they care for is not always clear to those who haven;t experienced it. so,the main value to the support groups, for me anyway, is talking with other people who know exactly why someone would care enough to go driving out at midnight to try to save their cat...
there' a man who is still a good friend to me,and we were dating for three years, but he's never understood why someone would get involved with an animal the way I do. I think he kind of admires it, and he has always been kind to my pets and even wound up liking them,but it;s a foreign concept to him, and to many.
I posted a little piece ipetlos.com last night after posting ehre, saying goodbye to Willow.I don't feel i have heavy grief issues...some years back, I worked with a book called Start the Conversation that's a different kind of spiritual guide to death and dying, that kind of gets yo past grief, recognizing sadness at ou loss, but als recognizing the continuity of life...the author is Ganga Stone, a yoga student for many years, and her basic premise is that when someone we love dies,it is as if they are "moving out of their apartment" and going where we can;t see them,but they are still with us.
again,thanks. I feel as though Willow had an appointment elsewhere that she had to keep,and I'm grateful she could check out with so little pain and fear if she had to go. I gave her the best home and care that I could for the year she lived with us. I'm also glad that if she had to just stop breathing like this, she waited until my 13 year old daughter returned from Costa Rica. I;d have had regrets (though again, it would not have been within my control) if Lia had come home from a week of running rivers and hiking in the rainforest to find that Willow had disappeared into the night while Lia was gone... -
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Wed, May 14, 2008 - 12:42 AMI am sorry also.
That really sucks.
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Wed, May 14, 2008 - 6:29 AMYou know, each and every time when I lose one a part me me leaves right with them. My animals are my babies and mean the world to me. -
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 10:56 AMI'm sorry you lost your girl -- and for the fear and worry and emergency. It might have been the venison food, some new ingredient she hadn't had before--or yes, the juice, maybe some got on her fur and she licked it.
My cats are part of me too, and definitely my family--some more than others, of course, but the longer I have them the deeper it gets, and as far as I'm concerned, we are two unique beings brought together in the universe and loving each other, each one of them. You can never replace one, you can only fill their spot with another completely unique one. As they persist in dying off once they hit their teens, I'm getting better at dealing with it but I really have never stopped missing any of them and they'll just sort of appear in my mind, years later, and I'll feel again the mutual love we had, and it makes me kind of happy. -
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Re: just lost mycat,kind of freaky thing...
Fri, May 16, 2008 - 6:09 AMthank you for all your kind thoughts.I'm doing okay (although right at the moment, my one remaining cat, Muffin, has taken himself for a neighborhood walk for longer than I'd prefer and I wish he'd com in for breakfast before I need to leave for work!)
I had a good talk with the last vet who saw Willow before she died. we are leaning toward the anaphylaxis hypothesis. (though she said every once in a while cats,even younger cats, sometimes have fatal strokes...I don't think that;s what happened though) it might have been an arthropod bite or sting.
true allergy takes at least one prior exposure to stimulate the immune system. and ongoing food irritation can create a "leaky gut"which allows those antigens to get into the bloodstream and further sensitize a susceptible person, or animal. since she was up to use the litter box when she stopped breathing and died, the most plausible explanation is that she kicked up some dust with undigested allergenic food particles or something in it, inhaled it and BOOM! this is weird. I'm going to shower and see if that other danged cat is around lovable little peskers!
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