Yesterday was a rather difficult day .....

......... as we had to put our cat, Skitt, to sleep. Over the last month, it became obvious that she was losing weight and behaving unlike she would normally. She began to sound weak and so it was time to take her to our vet and at least find out what was going on. It turned out that she had a large mass in her stomach, most probably cancer, which was likely causing an obstruction. We opted not to do all the heroics with surgery & chemo, and bring her home until it was evident that she was in discomfort, which a month ago was not the case.

Well, it was apparent that she was deteriorating quickly and yesterday was her final day.


We found Skitt in the fall of 2004, living in the storm pipes at houses in our neighborhood. She would have nothing to do with us when we approached her to try and offer food. After several months, we began to leave cat food in one of the pipes which runs under our driveway, so she adopted it as her home. As winter approached (yes, January of 2005 was quite cold here in Orlando), we did not want her to remain in her present environment, so we began leaving the food on our porch. She took the bait. As the temps dropped to the low 40s at night, we put a heating pad in a box with a blanket in the screened area, left food outside the box and cracked the door just enough so she dould get through. She took the bait again.

As spring came along, she began investigating the interior of our house when the weather permitted and we had the doors open. Soon, she was comfortable in her new digs and began eating in the kitchen - but STILL would not let us get near her. One evening, she exhibited some unusual behavior - she jumped up on the couch next to me and began purring. For the first time, we were able to see her charcoal fur with the beautiful silver undercoat, and we also discovered something startling - she had no front claws - she had been foraging for food, eating whatever she could without the benefit of her claws!

We later found out that a woman with 6 cats abandoned them when she moved out of the neighborhood. Nice gal!

We brought her to Diva's vet who estimated her age at 6 years and classified her as a "Domestic Longhair". But whenever asked "What kind of cat is she?" I responded with "A rare Italian breed called Tatiana Napoli." No one really knew the difference and it elevated her breed considerably.

She continued to be a very skittish cat (thus the name Skitt), running out of the room whenever we came in (I began to call her Skitt-zophrenic) and hiding out under the bed until it was time to eat or she needed some petting and stroking - on her terms. She was a comfort to Be, along with Diva, while she recovered from cancer surgery and when I retired last year, we began to develop a fondness for each other as I was at home quite a bit.


So, last month, when we realized that she was not going to improve after the vet visit, we had hoped that she would pass on her own, but unfortunately, that would not be the case. She'll be missed here at Chez Schaf.



Sorry if this post is a downer, but heck, blogging about it is theraputic.

A blogster friend once told me "Life isn't fluff. It's just life."