<p dir="ltr">Kat, I'm so sorry for the loss of your sweet friend Lancelot. I hope you find comfort in remembering the good times you shared.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 29, 2014 1:45 AM, "Marsha" <<a href="mailto:martia@lynxe.com">martia@lynxe.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>Kat, my heart goes out to you and your
family in your loss of little Lancelot. <br>
<br>
Marsha<br>
<br>
On 12/28/2014 4:16 PM, Kat Parker wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_default"><b><font color="#333399" face="tahoma, sans-serif">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</font>
<div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font color="#333399" face="tahoma, sans-serif"> are gone, but
will never be </font></div>
<font color="#333399" face="tahoma, sans-serif">forgotten,
and the love will live forever. </font></b></div>
<br>
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