[Felvtalk] Stinky Lancelot is gone

[Marsha]

Kat, my heart goes out to you and your family in your loss of little 
Lancelot.

Marsha

On 12/28/2014 4:16 PM, Kat Parker wrote:
> *Once upon a time, almost 4 years ago, I was fostering for a group, 
> which incidentally had major problems later, called Guardian Angels.  
> I was also indie fostering myself, for cats from Downey high kill 
> shelter in LA.  I had recently pulled a mama with 3 babies that had 
> raging URI, newborn kittens with pneumonia, and sadly lost two, though 
> through the magic of the nebulizer, one kitten, Kiwi, and Mama Goldie 
> were saved.  Mama was despondent for her babies gone, and Guardian 
> Angels brought me two babies, different litters.  One, Angelina Jolie, 
> was one day old.  The other, who we named Mimi, was one week old.  The 
> woman who brought them to me said I should put them with Goldie to see 
> if she would accept them  I did.  Now, I am a very experienced bottle 
> feeder, and I could have bottle fed them both, and I did 
> supplementally bottle feed them, but Goldie was so happy, and cared 
> for the babies all so well, and it was quite a sight those three all 
> nursing.  I will NEVER AGAIN place untested babies on an unrelated 
> nursing mom, again. Never. As you can guess, one of the babies was 
> FeLV+, unbeknownst to us.  About a month later, I took a cat who was 
> about 8 weeks old from Downey, who came with the name, Precious (we 
> called her Isis, or just "the buzzsaw"),and that same week, GA brought 
> me the saddest bunch of siblings I had ever seem, pulled by our San 
> Diego firefighters out of a well, during a rainstorm.  From what I 
> understand, somebody, apparently, had been walking in the rain, and 
> heard some little frantic "mews" from somewhere nearby.  
> Investigating, they found a covered well, with water rising to the 
> top,and kittens inside. The fire dept responded and freed the kittens, 
> turning them over to GA, and then to me.  These babies had muck 
> everywhere, and fleas on parts of their bodies you couldn't even see, 
> just overrun.  I have pictures its amazing.  But, these were some of 
> the friendliest  most endearing kittens I've ever had here, and it 
> wasn't long before the two black sisters were adopted out, through GA. 
> Then, the little Mimi kitten got really sick and tested positive for 
> FeLV, finally euthanized at 8 weeks old.  I tested all of the cats, 
> then, and none who came into contact with her were positive.  I didn't 
> know much about the disease then.  Boy, I do now.  Well the orange 
> boy, Stinky Lancelot, and Angelina Jolie as well as Isis were going to 
> Rescue House, a terrific local rescue org here, and they have 
> wonderful protocol there, and tested all three kittens.  Sadly, this 
> time, two were positive, Isis neg.  Isis was kept iso'd at their vet 
> for an entire month to retest and be sure.  Stinky and Angelina came 
> home, and didn't get into RH, although they did pay for retest in 
> them, at 60 days, just to be sure they didn't "turn" negative, as so 
> many do.  Isis stayed negative, as did Mama Goldie, and Angelina 
> Jolie, my little miracle baby, who later got FIP and died in my arms 
> at a vet, at 8 months old and Stinky Lancelot stayed positive.  Stinky 
> went to live with my mom, who had no other animals then, after her 21 
> yr old rescued Peekaboo kitty passed, and was a perfect fit.  What a 
> ham, what a life!  My son also lived there during this time, and the 
> two became best friends.  Two weeks ago, Stinky went to my vet as he 
> was not feeling well, and had like little pools of blood inside the 
> bottom of both his  eyes.  Bloodwork was done, and it was found that 
> he had raging leukemia cancer, severe anemia, with his white cell 
> count, especially leukocytes, right through the roof.  As this 
> progressed, quickly, I wanted to take him in to gently help him pass, 
> but my son was having such a hard time letting go, I wasn't able to.   
> Finally, about 1 am dec 26th, David was pounding on my front door, 
> ringing the bell like crazy, and woke me.  He said, "Stinky is doing 
> bad, he's in lots of pain and gramma can't find the pain meds, help 
> him!"  So I drove there and got him through the night, and next 
> morning we got in to see my vet early for euthanization. But when they 
> tried to put a catheter in, dr could find no veins at all.  We had 
> waited too long.  Stinky was completely blind with thick cataracts, 
> and one eye was totally filled with blood, om the inside.  He was in 
> bad shape, and I was glad we finally were going to release him from 
> the suffering. But because my Doctor could not find a vein,  they 
> could only sedate him while we were there,and had to wait till we left 
> in order to finish the euthanization, which I have a strong suspicion 
> was by heartstick, as there really was no other way due to him being 
> so emaciated and so far gone.  My son wanted to hold him, and thus get 
> some closure, but of course that was not possible and he is 
> distraught, still.  All of us are very affected, him the most.    He 
> was the last of many beautiful lives destroyed by my decision to take 
> the lazy way out and allow the mom cat to care for my bottle babies.  
> I will never forgive myself for that, and will advocate against it 
> whenever I hear anyone considering it, or looking for a nursing mom.  
> Goodbye dear Stinky Lancelot.  You were so loved, during you short 
> life here with us.  You
>  are gone, but will never be
> forgotten, and the love will live forever. *
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://felineleukemia.org/pipermail/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org/attachments/20141229/c608829d/attachment.html>