Sunday, May 07, 2006
Goodbye Sammy
About two or three months ago, my mom found a growth on Sammy's right side. It didn't seem to be bothering her at all, so we left it go for a while. Sammy acted normal for a very long time.
Mark had been noticing little single spot stains on the carpet all over the house, but he didn't know what they were from. Sammy had been eating and drinking more and going to the bathroom more.
Yesterday everything came together. Mom, Mark and I all came home from various places at once and walked in to see Sammy standing over her food and water dish, with her back legs crossed. She was trembling. Her tail was shaking and swishing around. She would stand like that for a few minutes, then let out a single drop of urine. Then, whenever she tried to sit down, she would sit with her legs in the air. It looked like she could barely stand.
We took her to the emergency animal hospital in Waukesha. Several technicians (all very nice) examined her before the vet came in. He checked her out too and said that it could be anything from diabetes to a urinary infection to the lump being cancer spreading through her. He also discovered she had a heart murmur. He said we could do X-Rays and try different treatments, but we had tried that with Midnight when he was much younger and dying and it just prolonged his suffering. Besides, Sammy would not react well to that sort of thing as almost everything stressed her out. We decided it was best for her to just put her down, and the vet gave us a very evil look. I didn't like him AT ALL and I don't like that we had to go to him, but our usual vet was closed by this time on Saturdays. Seriously, what he was talking about would probably kill the cat anyway. We would probably had to have tried giving the cat injections, and that wouldn't ever go well.
So we had her put down. When the final tech came to get her and put in her IV, Sammy didn't even fight it. She almost seemed like she was ready to die. And honestly, I think if we had let her go another week, she probably would have anyway. She went far more peacefully than Midnight did - he had freaked out and lashed around and his eyes grew huge and his tongue dropped out the side of his mouth. With Sammy, mom held her as she just relaxed and went to sleep. Then she was gone.
Mark and I buried her in the back yard, behind the shed, next to her brother. She had turned 15 the previous day.
Archives
October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 December 2006 March 2007 June 2007
