In Memorium

Our dear sweet Fannie-Kitty didn't make it. She seemed worse and worse on Thursday, and after my last blog I took her to the vet. She was having trouble breathing, and the vet took x-rays to confirm pnemonia. She made it through the first night at the kitty hospital, but after I talked with the vet in the morning, she died. Dave called me during my meeting on Friday afternoon to tell me. I had trouble concentrating the rest of the day. I went to Gallipolis for a concert weekend, and just returned late last night. I told Alex this morning. He seemed ok about it, but Alex holds everything inside and it is always hard to tell what he is feeling. We will get Fanny's ashes back, and I'll probably have Alex help me spread them in the bushes outside the screened porch that Fanny loved.

The vet doesn't know why she contracted pnemonia. He said it was not my sips of water, or if it was, it could just as easily have been the antibiotics we were giving her for the surgery. He thinks she may have had an undetected heart defect that made it hard for her during and after the surgery... and the pnemonia found her when she was weak. I was full of a lot of tough farm girl talk on Thursday, but now I'm having a hard time. If we had known she had a weak heart would we have skipped the surgery? Well, I don't want a cat in heat in the house... But??? Anyway, the vet feels terrible, I feel terrible, and she is gone.

The vet has a cat up for adoption. An 11-month old male. A BIG cat. Already neutered. Black and while like Fanny, but with lots more white than Fanny. White boots rather than white toes. White on his face. His name is "Toes" or "Dedos" in Spanish. Dedos Dobos? Felix and Dedos? Dedos and Felix? The name seems to have good Karma. Fanny had many names in her short six months. Her birth family named her "Frenchy" because she had white toes like a French manicure. Alex and his freind Owen called the cats White Paws and Black Paws. So if I bring Dedos home he will be another White Paws, which may simplify it for the little boys... We also called Fanny "Star" "Moonbeam" and "Inky" at various times before we settled on Fanny. But back to Dedos... Do I really want to live with a house full of boys??? Fanny was my Fanny girl, my sister kitty, the other female in this house of males... But some folks tell me male cats are friendlier than females... And then again, neutered males have a tendency to have urinary tract problems... So, what's a domestic disaster to do???