Remembering

Fanner

I'm still missing this sweet kitty.  We loved her probably more than any animal ever.  She was our special needs kitty with a condition called liver shunts.  Today would have been her 9th birthday.


She had the sweetest disposition, the softest fur, and who could not love that pink nose and those extra toes!  She loved to be held and would crawl under the blankets all the way to my feet when it was cold.  

Love, love, loved this kitty.

Well, Wow, It's Wednesday

So I've been absent for a few days, I'll just say the days were pretty rough through at least Sunday. They're getting better. It's been quite awhile since I've felt the gut-wrenching pain of loss, and maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe we just loved our kitty TOO much (is that possible?), but I'm sure a lot of it had to do with also having to see and hear my 13 year old baby go through his first real loss and it being his cat at that. We are better, but we still miss that little fur-ball something terrible.

It took me several days to get to the point of being able to clean up her litter area. I forgot to mention in Friday's post, that one of her troubles was bladder stones. We had them surgically removed Dec. 2009 & they re-formed by July '10 which caused the urinary problems. The ones removed in '09 were the size of my little finger nail, so not small and presumably painful. Needless to say, this problem along with the others made for quite a messy litter station because she'd step in whatever she did, it'd stick to her feet...you can guess the rest if you have animals. I was using those dog training pads but there were still areas where wet tracks were found. I also finally switched to a pellet type litter which helped...wish I'd thought of it a LOT sooner; kitty sand everywhere isn't fun.

I baked the clay paw print that the vet gave us on the day of her demise. The vet & staff are very compassionate.

We have also started looking for another kitten now to keep Raven company. We checked our local shelter yesterday, but alas, no kittens - only big cats and sorry, but I don't want to bring in an adult cat. Did you know that this isn't kitten season? March/April would be better. We even checked County-wide via their online site and not too many kittens. There were a couple posted and we'll drive up there today (about an hour away) after school, but there's no guarantee it'll still be there. Otherwise, we may be forced to hold off a couple months until babies are born/old enough to wean. I was also surprised at the cost of adopting from both the shelter and Petsmart. $90 and $120 respectively. But then, I guess that includes their first rounds of shots, etc. The shelter also microchips as a matter of course. I think looking is helping Nick as well. I told him he also needs to talk about Fanner to help work through his grief. So we have been able to do that at times...without blubbering!

Raven is quite the personable cat. She's grown a lot since the end of Nov. She has confidence in her running, jumping, leaping, pouncing and does them all too well, lol. She likes to jump onto my chair and then onto my shoulder where she'll drape herself or chew on my hair and try to re-pierce my ear. She's quite rambunctious and clearly looking like she may have Oriental Shorthair genetics. She's very affectionate too and purrs a lot. I need to try to capture on video, her fetching ability. I'll throw the pompom down the stairs while I sit at the top and she'll chase after it, pick it up, bring it back, set it down and lay down until I pick it up and throw it again...no, she really isn't a dog, but she does behave a bit like one including following me around constantly, except when she's getting her cat-naps.

Fina-Lee Friday: All About Fanner

Not so long ago, a good day.
Many years ago.
Being held by Marty.
Sleeping soundly.

This is NOT a Friday I was finally glad to see. We, no, scratch that, I finally made the decision that not one of us wanted to make to have Fanner put to rest. I detest having to make such decisions. I would lay in bed at night and ask the Lord to take her so that I wouldn't have to make that decision. And the hard part was, she would seem 'OK' quite a bit, but I've watched her for months, years even, and knew she wasn't. She'd growl, huff when you'd pick her up, clearly painful. Her breathing was changing as was her litter using abilities. It was time, but it's still very painful.

She was so special. She was 'Nick's' kitty (even though he didn't take care of her), one he was supposed to grow up with for many more years. She was oh-so-soft, like rabbit fur, and a good lap kitty. But she had a lot of medical problems and the first time we almost lost her (and had the decision of her living or not) was when she was only 6 mos or so old. It took years to find out what was really wrong. At first we discovered she was allergic to fish. If you're a cat owner that feeds canned food, check the labels, fish-less food is not that easy to find. In Friskies, there's maybe 3 flavors that don't have fish in them. Fish in dry food didn't seem to bother her, maybe they use a different part of the fish.

