Peaches
So, the past month has been kind of rough, so I haven't done much sewing. I have tried, but when I go in my sewing room, I just lose the urge to sew and I leave. Or, I work on a project and accidentally sew the arm holes closed and get frustrated and stop. It hasn't been pretty. The main reason was our cat, Peaches. At the start of June, she was looking rough. And when I say rough, I mean we called her vet and scheduled a date for her to be put down. That was a very hard decision for my husband and I to make, because we loved her so very much. We don't have kids, so she was our child. We spoiled her and nursed her back to health every time she got sick. Unfortunately that became more frequent as she approached 20 years old, but we didn't mind at all. She was our child.
The date was supposed to be June 9th. I was dreading it all week the week before. But when I came home from work the Friday before, the husband looked so upset. He was just holding her. He said she had had a bad day. We weren't sure if she'd make it to her appointment on Monday. So we spent all day Saturday with her and she was doing decently. She ate and drank and walked around a little, but was very wobbly. We put the futon down in the living room and watched the Aristocats with her and we all slept on the futon together. It was our first and last 'sleepover' together. She slept on my chest most of the night, but she would wiggle around a little and I would flip her over. After a while she wasn't moving around as much, so I woke up the husband and told him. I handed her to him and she wasn't doing anything. She would occasionally kick her feet a little, so we thought she wanted to get down, but she would just crumple when we tried to set her down. We took off for the nearest emergency pet clinic immediately. I could not stop crying, so the husband drove. While en route, he spotted a closer one, so we pulled in. They were completely wonderful and took care of Peaches for us. We didn't want her to have to wait another day like she was. We were devastated. We had prepared for the vet to come to the house so Peachy would be comfortable, but she just couldn't make it.
She was 20 years and almost 2 months old. The way we see it, we gave her a wonderful retirement home to spend her last 5 years. My husband calls us The Allen Retirement Home For Old Cats, or TARHFOC, and he's not kidding. We waited 3 weeks, but the silence in the house was getting to us. We finally went and adopted a cat. Peachy was my husband's aunt's cat, so with her we knew her complete medical history and everything about her personality. But with adopting, we were going in blind. A shelter 1 county over is having free adoptions this summer, so we researched what kinds of cats they had and their ages and whatnot. We had a list, so we went in prepared to choose between 5 cats, but all bets were off once we stepped inside. Every single one of them was awake and sticking their paws out the cage doors. Crap. This was going to be tough...
One of the cats had this wicked scar on his neck, so my husband asked what had happened to him. The lady told us he had a benign tumor that was removed and she proceeded to open his cage door. Omg, was he a lover cat! He was super rubbing on everything and every one. He was a little 12 year old boy, and we kind of wanted an older male cat. We took him out on their screened in porch and he did not like it one bit. He was not a fan of the great outdoors, which is fine with us. But there was one cat there that I wanted very badly based on her description online. Peachy used to flop over and want a belly rub, so I told the husband that if I ever found another cat that did that, I'd want it. So we finally found her... Miss Cleo. My husband got the lady to open her door and we took her outside. Holy crap she loved it out there! Then it happened... the floppy. She flopped over like a breaching whale. Did I mention that she is in the 15-20 pound range?? I'm not kidding when I say she breached like a whale. My husband knew she was the one, so he got her travel cage while I said goodbye to the little boy kitty that we had played with, Titus. I wanted 2 cats, but the husband only wanted one. I kept telling him the benefits of 2 cats but he wouldn't budge.
A couple of days later he changed his mind. He kept thinking about the sweet boy and how he felt bad for leaving him. I kept telling him that I also felt bad because we took him out and played with him. I can't imagine what he must have thought when we left. She wasn't better than him, just different. We went back and got Titus. Unfortunately, Miss Cleo has not stopped sneezing since we got her home. My husband's aunt works at a vet and said it looked like she might have Feline Upper Respiratory Infection, which is a very strange thing. It is a kind of form of herpes, whereas once they have it, it can lay dormant and flare up. The trip home might have brought it on, because stress can trigger an attack. But it seems like its mainly a cold that just comes back sometimes. Just to be on the safe side, we have Titus quarantined in my sewing room until she gets over it. We feel bad because we were trying to rescue them and now it seems like we have unknowingly exposed him to this infection madness. But honestly if its just a recurring cold, I'm starting to feel less bad. Plus, he could be back at the pound and who knows if anyone would adopt him with that scar. We'll just keep the house stress free, which it has always been, and they should be good. We're stress free people on the whole, so naturally our cats should be, too.
