Whiskers

In 1998 my friend and I went to her neighbors house to pick out two free kittens. According to my friend her mom said it was okay for us to pick up the kittens and keep them at her house.

My friend picked out a midnight black boy kitty and I picked out a grey and white girl kitty. We named them Whiskers and Boots.

After a few months of keeping them at her house her mom said they had to go. Turns out that my friend had told her mom that they were going to keep them for a few weeks then they were going to come live with me. I tried to talk my mom into bringing them home and got a resounding "NO!".

Luckily I had another friend who loved cats and said she'd take them in for a little while. Of course that only lasted for so long as well and her dad said they had to go. I stayed the night at her house one weekend and came up with a game plan to sneak them home.

When my mom arrived to pick me up from my friends, I stuck both kittens in a huge backpack that I had. It was only a 10 minute drive back to my house so I figured they'd be fine and I'd be able to pull this off. I placed them in the back of the blazer then climbed into the passenger seat. Mom asked why I was being so weird. "Who me?! I'm not being weird."

We only drove a couple of minutes before my mom said, "Why is there a cat in my backseat?!" and pulled onto the shoulder. We flipped around and drove the cats right back to my friends house.

After a week or so pleading with my parents and telling them about my friends dad threatening to throw them out my parents agreed that we could take them in and find them new homes. My parents ended up falling in love with both of them but got fed up with Boots because she was always piddling on the bathroom rug. My mom's friend ended up giving her a forever home.

Whiskers ended up staying with us and got neutered and declawed in the front. He was great friends with all of the dogs (I'm convinced he thinks he is one) but his best friend was our german shepherd Gypsy. They always loved to snuggle on the couch together for naps.

Whiskers has always had a weight issue. You never really notice it until he lays down though because he has a gut. He was put on a science diet for less active cats but still didn't lose the weight.

Later last year he was starting to look pretty lean and healthy. I was thinking it was due to the move into a bigger house with more stairs and that he was getting more exercise. Within the last couple of months he has gotten even thinner to the point of feeling his spine when you pet him. I made a vet appointment with him to have some blood work done.

The vet looked at his teeth, took his temperature, and listened to his heart. He told me Whiskers has a noticeable heart condition but he seems to have adapted well to it. My stomach sank when I heard that, it was like everything with Spider all over again. The vet said that he couldn't do the blood work yet due to the fact that Whiskers had eaten that day. I paid the $85 vet bill and was told that I would have to schedule another appointment to have the blood work done. I was pretty irked by that because the whole reason I brought him in that day was for the blood draw and they knew that when I made the appointment and no one told me that he would have to fast.

The appointment was put off for a couple of weeks and then Whiskers started acting a little under the weather. Mom took him to a different vet close by her work and they drew his blood. They ran several tests and came to the conclusion that he has Kidney disease. They kept him over the weekend and ran fluids in him and gave him meds. By Monday he was refusing to eat so the vet said it would be best if he came home to see how he does here.

He now has to eat medicated food (can only buy it from the vet) and he also gets two dime sized pills a day every day for the rest of his life. We have another appointment for him in a week to see how he's doing and where his blood count it. Poor little guy, but at least we know what's going on now and can do something about it.