But then she started having seizures too. And we almost lost her again when her first vet decided to give all of her necessary shots at one time, after that...no more vaccines for anything. We were referred to a new vet. She determined, even without the other uber-expensive testings recommended by ER vet when she was ~6 mos., that she had a condition known as liver shunts. More common in dogs than cats, but she was 'lucky' - hah! Actually, she was lucky: to have us to love and care for her for 7 3/4 yrs, and a vet who knew what to look for & how to treat her and keep her comfortable and who would work with us.

One time she escaped the house and a neighbor came over and asked if we knew anyone in the neighborhood who'd lost a cat with big feet (Fanner was polydactyl). She had opened her door & Fanner rushed in, likely thinking it was her own house as she'd never been out before. We didn't realize Fanner has scooted out our door when we answered it for a door-to-door salesperson after dark. Another time she escaped the back yard. I should mention here, that with her special needs, she also didn't have hind-quarter muscular strength and could barely jump up onto the bed let alone scale any 6' walls, and she had become 'blind' with maybe only being able to distinguish light and dark. This one time, a gate was slightly ajar and she got out. She was gone nearly 48 hours and Nick & I were especially fearful and heartbroken, we put flyers on light standards and people's doorsteps, took them to local vets in case she'd been hit by a car, and checked the pound, and we prayed for her return. Then one afternoon the phone rang, and the guy asked if we'd lost a cat saying he found one in his backyard by the pool just before he let his pit bull out (scary) - he had seen the flyer with our phone #. Turned out, he lived across the street, one house down. We knew each other minimally as neighbors here do, and incidentally, he's the one we acquired our new kitten Raven from at the end of November!

Fanner would sleep with either Nick or I. One time when she was with me I woke in the middle of the night and was scared witless. It seemed she wasn't breathing, she was limp like a dishcloth and for what seemed like an eternity, I nearly pounded on her to get her to wake up. She finally did, much to my relief, I truly thought she'd died then. This became a frequent event, and I learned not to panic. She just slept so soundly, that she was nearly comatose. We'd eventually laugh at how limp she'd be, but I'd always fear we'd accidentally break her neck or something. The one photo above is one of those times.

Fanner ~ we miss you! You will always be remembered.

New Addition

We have a new addition to our family. She looks to be between 6 - 8 weeks old. A neighbor brought her over last night and said he'd found her about a week ago when she ran across a road in front of him. She's very sweet. I, personally, don't think she has the prettiest eyes - to me they look crossed (Lord, may she NOT be part Siamese!), but she has the cutest little muzzle and facial markings. Nick wants to name her Raven. I called her Pipsqueak. She may learn to be just "Kitty". Whether she remains or not still isn't definite...she needs a healthcheck at the vets. I noticed she has a lump (maybe swollen glands?) under her left ear/chin area. Fanner is not happy, she hisses - even at us now. And that's where it's a hard thing...I wasn't ready to adopt a new kitty yet, not with knowing we'll likely be putting her down soon. She (Fanner) was in and out of the litter box today and seeming to strain with no result. And the poor thing can't tell us that she's in pain or not. I did give her one of the six pain doses we have, but I couldn't tell any difference even hours later other than she did finally go to sleep. But then she had a seizure so she's pacing all over the house and hissing even more, and she ate over half a can of food - that's normal post-seizure and she'll stay hissy and agitated for at least 8 hours. Sometimes I think we should have taken care of this nasty decision months ago ... before Nick's birthday, before the holidays. It'll be very hard to not have this cat with us anymore. We have loved her probably more than any other cat we, or I, have ever had. And one, Aja, I had for 16 yrs before she was attacked by a pack of rogue dogs and had to be euthanized. Aja was special to me too, she was probably only 4 - 5 wks old when I got her...on the way to the pound...and could barely drink milk from a bowl on her own.