June | 2012 | A Mixed Bag

My wonderful cat who I hated when he first came into the house. My ex-wife and mother had conspired to bring him into the house without my knowledge. We had had two cats go missing already, and I didn’t want to suffer the heartache of another one going missing. I didn’t speak to my ex-wife for three days, and didn’t want to know Rem for about six months. Eventually though, he grew on me, so when he had his accident where he was hit by a car, I was devastated. It was shortly after the procedure that crippled me, so I couldn’t move, and he was down the bottom of the garden with blood pouring from his face. He spent a few days in the vets and came out on Christmas Eve.

Over the years, his jaw kept popping out and he would come to me to massage it back into place for him. Over the last year though, a lump grew on his back. Kept an eye on it, and it didn’t seem to bother him. Towards the end of last year, he was chewing at the lump, so I took him to the vets. It was some sort of an allergy, so he was given tablets and a steroid injection. He did improve, then he started chewing at his fur, ripping it off, so I put a lamp-shade collar on him to attempt him to stop him. He stopped eating while it was on him, so after a few days I took it off him and decided to just stop him from ripping.

I did manage to stop him for a while, then his health just plummeted. He was constantly ripping his fur by either chewing or scratching. I put the collar on him, and he was still eating, but then just started guzzling water. He would sprint into the kitchen and drink a who;e bowl of water in one. I noticed as well that he was losing weight badly. He was no longer the thug that he was before, and he was occasionally incontinent. So I took him back to the vets last week. She advised me to go to either the RSPCA or a cat sanctuary near where I live as they were cheaper. She told me that Rembrandt needed blood tests and possibly a lot of treatment. By going to one of the others, she said, if the treatment didn’t work, then there would be less money thrown away. Although if he didn’t have treatment, he would not last the year.

I brought him home, and decided not to say anything to my kids as it was my daughter’s birthday, and I didn’t want to spoil it for her. When I got through to the RSPCA, I got an appointment to bring him in today. From then until today, he deteriorated even more. So much so, that he stopped eating, and became completely incontinent. Today, he had a green mucus pouring from his nose and then his nose started bleeding this morning.

When I took him today, the vet said that he could give him something, but it would only extend his life to about next week. It was decided that the best thing for him, was to make him at peace. It was an extremely hard decision, and very painful to make. He had either kidney failure, or Feline Immunodeficiency Virus or cat AIDS. I will take my other cats to the vets to get them checked out, but here are some photos of my beautiful cat.

R.I.P Rembrandt, you will be greatly missed.