New cat

I am a glutton for punishment I guess. Saturday I went ahead and adopted a cat from the shelter. Her name is Tallie and she is 10 years old. She had diarrhea and flaky skin so I knew she was a little under the weather, but most cats at the shelter are not at their best one way or the other. I took her in for a check-up on Monday and it looks like she is a little worse off that anticipated. Her blood test shows a white cell count of 16,400 and normal is 8,500. So, this is a sign of an acute infection. She is also a bit anemic (26% red cells vs. 29%-48% normal). We started her on some antibiotics to help with the diarrhea on Monday, with a plan to switch to another antibiotic to address the infection after this course was done. I noticed she really isn't eating at all, so I called the vet this morning. If she still doesn't eat by tomorrow morning, we will probably switch antibiotics to attempt to get her appetite back.

Sassy

I'm not sure I realized how much of my life she was. Last night was tough. I could not fall asleep in my bed and ended up dozing on the couch with the TV on, catching bits and pieces of movies as I drifted in and out of consciousness. I don't have to check where she is before I leave or find her after I get home. I feel so lonely now. Now I remember how I felt just before I got her. Just so lonely to the point of tears. I remember it was even hard to keep from breaking down at the animal shelter as I was completing the process, due to how I was feeling in general. She was in bad shape. She hadn't been grooming, and seemed quite weak. I have proof of that now since back then when I held her for the first time, she did not meow or struggle at all. She was just lethargic and seemed to be barely hanging on. I was looking for a tortoise shell cat. They had a few and I don't think she was my first choice. She was older than the others, and definitely not as animated. But then she reached out her paw through the cage at me, and won me over. She had a bronchial infection and was a little underweight. I don't recall how long it took her to get better, but she did, and put on weight, and became a really happy and healthy cat.

She was a stray, yet she had been front declawed and spayed already so she had been someone's pet. Sassy was the name they gave her at the shelter, probably because she talked so much. (She never used her voice to get me out of bed though, polite that way!) She had been at the shelter for three weeks at least so one would think her owners would have checked by then. She was a fearless and adventurous cat, so I wouldn't be surprised if she got away from her owners and explored too far away to get back. Ha.. now that I said fearless I remember I have proof--she has chased a cat or two out of the backyard before. Pretty gutsy for a cat with no front claws.

She was really the only living thing I had daily contact with in my life, and I hers. There were many shitty days driving home that I thought to myself that well at least she would be waiting for me at the door and then she would tell me about her day. Then she would climb up the cat tree to get away from me, and then end up coming down to ask to go outside.

She was part of my life for almost two years, and I am hoping she enjoyed living with me as much as I did with her.

The death of my cat

I guess this might help. My cat died in front of me this morning, and I am feeling like it is my fault. Is there something I could have done differently to save her? Did I cause her death because of how I let her live?

Since I will never know what exactly killed her, I will never know the answers for sure. I can go through what happened and what I was thinking at the time. Maybe through this I can try to convince myself that I am just a stupid person and not a bad person.

I woke up to the alarm this morning and my cat was curled up at the end of the bed, which is normal. She has been perfectly healthy. It takes me awhile to find the motivation to get up, so I toss and turn a bit and during this she usually decides to get up before me. I glanced at her a few times as I was waking up and she remained curled up, which is a bit unusual. Eventually she stood up but immediately crouched and vomited some food. This isn't so alarming as she does this occasionally. The vomiting got me to finally get out of bed and get some paper towels to clean up the vomit. When I returned she was done, but still crouching. I cleaned up the vomit and pet her a few times. She was uncomfortable with this and jumped off the bed and crouched by the door. I don't recall if I noticed her trouble breathing at this point, but since she was still crouching I figured she might need to throw up again or was needed some time to recover.

I took a shower, and when I got out she was still crouching. At this point I definitely noticed she was breathing fast, shallow breaths through her mouth. While getting dressed I called my vet to see if it would make sense to take her there or to an emergency clinic. The lady gave me the location and phone # of the Round Rock clinic. At some point, my cat started laying on its side. She was breathing the same way, but looking at her stomach it looked like she was having convulsions as well.

We were almost ready to go and I was debating whether to put her in a carrier or just throw her in the front seat. I didn't want to disturb her so much so I decided on the latter. I couldn't tell if she was breathing regularly anymore, but every so often she would get a big breath out so I figured she was, I guess. I noticed what looked like a stretching motion and took that as a sign that maybe she was starting to feel better. Around this time I crouched down in front of her and she was able to cry to me a few times like she was in pain or calling for help. I left her for a minute to find my keys, wallet, etc. When I returned it took me a minute or two to realize that she was really not breathing. I don't know how long it took me to think to try mouth-to-mouth. I tried that for a few minutes but there was no response.

My guess is that she suffocated. So what am I beating myself up over? Maybe I could have got her to the emergency clinic sooner if I had realized the seriousness sooner. If I knew where one was, I wouldn't have had to make a phone call and waste time there. If I didn't take a shower, I wouldn't have wasted time there. Shouldn't I have thought to open her mouth and see if I could see anything stuck in her throat if she was having trouble breathing/choking?

Maybe by the time she died or shortly after I realized something else that might have something to do with it. I've been letting her out into the backyard, which has six foot high wood fences that she cannot get over. I was just thinking last night as I watched her run around how happy she is when she's out there. Last night she sped inside with a determined trot that I've only seen a few times before. She only does that when she's caught a gecko and wants to play with it inside. She brought it in and dropped it off in the messy bedroom closet. I followed her to watch, but she had dropped and lost it already. I didn't spend a lot of time looking for it and figured I or she would find it eventually, dead or alive. So I went to bed later that night with it loose somewhere. I probably had forgotten about it by then.

I think I heard my cat playing around in the middle of the night, so perhaps it was running around and she found it again. If it was small enough, I wonder if she could have swallowed it last night and then choked while trying to regurgitate it this morning? Or if it could have done some damage to her insides as she tried to eat it?

I won't blame myself for letting her outside. She enjoyed that so much and it made me so happy watching her have fun. But I should have realized that the lizard would be a choking hazard, and made a better effort to find it once she brought it inside. And I should have realized what was going on sooner this morning which could have saved her life.

If I find the lizard in the bedroom I guess I will feel a little better. I mean, I guess she could have choked on food or ate something else bad. But I would still feel that I could have handled things better this morning.