My love
first room
Katie never lost her beauty... shown here in 2003 at 15 years of age, and below when she was only about three.
She never left my side her entire life... she was my best bud..
She was always within reach... laying on the file cabinets beside my work table, or cramming herself into a little cubby on my computer hutch....
sometimes she would be very uncomfortable just to be close...
but she got by... somehow.
Staying away from me in my work room was one of the first symptoms, since she was ALWAYS by my side… I had brought an orange scented deodorizer into my room and she started acting sick the very next day. Unfortunately I didn't put two and two together. I didn't know that when a cat stretched their neck forward like this, it was a classic sign of an exposure to some toxic chemical, she was trying to open up her airways.
I took her to my vet and he couldn’t diagnose her. Her lungs sounded good, her eyes were bright and the only obvious problem was she seemed to be breathing hard. The vet listened to her heart and it sounded "strong”. When they whisked her away from my arms to take her blood to test I was taken aback... I had told them that I wanted to hold her for the entire examination and they had agreed to that. They brought her back with a muzzle on her face and a towel wrapped around her to restrain her... laid her in front of me on the exam table where she collapsed and laid flat on her side trying to recover, breathing in faint little puffs of air… her side rising and falling was the only sign of life. I watched terrified, wondering if her side would suddenly stop moving...not understanding why she would not respond to my voice and why her eyes were just staring forward, as if she had been unplugged from the world. Not having any understanding of medical things, I didn't know what caused this… but even with my limited knowledge I thought it looked as though she had a heart attack. After what seemed to be an eternity but was actually probably around 10 minutes she finally came out of it somewhat ... the vet never came back to check on her. As I left I felt betrayed. When I had taken her in she had seemed not so sick... when i left she seemed like a cat that was on the verge of dying. I took her home and waited for the test results feeling as if i had just stepped off into a bad dream.
As the weekend passed, she seemed to get progressively worse. Her gums were pale and had a blue hue to them, it was as if she wasn't getting enough air. I didn't know what to do. I was terrified to take her to an emergency room figuring they would HAVE to take blood again and put her through a battery of tests, KNOWING what the last blood test did to her … but feeling alone, inept and helpless, I called late that Saturday night... I was right in my assumption. They got short with me when I told them that she had just had a bunch of blood taken at the vet’s the day before and it about killed her and that I just wanted them to do a physical exam and as non-invasive as possible while I held her. I felt she needed oxygen... just to give her some relief. Instead of showing any sort of compassion they treated me as though I was a cheap-skate moron who was just wanting to get out of paying their fees ... They were quick to tell me they would not even look at her without doing the blood test again, which would be $70, and asked me how I would be paying. They didn’t understand that I knew in my gut that she wouldn't survive another episode like what I had observed at the vet's office the day before... and they didn't care.
It happened to be an excruciatingly long holiday weekend so we had to wait from Friday until the following Tuesday to get the results. She was getting weaker and weaker each of the passing days... walking just a few feet before she would need to lay down to rest, only eating tiny bits of the canned a/d food off my finger, not going to the bathroom unless I carried her, and then very little.
When Tuesday finally came I waited by the phone full of anxiety, wanting it to ring…. Not wanting it to ring. I felt as tho I was standing on the edge of a huge abyss, waiting to know the direction life would shoot us into next. The call didn't come the way I expected, instead I called them... they hadn't even bothered to read the test results yet... validating in my heart even more that no one cared except me. An hour later I tried again and he had looked at the results... which left me even more confused. The blood tests showed nothing. Everything was in the normal range, no alarms bells or whistles, the tests showed a healthy cat.
She was obviously in a great amount of respiratory distress as her side would heave up and down even in sleep. Since I got no answers from the vet, I started to search the internet for answers, thinking it was her heart, which seemed the most probable diagnosis since it wouldn't have necessarily shown up on the blood tests. I tried to be optimistic and would play little mind games to give myself a reprieve from the pain and fear I was going through ... pretending it would all go away as quickly as it had ascended upon her little 7 pound body.
Of course the vet was reluctant to treat her without a diagnosis, but after i begged him to do something he did prescribe some antibiotics and a heart medicine that he said wouldn't hurt her if it wasn't the problem. He suggested I take her to Purdue University to do $900 ultrasound on her heart. That amount of money is an outrage but I would have spent it in a New York minute if I thought it would help her recover… I called Purdue. They would not let me hold her through the examination, they would have to use sedation, take another large quantity of blood from her neck, shave her chest and do the ultrasound… The obvious predicament was, once again, I didn’t think she would survive the diagnosis... this was even worse than what the vet had put her though... I knew from past experience that she did not tolerate some chemicals like flea products and certain medications well.... adding sedation to the mix was yet another especially frightening aspect of this. I didn't know what to do, so I continued the heart pills and antibiotics hoping that by some miracle it would change things ...
Four days passed before there was another crisis. I had given her an antibiotic and it got caught in her throat, causing her to gag as she struggled to get it out... within seconds she laid flat on her side breathing hard, as I helplessly watched and tried to comfort her, this sinking feeling overwhelmed me… I have seen death before and she looked like she could be taking her last breaths. I watched this enigmatic monster in action once again.... and felt it was going to take her and it was only a matter of time…I didn't know what to do and I had nobody to take my hand and lead me though this. Taking her for a diagnosis seemed like taking a 97 year old grandmother with a bad heart on a roller coaster ride… and not doing anything was to watch her slowly spiral down into death.
Frantic for answers, I called the vet once again. He simply did not know what to do with this healthy cat that was dying before my eyes... groping, we decided to try giving her fluids since she was no longer drinking and I was afraid her kidneys would shut down. I had given fluids before beause I had a cat who died of renal failure. This plan also proved unfruitful, but it helped me to feel like I was doing something ...
