Coping With Pet Loss

At the end of July I picked up Rocco from the shelter and surprised my husband with him. When I adopted him I filled out paperwork and had to pick him up 3days later to get him fixed and micro-chipped.

When I took Rocco home I noticed they had given me the wrong kitten. Out of four brothers I had chosen a tabby which mostly gray and black. When I took Rocco home I noticed he had more brown in his face than he did gray. I pointed it out to my husband, but after only being with him for a couple of hours by husband loved him and he refused to take him back. We kept Rocco and loved him sooo sooo much. 2 days after we took him home he developed an Upper Resp. Infection and had to feed him with a syringe and give him antibiotics. He was quickly running up our vet bills, but it was well worth seeing him healthy. After being on antibiotics for a few days he was able to eat on his own and he soon started to play.

He got along great with our 2 year old cat named Chamis. They played and both explored our newly purchased house together. Chamis let Rocco eat first always and never complained. Rocco followed me around every where and stayed by my side when I was washing dishes, doing my makeup in the mornings or just reading. He gave me kisses when I asked him to. He slept between my husband and me at night and woke us up every morning at 2am for breakfast. He purred so loud and rubbed his cheeks against ours. He was so full of life.

On Saturday, October 6th we had family over to celebrate my moms birthday. I noticed he was hiding under the table and wasn’t himself. I picked him up and noticed he seemed a little down. I told my husband he looked a little sick and thought he was just overwhelmed by our number of guests. I put him in our room so he didn’t have to be around all the noise. When I went to check up on him about 20 minutes later I noticed he had just gone to the bathroom on my bed. This was out of the ordinary for him. He hid the rest of the night under my bed. I knew he was sick. On Sunday he wasn’t playing at all and he slept most of the day. He hid from us too. I took him to the vet Monday, but in the vets office he seemed back to himself. He was purring and being so loveable. The vet said he was fine.

I took him home and he was lethargic again, and continued to hide from us. Sometimes he crawled into bed with us and on some mornings he followed me, but it wasn’t the same. A week passed and I took him to the vet again, but his attitude changed again as soon as we go to the vet. The vet took a blood sample and called to let us know nothing was out of the ordinary. A week after that (on a Wednesday) I took him to a different vet because he wasn’t eating and seemed dehydrated. The vet said it was another URI and gave us stronger antibiotics. They gave him fluids through an I-V. I was sure this was going to make him all better. Following his vet visit we tried to feed him with a syringe, but he wasn’t eating. He wasn’t really drinking water either. By this time he was quarantined in our room and kept away from Chamis. His litter box was inches from where he slept because he had no energy to walk. On Friday Oct 26th he walked around a little more and wanted to get out of our room so we let him walk around. I followed him to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. My husband went downstairs and Rocco tried to follow and he tumbled down. I ran to get him, but it was too late. At the bottom of the stairs he started to have a seizure. I panicked and I couldn’t do anything but cry. My husband picked him up and I called the emergency vet. We took him over.

Here I was introduced to information about FIP. I was told it was possible he had it, but there was also a possibility it was something else. The vet said we should put him down because it seemed he had no remedy. We decided to run tests and see if there was anything we could do. The test results came back and he seemed pretty normal, but FIP still wasn’t ruled out. We decided to leave him there the rest of the night so he could get fluids and he was going to be tested for FIP come morning. I was very positive that it was something we would overcome. The next morning the vet called us saying Rocco had experienced 3 seizures that morning and he didn’t think we should continue testing. My husband and I went to say goodbye. I didn’t want him to be alone while he was injected, so I held his paw and rubbed his ears as he was being euthanized.

Putting him down was the hardest thing we have had to do. We only had him for 3 short months, 2 of which he was healthy. I don’t ask myself why I lost him, I ask myself what I was supposed learn by having him in my life for such a brief period. We miss him so much and it’s only been a week since we lost him. Chamis still looks for him and it breaks my heart. I am thankful for being able to love him and offer him a loving home while he was here. I am thankful we took him in and were able to provide the resources needed to monitor his health instead of another family who may have lacked the love, time or money. We can honestly say we did what we could for him and we have no regrets. He will always have a place in our heart