Good-bye Kit Kat

Our kitty died yesterday. The house seems empty knowing he's not curled up on the bed like he normally is this time of day. Molly is napping, Ryan is at work, and I am melancholy. We've had Kit Kat since August 2003. He was a stray that I convinced Ryan to allow us to keep. He was very spunky and a little bit naughty. To get attention, he liked to go outside of Molly's bedroom as she slept and meow as loudly as possible! He acted a lot like a dog, following us around the house, and greeting visitors at the door. He was quite athletic, sprinting around the house and begging to be chased. Even on Friday night, he was acting like himself, wanting to play with some kids that were over and running around. If you want to read what happened to him read on, but it is pretty sad!

We had no indication that there was anything wrong with him until Saturday morning. The morning started out fairly normally, but a short while after waking, he came into Molly's room where we were all playing and curled up on the pillow. Ryan and I immediately noticed that he looked sickly. His third eye lid was showing, and he seemed lethargic. I guess it was mostly intuition that told us that something was very wrong. Ryan took him right away to a vet. They wanted to keep him all day, run tests, and give him an IV because he was dehydrated. The tests all came back inconclusive. They sent us home with some high calorie food and an antibiotic just because they had nothing else to try.

When he returned home he seemed almost normal. He walked around checking the place out and meowing. He hungrily ate the new food. He gradually got worse throughout the evening. His breathing became very shallow and quick. Around midnight he had no balance and didn't seem to see very well. We just tried to keep him laying down. We felt like he could pass away at any time, and we wished for that because he seemed so incapacitated. I finally convinced Ryan to try to sleep for a short time. We thought maybe he would peacefully pass away if we were sleeping. Ryan awoke a short time later noticing that Kit Kat had climbed over him and fallen to the floor. We knew that we couldn't go back to sleep and leave him unattended. We decided to take him to an emergency vet and have him put to sleep.

We woke up Molly after deliberating whether to wake her or a friend to come watch her. After the vet did a quick exam, she surmised that he had some kind of brain problem- an infection, tumor or stroke- because only one of his pupils was dilating. We decided to leave him there for a few hours and let them give him some injections of antibiotics to rule out the possibility of an infection.

When she called back in the morning, Kit Kat had stopped moving at all and was not maintaining his temperature. Ryan returned to the vet to say good-bye and have him euthanized.

We all then went to my parents' to bury him. It was a breezy, sunny Sunday morning. We dug a grave for him next to the barn. A short while after mounding the dirt over him we noticed a couple small birds dancing around on his grave and flying around the area. He would have loved to watch and chase those birdies.

I am missing him very much today. I miss him whenever Molly brushes her teeth because we would let him drink from the faucet. I'll miss it when the afternoon is warm, and he won't run to sit in the window after I open it. I missed him sleeping against my legs last night and sitting on Ryan's legs as we watched TV last night. We are thankful for our good kitty and his adventurous life.