Lotta has been throwing up, and peeing on the floor. Although she has been more responsive in other ways, we took her to the vet, and she is gone now. Pepper Mill has been crying over her.
I’m sorry, but glad you had the extra time to say goodbye.
My condolences. 
Cal, I’m sorry I’m seeing this so late, but there is hope!
My first cat was diagnosed at 17 and given two weeks to two months to live. She lived five. Years. She died at 22 from an ocular tumor.
The first thing you have to do is get her on 1/4 PepcidAC two times a day. That will make her tummy feel better so she’ll eat! The liver starts taking over some of the dying kidneys’ jobs, but it creates more bile in the stomach. That’s why she’s hungry and seems to want to eat, but can’t bring herself to.
Second, get a tube of either Nutri-Cal or Nutri-stat, whichever is cheaper. They’re exactly the same, but one used to be “for veterinary use only” and was therefore more expensive. It’s a high-calorie vitamin supplement. Give her a little squirt of that twice a day.
Let me know if you want to do any other interventions, like Sub-q fluids, but I do recommend them (you can do it at home) and I can tell you more about it if you’d like.
Best wishes.
So sorry to hear you’ve lost a beloved member of your family. The take a little piece of your heart with them when they go.
I’m sorry to hear that she’s gone, they leave a big hole behind when they leave us.
RIP sweet Lotta. I think the last few rallies are done for us, the humans.
She wasn’t in her accustomed perch, atop the old sewing machine, last night, and I saw that Pepper Mill had thrown out the towel we used to have up there for her to lie on. She didn’t merely put it in the wash, which she could’ve done. I found it in the trash when I put it out this morning. Too many memories, I guess.
Lotta wasn’t there waiting for me to put out the cat food this morning, either. Hermes showed up when I put out the dishes – I only put out two this morning, not three. He showed up whenever food was being put out, hoping to piggyback on Lotta’s asking for treats. he was good to her at those times, although at other times he’d harass her*. Now we won’t have to yell at him about that any more.
I feel an odd sort of relief, though, now that it’s over. Pepper Mill does, too, but she looked tired and worn last night. I’ll have to get her flowers.
*Hermes, like all our cats, has been neutered, but it doesn’t seem to have completely “taken” in his case. Every now and then he’ll try to mount the other cats, although he doesn’t seem to understand exactly why.
I’m so, so sorry for your pain and sadness, Cal.
Oh shoot, I had some hope there. So sorry for your loss, I’ll give my pets extra scritches in Lotta’s memory. It hurts to lose a beloved friend.
We’ve been away for a long-needed vacation, so I haven’t been posting, except for an occasional one when I got to a computer. I hadn’t intended to revive this, but the story has a follow-up.
We got back and found a UPS notice taped to our front door when we drove up at the end of our vacation. No one had been home to sign for the package, of course, and it was too late (and a weekend), so we couldn’t check immediately. We didn’t recognize the scrawled company name on the form, and no one remembered ordering anything that hadn’t come in.
I called UPS on Monday, and found that the package was from a place that did Pet Funerals (and cremations). Great, I thought, some vultures sent us a package of options for a funeral for Lotta. How did they find out? Had to be through the vet’s office. But they’d never passed our name along to the Pet Sematary before this, when Maggie or Clarence had died.
When I got home, I told Pepper Mill what I’d learned – but she already knew. They’d delivered the package.
It wasn’t a bundle of suggestions for a Pet Funeral. It was Lotta’s ashes.
When I heard that bit about “…and crematorium” I thought this was a possibility, but had pushed it aside. You have to ask for and pay for cremation, right?
It turns out that Pepper had told them at the vet’s office to take care of things as they had before. Someone didn’t pay attention, or didn’t look up how we’d done it before. So we had another little relic. It affected Pepper very strongly.
Well, will you bury the ashes, or keep them?
When the next pet dies for me I’m considering cremation. I’ve buried four pets already in the back yard and it’s getting a little crowded back there. Cremains would be easier to inter.
I hope your vacation eased your souls a little.
I’m so sorry.
One of the most searing things I’ve ever read was a one-line howl of grief on a dog board:
“My beautiful dog is a bag of ash!”
So sorry to hear about Lotta. Thank you for giving her such a great life–I’m sure she was grateful every day of her life that your family rescued her.
I have two urns of kitty cremains. One was delivered with a teeny zip-lock bag containing a clipping of my Zeke’s beautiful tabby fur. The other had a sympathy card signed by every staff member of the vet’s office.
Rest in peace, Lotta.