The blood work came back and said that Max had an untreatable cat virus: Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). It also said that his white blood cell count was high and that he would soon be in liver failure. All this in our 7-month-old cat! The vet made it sound like Max had only a very short time left to live, as he was already a very sick cat. He had lost 1.2 pounds, and he only weighed 5.1 before that! That's a lot of percentage body weight, especially for a kitten.
Anyways, after a hopeful weekend, it became obvious yesterday evening that he wasn't going to make it. He was still having fevers off and on, his breathing had become shallow and labored, and his eyes were dull and full of pain. So Rob and I decided to take him in today and put him to sleep. We didn't think it would be so hard, but man, it was! We both bawled like babies. Miciah was cute and said her goodbyes to Max. She loved on him for a little bit (which he's been avoiding; it seemed painful often for him to be touched) before we left. I don't think Elijah has realized Max is gone, but I don't think he'd understand anyway. We told Miciah, though, that Max would go to heaven and she said she's excited for Max to be our cat again. She's cute.
It's sad to see our cat go. He was a gorgeous cat. Anyways, from what I've read about FIP, it stays stable in the environment for about 6 weeks, but is easily killed with common household cleaners. It's also very rare to get the virus from the environment, actually, from what I read. So that makes me feel a little better that we probably won't kill off the next cat we get, when it comes time for that. I thought we might be ready for another cat pretty soon, but after taking Max in and letting him go, I think it'll be a little longer. That was rough.
The Toledo Trip
Other than that, life is good. We had a good time in Toledo visiting with Rob's parents. They had a great time spoiling the kids. They turned just about the whole weekend into a happy birthday Tamra weekend, which was unneccessary but fun.
The Kids
The kids seem healthy and Miciah has been generally a pleasure to work with. Which is a nice change. Being out of preschool has been fun for both of us, though I'm sure soon I'll be ready for her to go back (like the end of this week, probably). Elijah is a joy and has started rough housing with Miciah. It was funny: Last night Rob was playing with the kids and it got Elijah wanting to wrestle with Miciah. So he grabbed her tight. She said, "We're dancing like a prince and princess." And Elijah was loving it cause he was taking her down about every 5 seconds. And Rob just said, "He's not dancing, he's tackling her!" That's the difference between boys and girls, I guess. It surprised me that he could take her down without too much effort. And it dawned on me for the first time that Elijah could now actually hurt Miciah if he chose to. I assumed he was too little before. Apparently not any more. And soon, he'll be able to take her down in much less time. Which, I'm sure, will thrill him and annoy her. Oh well. Miciah will get used to playing with boys with 2 little brothers. And Elijah still likes playing with kitchen stuff and all that, so apparently she'll get a good mix.
T minus 6 weeks. Not that I'm counting.
Love,
Tamra, Rob, and family
No comments:
Post a Comment