Childhood cat loss
I just wanted to make a post honoring my baby and what a fighter she is. At 4 months old, someone abandoned this beautiful calico shorthair kitten at the lobby of my dad’s apartment building. Out of all buildings on that street, they chose my dad’s. At the time, my birthday was only a few weeks away and my brother and I had been begging for a cat or a dog. My dad instantly felt a connection with her and she became my birthday present.
Not only was she so beautiful, but she had such a unique personality. She loved playing with my Barbie’s and swinging them around by their hair, kicking doors open and if she couldn’t she would scratch at them endlessly until she got in, she wasn’t scared of any dog. My neighbors had two big white dogs and she would jump up to a really high window to face them. Whenever we pulled out the luggage’s, she knew that meant someone was leaving so she would sit in them and make sure we could put anything in them. Whenever someone left on vacation, she made it known she was depressed and stayed near that persons room until they came back. She was always the first person to greet us at the door. The second she heard the door knob twisting she would get out of bed and run to the door to say hello. She loved playing tricks on my parents in the morning. If my mom already fed her she’d go to my dad and meow pretending she didn’t get fed until she brought him downstairs and he would see she already got a fresh plate. She loved her Boar’s head deli meat (specifically smoked turkey) and her friskies always had to be shredded with gravy.
April of 2024, my poor baby began breathing really hard. We brought her to numerous specialists and vets to figure out what happened. We kept getting told it was either asthma or pulmonary fibrosis and we gave her fluticasone inhaler, albuterol for the really bad days, and steroids but nothing ever fully helped her breath back to normal. She still loved eating- in fact she was finishing her entire plate, using the bathroom, but it was clear her body wasn’t as strong as before. Two days before her death, which was May 13th 2026, she stopped eating, stayed in the basement by herself which she never did, and was open mouth breathing full time with brown mucus coming out of her nose. I brought her straight to the vet who suspected a bacterial infection and gave her a terbutaline injection to help her lungs and azithromycin suspension for the infection. My poor princess fought till her very last breath, but she couldn’t make it. She passed away under my brothers bed after attempting to get up but she kept collapsing, then seized, then she was gone. I feel so guilty I didn’t pull her out of under the bed an hour before her passing when I saw she wasn’t doing well. But I wanted to leave her bed in case it truly was a bad infection so she could rest and fight it off. My parents were talking to her and watching her as she was passing so she wasn’t completely alone but I wish I was there to pet her and comfort her. She was 15 years and 9 months. I love that angel to the moon and back. I’m heartbroken she passed in that way, but what’s comforting me is she passed in her own home… she fought so dang hard. I think we did everything we could even up until her last day… when I brought her home from the vet I kept her in the bathroom with two heaters on since she was hypothermic and gave her oxygen via an oxygen mask…