Katie was so weak now that she could barely walk. She stayed under the coffee table in the family room and behind the couch where nobody could reach her... nothing was working and after two weeks, the vet told me to make her comfortable and let her die. I set up camp on the family room rug with her and suffered along side her... wishing there was some way that I could transfuse my own life force into her. I watched as she went from not being able to walk more than a few feet to watching her try to get up and fall down. Soon she was not eating anymore… I carried her to the cat box but she had stopped going. As I watched her life ebbing away I knew her body was starting to shut down.
I was in agony as I sat down and prayed that Sunday night ... i opened the phone book begging God to help me find that somebody out there who might be able to figure this out. I called the first vet I found and they got her in immediately... early the next morning. After he examined her and looked at the blood tests, with all the confidence in the world he stated it was a reaction to a toxic chemical. It was as if someone had lightly touched me on the shoulder and I awoke from a nightmare. I felt jubilant. He gave her a quick injection and instead of talking about death, talked about “WHEN” she would get better. I was beyond happy... it was as if God had given her life back...and gave me hope of something normal and happy again. For three days in a row the new vet gave her those miracle shots and I was amazed at how she began to recover. On Monday when I took her in she had been so weak she could hardly move, laying on her side pawing at the floor in front of her … by Wednesday she had started traveling from one part of the house to another again… she had meowed a few times, and she was eating bits of chicken off a plate instead blended a/d off my fingers. This new vet was like a miracle to me... without any tests at all he diagnosed her and was bringing her back to life from near death…He taught me about what foods to feed her, natural remedies for flea control, we talked about what garbage the cat food companies were putting in food, the over use of vacinations... I felt I had found someone who really understood my cats for the first time and I told him her life was in his hands... now I know the sad bitter irony of those words.
You see, this vet didn’t pay attention to what I was telling him about how fragile she was. The first day I had taken her in to him I had to keep telling him to lower his voice, to treat her with kid gloves…and he hadn’t listened … I was afraid to push it...not wanting to offend him since he was making her well and I was afraid to go somewhere else, this was the man with the answers.
After the three days of treatment she was doing so much better that he had given me a list of foods to feed her and told me to call him if she stopped improving. I had bought three hepa filters and two ionizers to clean the air and made a humidifier tent out of blankets over an end table for her. We went three days without any ‘treatments’ before I could see she was starting to digress a little bit, her appetite had started to wane and she had another small episode when I had put honey on her lips (one of his little tricks to get her blood sugar to rise and fall and increase her appetite) It had not seemed as intense and I saw it as a good sign that her over all health had improved so much that the episodes were getting less concerning… I made an appointment for Saturday morning to get her another miracle treatment. I talked to her on the drive down and she watched me with a calmness and squinted in cat signs her love for me. At the vet’s office she laid with her little legs folded in front and waited on her shot. This strange ritual had almost become part of the routine of her life and she seemed to have settled into it, knowing I was there to protect her. As he gave her the shot, i fumbled for a crumpled sticky note with questions to ask the vet written on it … the last one I had scribbled there was ‘teeth’. Oh how I regret that one. Katie’s teeth were not in great shape and now that she was eating bits of chicken, she was having trouble chewing. I mentioned this to the vet and he said he had something that would help her… an antibiotic that you put directly on her gums. He swiped it across her gums and she immediately started gagging. I got a sick feeling in my gut as I watched, knowing what putting a little pill in her mouth had done… knowing there was nothing I could do but watch this thing happen… this thing I had been avoiding and avoiding… The vet was oblivious, I kept telling him that she was in trouble and he ignored me and ignored her, he told me she was ‘fine’ with his back to us both and swooshed her up to weigh her as she was struggling with her last breaths… I knew she was in bad shape but somehow I did not want to believe it, so I didn’t scream at him, didn’t yell... I just watched as he laid her on the table and my little Katie died of the heart attack I was so afraid of all these many weeks. My mind was reeling as it replayed over and over like a sick movie that I could not shut off....the vet treated it as if it was a cold curiosity. His assistant put her body in the carrier for me and I was led out the back way so as not to parade my dead cargo through the waiting room in front of the other patrons... not good advertisement.... My little Katie was just too weak and this pushed her over the edge ... her little heart gave out …as my world shook i was surrounded by strangers and the one i wanted to turn to left me…
September 13, 2003.
I have done a lot of research since losing my sweet Katie… Society has surrounded itself with all sorts of toxic chemicals to make life easier... like an artist’s airbrush these chemicals whisk away the flaws and leave shiny surfaces and fresh scents.... the gullible believe that the companies who make these products have our best interest at heart.... don’t know about the hidden poisons that permeate our food water and air and saturate our wonderfully created bodies in ways we do not, can not totally understand... Why should we be surprised as we eat our pesticide soaked fruit and our hormone laced meat that we should feed our pets the garbage that we find too disgusting? And then spray their air and beds and litter trays with things to deodorize, neutralize, and de-bug ... at the expense of their health…. We do it to ourselves too.
We live in a world that desires clean sweet smells and shiny surfaces no matter what the costs. I learned of the atrocities, but too late. Katie was the little canary in the coalmine…I am telling her story because she cannot, because I know there are others out there like her, who cannot tolerate the toxins at the levels that we are accosted by every day. Please pay attention and do your own research… don’t let this happen to you, don’t let it happen to those who depend on you to protect them.
LINKS
Hazardous Chemicals List
SAFER Chemicals List
Facts about Declawing
Blood Transfusions in Cats
Polluted Pet Food Article
Poisonous House Plants
Flea Products Can Kill more than Fleas!
Annual Vacinations Necessary?
My Web site, lisas-pieces.com Realistic Cat Figurines
Click Here to go to my Ebay auctions
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