Showing posts with label Valentine's Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valentine's Day. Show all posts
2.14.2021
2.14.2016
Valentine's Day: Loving The Fuzz
Happy Valentine's Day. I hope everyone has exchanged some love with someone today - giving and getting and feeling it in your heart for real. Romantic, platonic, or something entirely different, love helps carry us through the rough patches and to places we never knew we could go, and we've got to celebrate it whenever we're given the chance, Valentine's Day or not. Yes, I know this holiday was concocted as an excuse for people to buy cards and candy, but it's also a good reminder to take inventory of the love in your life and spread some of it around yourself.
A lot of our love has been with our cat, The Fuzz, this week. On Wednesday, he suffered a medical event called a saddle embolus, in which a blood clot from his heart traveled down his aorta and lodged at what we would consider "belly button level." The clot obstructed the blood flow to his lower body, and he suddenly lost the movement of his legs.
The underlying cause is a heart problem. Both his mother and sister had it. Sushi, his mom, died from acute congestive heart failure, and Patches, his sister, died after suffering the same kind of embolus Fuzz has now.
When he fell out of the windowsill and I realized his back legs weren't working, I knew immediately what had happened and contacted our vet. Within an hour, Fuzz had received medication for the terrible pain he was in as well as a shot of heparin to prevent the clot from extending.
He spent two nights at the vet clinic for treatment and monitoring and has now been home for two nights. He's improved maybe a little bit or maybe not. He's eaten two tablespoons or so of food and will drink water pretty much whenever we offer it, but he's not out of the woods by even a stretch of the imagination. Any function of his back legs that he could regain would likely be evident by now, and we just aren't seeing it. He's comfortable. That's what matters right now.
Jack and I are bracing ourselves for hard decisions in the next few days, but rather than focus on the sad tragedy of the situation, we're doing everything in our power to share our love with a sweet friend who has been part of our lives for nearly seventeen years now.
Fuzzy's mom was a young cat who showed up on Christmas Eve the first year Jack and I lived here together. She escaped "protective custody," appropriately enough, on Valentine's Day and came home as pregnant as a misguided Pentecostal a few days later. The kittens were born on my birthday - Patches, Sabu, and The Fuzz.
We couldn't bear to part with any of them, so they became part of the family.
Fuzz is all we have left of The Birthday Cats, and I am going to miss him like crazy. He's been such a meaningful part of our lives, and he carries experiences and memories. When he goes he will both take and leave behind.
The love we exchange with him and the lingering softness of his spirit will remain.
A lot of our love has been with our cat, The Fuzz, this week. On Wednesday, he suffered a medical event called a saddle embolus, in which a blood clot from his heart traveled down his aorta and lodged at what we would consider "belly button level." The clot obstructed the blood flow to his lower body, and he suddenly lost the movement of his legs.
The underlying cause is a heart problem. Both his mother and sister had it. Sushi, his mom, died from acute congestive heart failure, and Patches, his sister, died after suffering the same kind of embolus Fuzz has now.
When he fell out of the windowsill and I realized his back legs weren't working, I knew immediately what had happened and contacted our vet. Within an hour, Fuzz had received medication for the terrible pain he was in as well as a shot of heparin to prevent the clot from extending.
He spent two nights at the vet clinic for treatment and monitoring and has now been home for two nights. He's improved maybe a little bit or maybe not. He's eaten two tablespoons or so of food and will drink water pretty much whenever we offer it, but he's not out of the woods by even a stretch of the imagination. Any function of his back legs that he could regain would likely be evident by now, and we just aren't seeing it. He's comfortable. That's what matters right now.
Jack and I are bracing ourselves for hard decisions in the next few days, but rather than focus on the sad tragedy of the situation, we're doing everything in our power to share our love with a sweet friend who has been part of our lives for nearly seventeen years now.
Fuzzy's mom was a young cat who showed up on Christmas Eve the first year Jack and I lived here together. She escaped "protective custody," appropriately enough, on Valentine's Day and came home as pregnant as a misguided Pentecostal a few days later. The kittens were born on my birthday - Patches, Sabu, and The Fuzz.
We couldn't bear to part with any of them, so they became part of the family.
Fuzz is all we have left of The Birthday Cats, and I am going to miss him like crazy. He's been such a meaningful part of our lives, and he carries experiences and memories. When he goes he will both take and leave behind.
The love we exchange with him and the lingering softness of his spirit will remain.
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