Hi everyone,
As the title implies, I’m really struggling with the loss of my foster hospice cat. I picked Roxy up from someone’s driveway in May 2024 after she’d been dumped there without even a carrier. At her first vet visit, they discovered she had a grade 4/5 heart murmur and after a cardio consult, she was diagnosed with mitral valve dysplasia. She was thought to be 10-12 years old at the time and in poor condition so I wasn’t sure how long she’d even make it. Nevertheless, we figured out her med dosages and she responded well to them so it was time to post her for adoption. She’d been with me ~6 months by this time and the rescue asked if I’d like to take her in as a fospice case instead so we know she’s getting properly vetted and cared for. I agreed. She had many vet visits and annual cardio work-ups in the almost 2 years she was with me and everything was stable (although she’d developed kidney disease later on). I genuinely thought she was going to live forever. This past Friday (April 24), I’d noticed she had thrown up a couple times when I got home from work and seemed to be trying to poop. I cleaned up the messes and thought nothing of it because she had belly issues and would throw up from straining while pooping if she was constipated. Saturday she slept most of the day but, again, thought nothing of it because she was an elderly girl with heart issues who slept probably 22 hours a day anyways. It wasn’t until 8 pm Saturday when I realized she was extremely lethargic and didn’t want to move much (my naïve self still thought she was having stomach issues). We took her to the ER immediately to get her checked out just in case and they admitted her around 12 am. We got a call at 2:30 am saying they did bloodwork and discovered she had high WBCs, hypoglycemia, and her kidney values had doubled in just a couple of weeks. She’d been fighting a multi-drug resistant UTI for the past month or so at this point and we were actually waiting for her antibiotics to be compounded. Unfortunately, it appeared the infection spread into her blood and she had sepsis at this point. There was literally nothing we could do since the antibiotic wasn’t ready yet. We knew she was suffering at this point and put her to sleep. She went peacefully in her favorite person’s arms (me) while we told her we loved her and that she was the best girl. This is not what I thought would take her away from me and it’s still hard to believe she’s gone. I feel like I’ll never get over this and I’m angry at the world because it continues to spin while mine is completely upside down.