Cashmere, interrupted

As I'd mentioned when I took her in, Cashmere was very malnourished and frail. She spent most of her time curled up in her little bed. She wobbled when she stood up. She didn't eat much -- only a few bites of kibble at a time, and more than a dab of wet food made her throw up. She was clearly very ill, but I hoped that it was just from being so undernourished, and that she'd gain strength after enough rest and food.

Despite her physical condition, she was amazingly sweet and friendly. She would have been the perfect house cat.

When I took her to the vet Wednesday morning, they tested her for feline leukemia, and it came back positive. That was the least of her worries, though. The vet said that as thin and bony as she was, and as swollen as her belly was, she probably had something much worse, and untreatable, called feline infectious peritonitis. She wasn't pregnant as I'd feared -- her belly was filled with fluid. The FIP was the reason why she wasn't able to eat much or keep her food down when she did eat.

There was no choice but to euthanize her. The FIP would have killed her within days or weeks, and it would have been an agonizing death.

The only good news was that, since I'd kept her crated and the other cats had no access to her food, water, litter, or bed, they weren't in danger of catching the feline leukemia from her, and while the underlying coronavirus that caused the FIP is contagious, the FIP itself is not. The coronavirus generally isn't dangerous -- the vet compared it to the common cold -- it's just that in some unlucky cats, the virus mutates into a lethal disease.

I've had to have pets euthanized before, and it's the most agonizing decision a pet owner has to make. Even though I'd had Cashmere for only a few days, it really wasn't much easier to let them put her down than it has been when I've lost pets I've had for years. I cried just as much for Cashmere as I did for my dog, Alex, who I'd had for more than fourteen years when she had to be euthanized three years ago due to cancer.

I don't regret taking her in, though. I'm glad she had a few days of being safe and sound inside, in her own bed, and that she didn't end up dying a slow and painful death outdoors. May she rest in peace.