As many of you know, our cat, Frost, became very sick a few weeks ago. This is Husband's cat, the one who worships the ground Husband walks on. Frost is a twelve year old, white American short hair who has been fat, fat, fat. He should weigh around eleven pounds and had got up to at least seventeen pounds. Which is bad.
But now, turns out, it was good.When Husband took Frost to the vet about five weeks ago, he had lost two pounds. Husband failed to mention this at the time, or I would have had alarm bells going off in my head.
Husband had purchased some different flavored cat food because Frost has to have special kinds due to urinary tract issues. He loved it. For the first several days, he was eating that stuff up.
Then I noticed a lot of it was still in his bowl. He continued "stealing" the regular cat food if he got a chance, and licked the wet food can I let him have, so I just figured he didn't like it as much as he thought.There was a little bit of the old left, so I filled his bowl with that. And that amount didn't seem to go down much either. (Eli "helps" eat it.)
I also noticed he was throwing up more than a cat usually does. So, I had Daughter weigh him. He'd lost two more pounds.
I told Husband he had to take him to the vet when Frost refused to eat any wet food or Purina forbidden Cat Chow.
Of course, Frost being the Tasmanian devil he is, would not let the vet near him. She called me and wanted to try an antibiotic shot first to see if it would clear up a possible U.T.I. but if he wasn't better by Monday to bring him back and they would sedate him so they could examine him and draw blood.
By Monday, he was worse.
The vet sedated him, started IV fluids and antibiotics. The blood and urine samples showed jaundice. After an x-ray to rule out a mass, it was determined something very serious was going on with his pancreas and liver. They kept him a few days and his kidney function got worse, even on fluids. The vet said this is it. You need to put him down. I told him we wanted to bring him home for a day or so to say good-bye. You see, Frost was a rescue from a kill shelter. He felt abandoned, and any time we've had to leave him at the vets, he's been ecstatic to come home, loving on us, meowing, running to his toys, his food bowl, etc. I think he was always afraid he was going to be left again. I was NOT going to let him die there, never coming home again. The vet warned me to wait no later than Friday. He didn't say it, but he meant don't let this cat suffer any longer.
I got the message.
So, Wednesday afternoon we picked him up. He'd lost so much weight, he was lighter than Mimi, our "little" cat. He'd lost six pounds. He was docile. On Thursday, he was weaker. Though he was still drinking water, he gagged if you put food in front of him.
All he wanted to do was sit in David's lap. That's his favorite place.
Come yesterday, his little eyes were sunk in his head, the right one almost closed. He stayed crouched. We knew the time had come.
We found a vet who graciously agreed to come to the house at 5:15 to put him down, as Daughter wanted to be here, too.
David went to dig the grave. Frost would be with Sam, Buster, Belle, Molly, Angel, Lily, Aussie and Perry.
I was scraping a plate to gather crumbs of wet cat food that Eli had left, so Bonnie could get a small taste. Frost came running.
And he began to eat those crumbs. I stood there a moment, stunned. Then I sprang into action and opened a fresh can of cat food and sat it down. He ate six or seven bites. I started praising Jesus and ran to the front door and hollered at Husband, "Your cat is eating!"
I called the vet. When I told the young receptionist, she said, "No way! I'm gonna get Dr. Josh!"
In a very few seconds he came on the line, "Well, I guess miracles are still happening!"
I repeated everything to him, ending with, "I suppose we don't need to have him put down this afternoon."
"I would think not! He will probably fully recover now. We'll just chalk it up to, to, uh -"
"The good Lord?"
"Yeah!"
I called the other vet, cancelled the death appointment, then called Daughter at work. She said, "Praise the Lord!" and cried.
I cried too.
This morning Frost is bright eyed, making his "brrrrt, brrrrt," noise with that wily frog in his mouth, the Great White Hunter again.
I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father. I know Frost is "just a cat", but God made cats, too. Now, if we can keep old Frost from becoming old fat Frost....but at this moment, who cares.
