I am sure I have read the saying somewhere that: “If I didn’t have bad luck, then I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” I am sure that was written for me and my moggies.
Looking back over the last decade, I note that we have lost Kev Kev the stray who came to live his last weeks with us to cancer, Colin who decided he liked our house better than his own and stayed…and ate and ate and ate until he reached 7kg to kidney failure. We also lost Alfie a massive tom who again started out life as a stray, this time to old age. We then lost the “Grey Twins” Pootle and Perkins to FIL and finally and certainly not least, a year ago next week we lost lovely little Petal at only 7 years old.
Why am I telling you this? Well, the curse has struck again and last evening we lost our most senior (and Mother to Perkins, Pootle and Petal) Elma to liver failure at only 10.
Things didn’t start well for Elma. Her and her brother Eric (who still lives as a stray but is very much his own cat and allows us to both feed him and house him in our summer house when he wants us to) were born in the wild: it seems the idiots around here don’t bother to have their cats done given the number of strays there are. However, one warm day in the Summer of 2010, she came across our house and noted that there was food on offer. Promptly she removed the two toms who were eating at the time: Colin and Jamise and helped herself coming back for more and more and more.
Little did we realise that she was with kitten (black fur is soooo slimming) until on Saturday evening in late August when CBH went to put her clothes away when she discovered Elma having kittens in her sock draw. There were five of them: the three above plus Posie (asleep on the bed at the moment) and Pixie (on the sofa). Not wanting to send them off for rehoming and having the space, we kept all five, making a total of 8 cats in all!
Over the years and in part due to our own stupidity in not having them vaccinated as kittens we lost three of Elma’s children. However, after pretty Petal died, we thought we would have a few years without any issues….how wrong were we!
Earlier this year Elma had a period of sickness. The vet did note that her liver was a little out of wack but said this could be result of a simple virus. She was correct as after a bit of treatment, Elma returned to health; only for the same thing to happen a month later. Further tests showed that again Elma’s liver wasn’t quite right but as the treatment had worked previously, we repeated the medication and again, all was well.
This period of wellness lasted seven weeks. However, on Thursday our poor moggy was unwell again so upon phoning the vets we got an emergency appointment where yet more tests were done. This showed Elma’s liver was in a right state, as was her white blood cell count and her BP. After an afternoons treatment, she was well enough to come home and to, as she had done previously, hopefully to recover.
Sadly, that was not to be and on Sunday evening she collapsed. One mad rush to the emergency vets later we were told that she was in a coma and there was no hope for her. Sadly, we had to let her slip away with the knowledge that she had brought a lot of love into our household over the 9 years she had been with us.
“Empress” Elma, Head Moggy, Ruler of Stray Toms, Chief Food Taster, and general lovely cat. 2009 to 2019. You will be greatly missed. Not only by us, but by your remaining kittens and by the other cats in the neighbourhood who you ruled with a rod of iron!