Cat Five - Rainbow Bridge - August 3, 2016

I haven't been here in many years as our ISP stopped carrying Usenet and the Google web format is such a pain. Tonight we had to help our beloved DSH brown tabby girl Cat Five across the Rainbow Bridge and we are in agony.

She developed IBD a few years ago and we dealt with that through prescription food and cobalamin shots. In June she was on death's door with pancreatitis, loss of appetite, and weight loss, but a change of vets brought a change in food that prolonged her life by almost 2 months. Sadly her labored breathing, loss of weight, severe anemia, severely elevated white cell count and appetite loss made her quality of life decline too far. Tonight the heaviest weight I carried in my life was an empty cat carrier from the vet.

Cat Five got her name from the network cable for computers (CAT5), as my wife and I are computer geeks. As I pass through here one more time, I would like to offer a tribute to the girl kitty that was ignored by others as a 3 year old adult at a kill shelter during kitten season and was almost put down to make space for kittens, but gave so much love to us. Trying as best I can to hold back the tears through the whisky now taking effect to kill the pain my wife and I are feeling.

Tribute to Five

We didn't euth her because she was too old, we wanted so many more years with her.

We didn't euth her because her illness was a burden to us, but because her illness was too much a burden to her.

We didn't euth quickly to say goodbye, we delayed it as humanely as possible to enjoy our remaining time with her.

She enriched our two lives with her nine for twelve years.

She spent the rest of her lives with us, sadly we couldn't spend the rest of our lives with her.

She rallied so many times for us after being sick. Morris the Cat only had 9 Lives, it seemed Five had him beat.

We are grateful to the loving staff of County Animal Hospital in New City, NY for the extra six weeks they were able to humanely prolong her life with us. Thank you Dr. Rothstein, Dr. Weiner, and the vet techs, especially Vet Tech Jodi Sherman. We will mourn our beloved Five for a very long time. She will be forever in our hearts, the best companion cat we could have ever had been blessed with.

Cat Five
Adopted March 24, 2004
Crossed the Rainbow Bridge August 3, 2016