Saying Goodbye To Two Dear Old Cats (continued)

While Amber struggled with chronic illness for 5 years, Tasha did so all her life. She had a congenital disease that causes cysts to gradually grow and multiply on the kidneys until they’re so impaired they stop functioning.

When she joined our TLC Retirement Cat Program in 2001 she was 10 years old and the disease was advanced enough that the cysts were already palpable -- and her blood work indicated she was in renal failure. We decided not to put Tasha up for adoption, but to treat the kidney disease --fearing even with aggressive treatment -- we would only have her for a few months.

The treatment meant giving Tasha SQ fluids frequently – and eventually daily -- to help her kidneys work and providing her with Winstrol to treat kidney-related anemia. Tasha was an excellent patient, easy to medicate, and soon reaped the benefits of her tolerance – her kidney values crept back into the normal range and stayed there for almost 8 years. The cysts were still there and growing, but she was managing the good portion of her kidneys better than anyone anticipated.

But Tasha’s kidneys were only part of her health problem. As they were brought under control, we also began treating her with Norvasc for hypertension – a common corollary to kidney disease – and Tapazole for her hyperthyroidism – a common illness in older cats. Her “old cat” teeth and gums needed work but we understood she was not well enough to tolerate anesthesia so began dosing her 5 days of every month with Clindamycin to prevent infection.

Despite all of these health issues, Tasha stayed an active and vibrant cat. And the only outward sign of her illness was that she was very thin – but this only enhanced her flame calico markings and extra long tail –making her look as if she stepped out of an ancient Japanese painting. For a brief period one summer we even let her have occasional outdoor privileges -- but quickly reversed this. A neighbor kept seeing her outdoors and thought she was a lost cat and almost took her to the animal control shelter. Fortunately she couldn’t catch her. The reason she thought Tasha was lost was her skinny body – she assumed Tasha was starving from lack of food!

So Tasha, the cat we began hospice care of in 2001, chugged along until a few months ago. We started noting she was going underneath a living room chair to sleep and knew that was a bad sign. We put a cat condo in our living room and set it up for Tasha with food, water, litter box and a cozy bed. She chose the condo over the underside of a chair and – although we knew she was not her old self – thought she was doing okay. Then in August she suddenly became blind – a relatively common outgrowth of hypertension in cats. Fortunately we caught it quickly enough that by increasing her Norvasc she did get some vision back. This was the first outward sign of her demise. About the same time her blood work started showing kidney values creeping toward renal failure. And -- even more worrisome -- we found large irregular growths on her spine and in her abdomen pointing to a feline cancer.

Like Amber, Tasha started removing herself from daily routines and stopped seeking our attention – preferring sleep in her condo to anything else. Her appetite started to decline and by Wednesday she wouldn’t even eat the chicken baby food that she previously devoured. We knew that her appetite was affected by the nausea often present in renal failure and decided to let Tasha go in peace. With food no longer an enjoyment little quality of life was left for this sweet cat. We said our goodbyes and let her go – knowing we had never met another cat quite like Tasha before – and are pretty sure we never will again. She was our miracle cat.

Saying Goodbye To Two Dear Old Cats

Losing one elderly cat to illness is difficult. Losing two in one day is even more so. Twice previously in the history of our TLC Retirement Program we’ve said goodbye to two cats within hours of each other and yesterday we sadly did so again. Amber and Tasha -- our last two current hospice cats -- died yesterday of very different illnesses but with a similar pattern of multi-system involvement.

19-year old Amber was chronically ill since February 2004. At that time she started bleeding rectally and was diagnosed through a biopsy sent to Colorado State University as having chronic inflammatory bowel disease with a bacterial overgrowth. This is a common older cat ailment and is treated with steroids to control the bleeding. By 2006 she was hyperthyroid – another common older cat disease -- and was treated with radioactive iodine – the treatment worked so well she went from being hyper- to hypo-thyroid and needed twice daily medication to raise her thyroid levels to the normal range. About that time she started to become slightly anemic and was treated on and off for that.

In 2007 Amber was having blood-laced soft stool issues that the steroids weren’t able to completely prevent and her coat began to look oily and flaky. Another blood test was done through Texas A&M’s veterinary lab. This pointed to an adrenal gland problem – perhaps Cushings -- possibly caused by the long-term steroid use. We tried cyclosporine but the problem didn’t go away so through more blood testing we determined that Amber had a GI tract malabsorption problem and was deficient in both cobalamine (B12) and folic acid. We started giving her weekly injections of the vitamins to make up for her inability to absorb them through her diet. Another test performed at the same time indicated she had chronic pancreatitis and leukerin (a cancer drug) was added to her medication list. Try as we did, we were never able to get her back to a totally healthy active life.

Last fall she contracted ringworm – a fungus that can live dormant on a cat for many years and then infect them when their immune system lets down – as hers certainly had. We began weekly lime sulfur dips to control the ringworm and prevent open lesions from forming. She tolerated the dips, but they always worried me because -- for the dip to work -- you can’t dry the cat off. I always tried to do the dips when the sun was shining brightly so she would air dry quicker. By January, Amber was having trouble walking – her hind legs wouldn’t cooperate. Blood work indicated she was now diabetic and needed to go on twice daily insulin. The walking problem could have been caused by high glucose levels. The insulin did more to perk her up than anything else and her walking did improve for awhile.

Finally by September she could no longer climb the stairs we provided her to get to the ottoman she loved to sit on. We set up a floor-level cat condo with a nice bed, food and water and she stayed in there most of the time – still taking a few daily walks to the kitchen for water. We started to question the overall quality of her life – she was becoming isolated from us in her condo because she was no longer comfortable sitting on her ottoman even if we put her on it and lifted her off. The final straw was yesterday. I went out briefly and when I returned I found her lying on the floor next to her condo in a puddle of urine – she had had a breakthrough seizure. As hard as it was to say goodbye to her, we knew the end was imminent with or without our intervention. We had done all we could do for her and now it was time to put her best interests in front of our hesitation to end a life – marginal as hers had become. She is gone now, and we miss her.