Periodically, I get emails from friends who are struggling with issues concerning their cat(s). If it is a behavior issue, I do my best to help out if I can. On health questions, the same applies. If I cannot help them, I try and direct them to others knowledgeable enough to help out. With my association with different cat related groups, I have a wide network base.
Sometimes, it works out and the cat gets better. In other instances, puzzling health symptoms and other problems cloud the path of recovery and the cat dies.
Anyone who rescues on a regular basis, learns early that death is a part of the equation. You receive kittens that don’t thrive, regardless of what you do to try and get them to. Cats presented with mysterious illnesses, fevers of unknown origin, bloody stool with no indication as to why, can simply fade from your life. It is the cost of rescue, to accept death and not fight it. That does not mean that you shut off that portion of your humanity that keeps you compassionate, but it does mean that with each passing, there are lessons learned and filed away and grief to plow through.
Last year, those sweet kittens found in an abandoned hayfield and brought here. Cute babies, days old, all manx crosses. Each one, grabbed the bottle of formula and hung on for dear life till the bottle was dry, but for everything they took in, nothing was coming out. No amount of stimulation worked, all tricks were tried. One visit to the vet brought the answer, the kittens were born without rectums. They had what looked to be a rectum, but they weren’t developmentally correct. As my vet injected them and stopped their heart, my own heart broke.
My heart broke again this morning when I learned that Nakita had been put to sleep. I had been hoping for a different one, a joyous one. Sometimes, no matter how much we want it- the final result is not one easy to accept. My heart is with Katherine and Rob tonight as they spend their first night without their emerald eye girl.