We still miss Peachy so very badly, and sometimes the new cats remind us of her, even though they are nothing like her. But we feel that rescuing a couple of cats in her memory is a good thing. If we could take them all home, we would. There were soooo many. But at least they are 2 cats less and we have 2 sweet kitties to take care of. We sure will miss Peachy, though.
The date was supposed to be June 9th. I was dreading it all week the week before. But when I came home from work the Friday before, the husband looked so upset. He was just holding her. He said she had had a bad day. We weren't sure if she'd make it to her appointment on Monday. So we spent all day Saturday with her and she was doing decently. She ate and drank and walked around a little, but was very wobbly. We put the futon down in the living room and watched the Aristocats with her and we all slept on the futon together. It was our first and last 'sleepover' together. She slept on my chest most of the night, but she would wiggle around a little and I would flip her over. After a while she wasn't moving around as much, so I woke up the husband and told him. I handed her to him and she wasn't doing anything. She would occasionally kick her feet a little, so we thought she wanted to get down, but she would just crumple when we tried to set her down. We took off for the nearest emergency pet clinic immediately. I could not stop crying, so the husband drove. While en route, he spotted a closer one, so we pulled in. They were completely wonderful and took care of Peaches for us. We didn't want her to have to wait another day like she was. We were devastated. We had prepared for the vet to come to the house so Peachy would be comfortable, but she just couldn't make it.
She was 20 years and almost 2 months old. The way we see it, we gave her a wonderful retirement home to spend her last 5 years. My husband calls us The Allen Retirement Home For Old Cats, or TARHFOC, and he's not kidding. We waited 3 weeks, but the silence in the house was getting to us. We finally went and adopted a cat. Peachy was my husband's aunt's cat, so with her we knew her complete medical history and everything about her personality. But with adopting, we were going in blind. A shelter 1 county over is having free adoptions this summer, so we researched what kinds of cats they had and their ages and whatnot. We had a list, so we went in prepared to choose between 5 cats, but all bets were off once we stepped inside. Every single one of them was awake and sticking their paws out the cage doors. Crap. This was going to be tough...
One of the cats had this wicked scar on his neck, so my husband asked what had happened to him. The lady told us he had a benign tumor that was removed and she proceeded to open his cage door. Omg, was he a lover cat! He was super rubbing on everything and every one. He was a little 12 year old boy, and we kind of wanted an older male cat. We took him out on their screened in porch and he did not like it one bit. He was not a fan of the great outdoors, which is fine with us. But there was one cat there that I wanted very badly based on her description online. Peachy used to flop over and want a belly rub, so I told the husband that if I ever found another cat that did that, I'd want it. So we finally found her... Miss Cleo. My husband got the lady to open her door and we took her outside. Holy crap she loved it out there! Then it happened... the floppy. She flopped over like a breaching whale. Did I mention that she is in the 15-20 pound range?? I'm not kidding when I say she breached like a whale. My husband knew she was the one, so he got her travel cage while I said goodbye to the little boy kitty that we had played with, Titus. I wanted 2 cats, but the husband only wanted one. I kept telling him the benefits of 2 cats but he wouldn't budge.
A couple of days later he changed his mind. He kept thinking about the sweet boy and how he felt bad for leaving him. I kept telling him that I also felt bad because we took him out and played with him. I can't imagine what he must have thought when we left. She wasn't better than him, just different. We went back and got Titus. Unfortunately, Miss Cleo has not stopped sneezing since we got her home. My husband's aunt works at a vet and said it looked like she might have Feline Upper Respiratory Infection, which is a very strange thing. It is a kind of form of herpes, whereas once they have it, it can lay dormant and flare up. The trip home might have brought it on, because stress can trigger an attack. But it seems like its mainly a cold that just comes back sometimes. Just to be on the safe side, we have Titus quarantined in my sewing room until she gets over it. We feel bad because we were trying to rescue them and now it seems like we have unknowingly exposed him to this infection madness. But honestly if its just a recurring cold, I'm starting to feel less bad. Plus, he could be back at the pound and who knows if anyone would adopt him with that scar. We'll just keep the house stress free, which it has always been, and they should be good. We're stress free people on the whole, so naturally our cats should be, too.
We still miss Peachy so very badly, and sometimes the new cats remind us of her, even though they are nothing like her. But we feel that rescuing a couple of cats in her memory is a good thing. If we could take them all home, we would. There were soooo many. But at least they are 2 cats less and we have 2 sweet kitties to take care of. We sure will miss Peachy, though.
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