Dog Blog

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Note: This is a guest post from Apryl DeLancey, who writes the blog “Women Like Sports.”

About three years ago we were stopped at a very busy intersection in Los Angeles. It was dark out, but we had the sunroof open. There was this … screaming … coming from the corner. At first it sounded like an infant. I had to get out and see what it was. Walking over to the source, this adorable little orange kitty head pops out of a shrub and loudly meows at me. I pick the little cat up and it snuggles me right away. We brought it home and the old cat gave us a look of betrayal and disapproval immediately. That night, the tiny kitten slept on the side of my face (Yeah, not the most comfortable thing).

That’s how we got Inso. He was quite the handful and always demanded attention. Almost having a dog-like personality, he ran the house. Freako, the old cat, grew to basically dislike him since Inso bullied him a bit. At 14 pounds, Inso was able to have his way with the aging, nine-pound senior feline.

We have a fantastic vet that makes house calls and takes a keen interest in our animals. She respects that I have an advanced degree in the sciences with years of animal care experience and allows me to handle my animals for examinations rather than making me spring for a tech to come. She’s visited often in the last three years as our 16-year-old mutt was chronically ill before she passed and Freako is now 16 as well. Inso loved our vet and would jump on her when she arrived. By default, he was always weighed and examined when she came since she’s already there to care for Freako. We jokingly called her Inso’s girlfriend.

About a year ago, my husband thought he felt a lump in Inso’s belly. I felt around and thought I did also. The vet came shortly thereafter and couldn’t find anything. He was a bouncy, silly, noisy, rambunctious, loving, nutty, heartily eating cat. There was no reason to suspect otherwise. She advised us to let her know if we felt it again. We never did.

About six months ago, Inso had a bad cold. He acted like an infant child and wanted me to stay in bed all day so that he could just lie on me and feel sorry for himself. It was cute in that way. He recovered from the cold and was back to normal in a matter of days.

One Sunday, I couldn’t find him for quite a while. Finally, after calling his name and shaking treats, he came out. Looking a bit dazed, one of his pads on his hind feet was covered in blood. I looked at the foot and couldn’t see a cut or find the source. We cleaned it and treated the pad with antibacterial spray. He seemed groggy afterward and remained so the next day. He started hiding behind things and didn’t want to be touched. He still had an appetite so I wrote it off as he hurt his leg and was just feeling achy.

On the morning of Thursday, July 3, Inso no longer seemed just a little groggy. I could feel he had a fever and he looked very thin all of a sudden. I administered subcutaneous fluids that I have for the old cat … and he let me. When he had his cold I was only able to do this when he felt really awful and then was almost bitten when I tried it again. I suspected that he had some sort of infection – perhaps the blood had something to do with it. He had not vomited or had any other strange excrement at this point. I called the vet. She concurred that he likely had an infection and agreed with the fact that I gave him fluids.

By the time the vet got to the house, Inso had thrown up and was in a rapid decline. We had to rush him to an emergency facility. Our worst fears were realized when we discovered that his belly had golf-ball sized masses inside. Whether or not these were malignant was a nonissue – his blood pressure, blood sugar and temperature were dropping. There was nothing we could do. He was likely suffering from a very aggressive feline lymphoma.

Why have I shared this sad story with you? First, Lindsay was kind enough to let me since my personal blog deals with sports and is not the forum for animal information. I really needed to pay tribute to my “cat baby” as I called him and write about how much he meant to us (a lot). It’s been very painful for us to deal with and we basically moped and cried the entire holiday weekend. Even the old cat slept on my pillow with his face next to mine the first night. We don’t have children, so Inso was all that much more special for us.

Also, I want people to remember a few things. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do. You don’t always know when an animal is really sick. What would have happened if we caught it a year ago? Probably nothing different except that our healthy-looking cat would have had to undergo a lot of very painful procedures. This probably would have yielded the same end result. I had all of the possible resources: experience, a caring vet and an emergency clinic ran by my vet’s personal friend of 20 years, and we couldn’t save Inso (I’m finally to the point where I’ve almost stopped beating myself up mentally over this with the what-ifs.).

Hug your cats/dogs/others and appreciate the time they are here. We are “somewhat prepared” for the passing of our 16-year-old cat in that we know every day he is here is a gift. We were in no way prepared for our crazy 3-year-old to go. We assumed Inso would be here when Freako left.

Although it would not have helped Inso for certain, trust your instincts when you think something is going on with your animals. You are around them all the time. If you have questions, ask. If you disagree with a diagnosis, ask more questions. Again, this was not the case with Inso, but was with our old mutt that we lost. Had I listened to the vet, she would have been gone two years earlier than she was and we would have missed some awesome quality time.

Apryl DeLancey is a Los Angeles native and sports fanatic who maintains a blog called “Women Like Sports.” Just about every sport you can think of is covered, so stop by for a visit sometime! Oh – and please, to paraphrase Bob Barker, don’t forget to spay and neuter your companion animals! See Apryl’s last post on ThatMutt.com, Freako on a leash.

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Related posts:

1. Cat bites are serious
2. Speaking of cats

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Cat, Cats, death of a pet, sick pet, vet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.