@Chino
It would seem that you and me were caught in the same cyclone.
Wife and me adopted our cat a little over 12 years ago. He was about 16 weeks old, shelter cat, and he looked like a little black bear. It was obvious that he had a lot of Maine Coon cat in him, we're guessing 60-70%. Fast forward, at around 6 years of age, he was in for his annual checkup and shots and they noticed a heart murmur. We went ahead and spent the money (thinking it was around $800) to have an ultrasound performed. It was a very cool experience as we were with the cardiologist as she did the work so she was explaining everything we were seeing. The results were somewhat general, but highly informative. There wasn't a specific cause for the murmur, his heart looked fine, but could be caused by a couple of things. She mentioned two breeds specifically - Ragdolls and Maine Coons - that are susceptible to this. As they age, the muscles that suspend the heart can weaken and the heart can come in contact with the ribs causing the murmur. There is also a congenital heart disease in those breeds known as HCM. The cardiologist also alerted us that if/when the heart failure happens, there's not a lot of warning.
On Sunday afternoon, 1/30, he was sleeping on the floor and I noticed his breathing rapid. I alerted my wife, we kept an eye on him and other than the rapid breathing, everything seemed normal. Got up on Monday morning, he was sitting on the living room floor and as soon as he saw me, he made a bee-line for the lower level. I literally said "What'd I do to piss you off?!". Wife gets up 20-30 minutes later and he didn't come to greet her. Massive red flag, he was a momma's kitty. Wife comments that his bowls are full and he didn't eat anything overnight. I head off to find him, he's hiding under a table, rapid breathing, eyes wide. We call the vet's office, they can't get him in and told us just from the rapid breathing that he needs to go a pet ER and into an oxygen tent and they referred us to 2 hospitals, one of them can take him as soon as we can get him there. I scooped him up and into the carrier and off we go. He meowed 3 times before we left the house, not a peep from him once we were in the car. This is unheard of. The normal 10 minute drive to the vet feels like an eternity - good Lord, someone is torturing a cat in my back seat!! Not this day.
We arrive at the ER, they take him in immediately while we fill out the papers and then we wait. It has not sunk in with me how severe this is.
Then the news is delivered: congenital heart failure, there's fluid around his heart, and his heart is only completing half of the pumping cycle. I know exactly what this means, it's the same thing that killed one of my grandmothers. The cardiologist explained that it would be $1800 to perform a workup to see if surgery would be an option, notable were tests to determine the condition of his kidneys. IF surgery turned out to be an option, that would be another $1800 before any convalescence costs were added. Wife looks at me and says "the money doesn't matter". Then the bombshell:
IF surgery is an option and
IF he survived it and
IF everything is perfect afterwards, there's only a 5% chance of him surviving. He's basically suffocating, the only two options are to keep him comfortable, or to be humane about it. It really didn't require a lot of conversation - we'd been "warned" 6 years earlier and again, it killed my granny. There simply is no coming back from heart disease.
The folks at the pet ER were no different that at a human ER, that's something I wasn't expecting. Me and the Mrs. held him and loved on him while the vet did what she needed to do. This was the third time I've had to do this so I was maintaining my composure "during" as me and the vet chatted. She assured us that his condition had zero to do with how we cared for him and that this type of heart failure typically presents itself this way with cats. She assured me that she's very familiar with his condition and that this was the "right" decision. Given what we knew, we will never regret the decision we made. The consequences certainly suck, but we will never regret it.
That wasn't the worst part for me, it's when we got home. In less than 15 minutes, his toys were collected, cat "tree" was moved to the utility room, litter box gone, and food cleaned up. That just tore me and I still tear up writing this and thinking about it - it's like 12 years was erased in less than 15 minutes.
My wife has a nice little memorial for him in the living room - his ashes are in a nice wooden box, there's a clay paw print and prints of both front paws as well as a little bag of fur and she has some of our favorite pictures of him. At least we can talk about him without breaking down so we've started to discuss adopting a new little friend.
The second picture: As I said, he had a lot of Maine Coon in him, including a very soft, thick undercoat. His undercoat was gray and there were a few spots where it bordered on white. From the day we got him until that last time I saw him walking away from me, this cat's fanny ALWAYS made me smile. It's not really clear, but if you look at his back legs, it looks like he's wearing knee-high black socks, then it's nothing but fluff. Dead serious, I can't tell you how many times my wife would ask "What are you smiling about?" and my response was "Our cat's butt". I noticed it had the same effect on our visitors. For those of you that are fans of Big Elf, the song "Black Ball", when our cat walked away my wife and me would sing "And he gave me the FLUFF ASS"
Zorro
Topic: The cat appreciation thread (Read 52929 times)
