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My sweet cat snuggles aka runt passed


JFT1984

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So I'm new to this posting. Even though my boy passed last yr. 7/26/2018. I've been thinking about him so much more now and can't stop crying over it. I'll start from the beginning. I had to put my 13 yr old cat to sleep from a blood clot. So after grieving i ending up adopting my little girl kitty named baby at 7 wks old. I decided after a month that she needs to have an adopted brother to share life together. So i went to the kill shelter and was looking for a little boy for baby. I looked at different cages and saw a little kitten but was already reserved for some one. Then the corner of my eye i see this little white arm sticking out of the. So i go to take a look at here is this 11 wk old cutie. His name was snuggles. He meowed like a baby. He picked me to care and be there for him. So brought him home and he n baby the black n white kitty hit it off very well. They would basically do everything together. Sleep next to eachother, play with eachother, they loved eachother. So in 11/2016 when in for an exam. He was only about 3 in a half at this time. The vet said she heard a small murmur. She said we could either get it checked by a cardiologist or just keep monitoring it. The vet said lots of times they can be not significant. So i said we can monitor it. So needless to say he didn't show any signs of weakness, was still playing like his usual self. Well 2017, i was going to take him back in for exam but i only got his vaccines at the pet supermarket but no exams. He was still normal then. I started to see this girl at end of 2017 and most of 2018. I was spending so much time with her. Also i forgot to mention i was feeding these stray cats in early 2018. One female cat was sick so i took to my vet and it turned out she was pregnant. So took the mother back to my place where she got better and then gave birth to 4 kittens. I was still petting and showing love to my 2 but the kittens were getting lots of attention. The goal was to find homes for all the kittens n the mother. So at this time it's 2018 and i didn't take him for his exam and he was acting normal as i could see. Still eating and playing. But the kittens were bugging him at times. But he didn't seem too stressed. So the day he died, i came home and went straght to bed for work in the morning. Then about 2 hrs later he was sleeping next to my dad and then he fell over let out a breathe and was gone. He screamed and woke me up. I was of course panicked. I didn't know about cpr, i just rushed him to the emergency vet but he had no pulse. So i sat there with him in the room and held him and kissed him just crying. I let my boy down. He relied on me n i failed. I keep thinking back to the day he was first diagnosed with a heart murmur. I should've gotten him checked by a cardiologist then if they would've seen something then medication could give him a long happy life. Or even the next yr i should've brought him in for the exam to listen to his heart. I swear he was acting fine, doing his normal stuff. We did a necrospy and he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, thickening if the heart muscle. I have been crying so much lately while looking at his pics and videos. I have so much guilt. I should've done more. This is all my fault and i have to live with this pain forever. He was only 5 yrs old so still young. He chose me at the shelter and i failed him. I keep thinking about him and what i should've done. My heart is broken. Should i feel guilty? Was this all my fault?

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I am sorry for your loss.  I know it's hard.  I'm going through it now as my dog is dying from cancer and the anticipatory grief is hard to go through. 

No one could know what the outcome would have been on a path not chosen, you don't know if he could have been helped or not.  I know one thing, feeling guilt is common in grief, not that we deserve guilt, but that we question everything, all of the what ifs.  It's like we're trying to find a way to a different possible outcome, but there's only one outcome, the one that took place.  Almost all of us do it, wonder what if this, what if that.  We drive ourselves nuts with it and it doesn't help anything.  If we can somehow let loose of the what ifs and accept that this is what happened, and try to focus on the good life we did give them, the good times they did have...they don't realize how many years they lived or see time like we do, they live very much in the moment, we could learn from them.  They live life to the fullest and they love us.

Guilt has a purpose, it is to call attention to something we need to change.  Beyond that it serves no purpose, if we have already learned the lesson we need to learn, we can let go of guilt for it is then become futile...more than, it can paralyze us from living fully today.  I hope you will read these articles:
http://media.wix.com/ugd/0dd4a5_e934e7f92d104d31bcb334d6c6d63974.pdf
https://www.pet-loss.net/guilt.shtml
 

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Thank you for the reply. I guess the reason i feel so guilty is bc one of those kittens that i kept. On may 28th he started to get lethargic so i took him to the vet. They gave him a steroid shot for a skin irritation. Went home and about 2 hrs later. He was breathing hard so i rushed him to the animal emergency. Put him on oxygen and diuretic. His chest xrays showed fluid in the lungs and an enlarged heart. The prognosis was not good but i wasn't ready to put him down. So i slept there and the next morning i took him to the specialty er that has cardiology. Took him in an oxygen box. Got there and they did an echocardiogram. Showed congestive heart failure. 2 options, put to sleep or give more time for diuretic to work. So we put him on a ventilator for 18 hrs. It was touch n go. Almost had to put him down. But he pulled through, thank God. He's been home since 6/2 has to take medication 4 times a day and i just started him a couple wks ago on supplements like omega3,coq10,heart glandular. He did have his recheck on 6/4 and so far things look good but he still has a murmur. That will never go away. I've been giving him so much love. He's a brave boy. Only 1yr and 2 months old. They only gave him 6-12 months to live. I can't lose another one this fast. This made the one from last yr come out.

 

Back to runt that died last year. I was reading online and i could've done more. Here's part of the article.

But in other cases, he said, it's likely that a simple warning sign was missed: the presence of a heart murmur or abnormal rhythm, something mentioned by a few of the cat owners who posted about their cats' sudden death.

A heart murmur doesn't mean a cat has HCM, but if your cat's veterinarian detects one, Prosek recommends having the animal checked out by a veterinary cardiologist

 

I have been sleeping all day and crying so much. I keep thinking about him to keep his image in my head but the pain is so strong that i don't want to wake up. This is not fair. I rescued my boy from the shelter but couldn't save him. I failed him

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Did you read the articles?  This is on the vet, not you.  I'm sorry he wasn't saved.

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