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Angry Young Sellout's avatar

Off Topic/Sad personal news…

My partner and I manage a free-range sanctuary for cats that have been deemed unadoptable for one reason or another. This morning we had a routine appointment for our oldest resident, a medium-long haired kitty named Gorgeous. Nobody knows her actual age, but her intake paperwork from 6 years ago estimated her age at 10-15 years.

So, Gorgeous takes special medication to regulate her thyroid and every 6 months she gets a blood test to make sure the dosage is still correct. And every 6 months she gets upset and anxious as we put her in her carrier and breathes very heavily.

Only this time the doctor thought her heavy breathing was more abnormal than would be caused just by anxiety. A few x-rays later and we learned that she had severe blockages in her lungs. She could barely breathe and had hidden her discomfort amazingly well. The fact that she was always very anti-social toward humans somewhat excuses that we didn’t realize she had a severe medical condition; she always kept her distance and continued to eat normally. But I still feel guilty as hell.

The vet said she could go at any time and that she could not possibly be comfortable or happy like this. She could be transferred to an intensive care animal hospital, but even if our little non-profit organization could afford it, her prospects weren’t good. We made that awful decision you have to make sometimes when you take care of animals. At least this way she could pass on relatively peacefully, rather than just collapse some time in the middle of the summer heat.

We’re on our way back now. We’re sad, very sad, but the rest of our sanctuary kitties still need to eat and have their litters cleaned.

Anybody who likes kitties, Gorgeous can be seen in a little video from sometime back here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UT3d8zXiwyU&list=PLdS1Oh361o06WOWsaGRwohkSS8-bWz-Di&index=16&pp=iAQB&ra=m

Our_Man_In_Redneckistan's avatar

When I was in college some friends rented an absolutely vile house with a carpeted bathroom.

The floor rotted out and collapsed into the basement. Somehow, no one was injured.

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