Kit Cat

Over the past few months of summer as the temperatures rose  Kit began to suffer from the heat taking refuge on window sills or near the door where a crack would allow colder draughts in to cool her. Then she began eating less. After years of watching her weight I began to watch it for the opposite reason as she slowly began to waste away. For a while she would eat a little and often so I would put her food away and bring it out again when she asked for it. Mike would arrive with sachets of "Dine" or little tins of "Gourmet" cat food, even bringing her freshly cut ham which she would tuck into.

Always a big girl Kit began losing weight

A week ago she was sitting on the back of an arm chair when I noticed she was drooling. Immediately I thought teeth as she was fourteen years old. The next morning we saw the vet who remarked that although there was a little inflammation there wasn't enough to warrant her loss of appetite. I knew her usual weight was six kilos but when she was weighed this time she was only just over two kilos. In a short time she had lost two thirds of her body weight. The young vet took bloods and gave her an antibiotic for her slight temperature before we took her home.

Later that afternoon he rang with the news that her blood results were all over the place and showed quite severe liver damage. He suggested that I try and get as much food into her as possible over the weekend and we would review the case on the following Monday. Meanwhile Kit acted the same as always, sometimes eating, always friendly, going about her usual business. Apart from her lack of appetite and weight loss she didn't behave like a sick cat.

Kit and I taking a selfie. Her last photo.

On the Monday Kit returned to the vet hospital and was put on an IV to pump fluids into her while she was also force fed to try and stop her liver eating her alive. While she was there the vet did one more test and rang me later in the afternoon to tell me that she had FIV (the feline equivalent of AIDS in a human). He said most of the cat population in New Zealand carry this awful virus but it can lay dormant and never activate. As Kit had lived the life of a couch potato with me and had never fought with other cats I couldn't understand how she would have contracted it but he explained she might have carried it since she was a kitten. As she came to live with me aged six years in 2007 she could have contracted it before I even knew her. The prognosis was grim- if they gave her antibiotics she might live another month or two but there would be no miracle cure. I made the hard decision to have her euthanised but asked they wait until I could get in the next day so I could be with her at the last.

Mike was coming with me to the vets at 10am on the 3rd March but was running late as he was trying to round up bulls to send to market. By the time we got to Vet Services in Waipukurau it was 10.20am and we were both pretty stressed. The vet who had been handling the case wasn't available so another one whom I had dealings with before brought us into an office where a nurse had Kit in a little bed with her IV attached.

In just one day Kit had gone downhill so quickly. Yet when I touched her and said her name she brightened up and began purring. Mike bent down and she raised her head up as she always did when he kissed her. The vet just put the anaesthetic straight into her IV and as it made its way down the tube Kit sat up before making a little growl and laying her head down on my hand passed away.

I cried. Mike cried. Even the vet looked unhappy but then he did have a broken collarbone. Later they brought her body out in a small white box with a blue dove stenciled on the lid and a bunch of dentata lavender sellotaped to the top. Later that day I buried Kit near Mishka my dog out near the big oak tree she loved to lie beneath.

Thank you dear Kit for your gentleness and your sense of humour. It was an honour to be your vacuumer.

RIP KIT 2001-2015