Saying goodbye

If you have cats, and you have any kind of a heart, please get them tested and vaccinated for Feline Leukemia.

Let me tell ya why.

A few weeks ago our yellow cat started looking droopy and stopped eating so we took her to the vet where we found out she had leukemia. They gave us some medicine, told us that if she didn't get better in a week to come back and sent us home. A week later we were back at the vet to say goodbye to our little Athena because she was not getting any better. We also brought her sister Artemis in to get tested and the test came back positive but she had not started to show any signs of being sick. The vet told us the disease was just like AIDS for cats, it's very contagious and there is no cure, she would always be sick but some days would be better than others. He gave us some different medicine and sent us home, again.

So she's slowly started to eat less, sleep more, and just get sicker. And then there was today.
The end of my day was spent cleaning my sick baby cat's fur because she has no control over her bowels. Cutting and combing out poopie fur that the flies have laid eggs in because she doesn't have the energy to get up and move or even to swat her tail, and not wanting my mother to see how sick she really is. Watching her just lay there when I stuck her under the faucet to try to get the matted hair washed out, and then doing it again after I get her dried off and she messes all over the floor because the supplement we've been giving her is the only thing in her belly.

It is interesting to me how I can freak out over a paper cut or something small like that but when you are fighting to save something you love the task in front of you is the most important thing in the world. There is no grossness in cleaning, there is no anger for getting things dirty, there is only the need to make it better any way you can.

Tomorrow we will say goodbye again, this time to Artemis. It's time. I would rather do it this way than to see her waste away, and this will be the best thing to do for her.

So again I say, please please please get your cats tested and vaccinated because you do not want to go through what I did, what she did.