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Farewell Nanook
Apr. 8th, 2023 03:49 pmIt's always hard to lose a cherished fur-child. It's somehow even harder - at least for the humans - if the animal in question is quite young, has been behaving perfectly normally and has not exhibited any signs of illness.
On August 10, 2013, I wrote the following entry:
https://blogcutter.dreamwidth.org/2013/08/10/
Nanook did not outlive us. She died on Thursday evening.
She had been snoozing on my lap for an hour or so, then she roused and stretched a bit as if she was about to jump off me. She rolled from one side of my lap to the other and then flopped down on her side. She didn't seem to want to get up. I stroked her a bit and got some quiet purring out of her but couldn't really tell what was wrong. But something clearly was. Examining her properly was further complicated by the fact that our power was out.
We did phone the Ottawa Veterinary Hospital's emergency service and went through a few things with them. Once the purring stopped I honestly couldn't tell for sure whether there was any breathing or heartbeat and neither could Nanook's co-parent. For myself, I think I was just hearing and feeling my own pulse in my ears and fingers.
Although we didn't hold out much hope, we decided to wrap her up and transport her to the hospital, which is not far away, although farther than it used to be when it was on Boyd Avenue. I thought there was a very slight chance she had just fainted or gone into a coma. And you know, where there's doubt there's hope, even if there's no more life. And maybe the vet could at least determine a probable cause of death so we'd know what to watch for if we ever took on another cat?
She had indeed died. A post-mortem would be an option, but not on site. We would have to take her to Kemptville and then wait a couple of weeks for the results. Which possibly even then would not be conclusive. We decided against that and opted for cremation. We also had a follow-up call with the vet on Friday so we could ask any questions we might have.
My best guess would be that it must have been some sort of cardiomyopathy that went undetected during her annual physicals. Apparently that does happen without warning to apparently healthy young cats:
https://www.pethealthnetwork.com/cat-health/cat-diseases-conditions-a-z/heart-disease-most-common-cause-sudden-death-cats
It's going to feel very strange not having her "help" us make up the bed tomorrow, or help fold the clean sheets, or settle into the laundry basket of clean clothes... and so on. She was playful and affectionate and sometimes quite naughty too.
I think I may just start a petition to cancel the month of April. My mother and mother-in-law both died in April. So did another lovely cat, Tony, whom we adopted (and who grudgingly and gradually adopted us) after my mother-in-law died. He actually died on the Easter weekend in 2017 after getting a blood clot in his leg - but he was older and we had known at the outset that he had a wonky heart.
At least we've now got electricity - it went out on Wednesday during the ice storm and came back today around 1PM.
On August 10, 2013, I wrote the following entry:
https://blogcutter.dreamwidth.org/2013/08/10/
Nanook did not outlive us. She died on Thursday evening.
She had been snoozing on my lap for an hour or so, then she roused and stretched a bit as if she was about to jump off me. She rolled from one side of my lap to the other and then flopped down on her side. She didn't seem to want to get up. I stroked her a bit and got some quiet purring out of her but couldn't really tell what was wrong. But something clearly was. Examining her properly was further complicated by the fact that our power was out.
We did phone the Ottawa Veterinary Hospital's emergency service and went through a few things with them. Once the purring stopped I honestly couldn't tell for sure whether there was any breathing or heartbeat and neither could Nanook's co-parent. For myself, I think I was just hearing and feeling my own pulse in my ears and fingers.
Although we didn't hold out much hope, we decided to wrap her up and transport her to the hospital, which is not far away, although farther than it used to be when it was on Boyd Avenue. I thought there was a very slight chance she had just fainted or gone into a coma. And you know, where there's doubt there's hope, even if there's no more life. And maybe the vet could at least determine a probable cause of death so we'd know what to watch for if we ever took on another cat?
She had indeed died. A post-mortem would be an option, but not on site. We would have to take her to Kemptville and then wait a couple of weeks for the results. Which possibly even then would not be conclusive. We decided against that and opted for cremation. We also had a follow-up call with the vet on Friday so we could ask any questions we might have.
My best guess would be that it must have been some sort of cardiomyopathy that went undetected during her annual physicals. Apparently that does happen without warning to apparently healthy young cats:
https://www.pethealthnetwork.com/cat-health/cat-diseases-conditions-a-z/heart-disease-most-common-cause-sudden-death-cats
It's going to feel very strange not having her "help" us make up the bed tomorrow, or help fold the clean sheets, or settle into the laundry basket of clean clothes... and so on. She was playful and affectionate and sometimes quite naughty too.
I think I may just start a petition to cancel the month of April. My mother and mother-in-law both died in April. So did another lovely cat, Tony, whom we adopted (and who grudgingly and gradually adopted us) after my mother-in-law died. He actually died on the Easter weekend in 2017 after getting a blood clot in his leg - but he was older and we had known at the outset that he had a wonky heart.
At least we've now got electricity - it went out on Wednesday during the ice storm and came back today around 1PM.
