Those of you who know me well know what our cats mean to us. They are not just pets but beloved members of our family and cherished beyond words. So today was a very hard day as we finally said goodbye to our beloved little girl Kira.
She came into our lives in July 2003 - Scarlett Sakira - a feisty little Bengal beauty twice the size of her brother and cute as a button.
She was quickly overtaken by Fiki in size and was always small by Bengal standards, but what she lacked in size she made up for in character. She was all girl and a devoted Mommy to many of her special babies. The day she came home she had new toys and they included a frog (no don't ask me why - a blue frog no less)and a doggie. They became her constant companions. She had other favourite toys – but these were babies. She would carefully turn them over so that she could pick them up by the scruff of the neck just like kittens. They would be taken down to the food bowl in the morning, brought up to the bedroom at night, into the lounge in the evening and the first time she went out on the new balcony she went straight back in to fetch froggy so he could enjoy it too. Froggy is pretty much unrecognisable as a frog now – he has been repaired so many times that he is a 4 legged blue blob but she loved him all the same.
She didn’t only mother her toys but her brother too. Far bigger than her, she kept him in line, groomed him, curled up with him and smacked him hard if he got out of line. They both thrived as indoor cats but Kira had her fair share of troubles. At the age of 4 she suddenly developed terrible spots and scabs all across her forehead. They were like chickenpox spots which would blister, then crust over. Oh my goodness we had months of problems as they tried to find out what it was. We had to separate them unless we were there as Fiki’s constant grooming with a rough tongue was making it worse. She had biopsies taken and eventually allergy testing revealed she was allergic to pretty much everything a cat usually eats, so special diets for the whole house. She did grow out of the allergy but it was hard for a few years.
Then at about 6 years old the small flack in her gorgeous amber eyes began to grow and the pigment in her left eye intensified so she had trips to an ophthalmic specialist vet (who knew such things existed). They did so many tests and she was so good about it, but they were inconclusive. The vet said it could be a tumour in the eyeball itself but the only way to check was to remove the eye. We refused as it was just a maybe and 11 years later she can still see perfectly though the eye is completely black now.
She has a heart murmur that she was born with but apart from the things above she has been healthy until this year. Right at the start of lockdown she had a very bad ear infection and was back in the cone of shame and on medication and then all hell broke lose in September.
They had been vaccinated in August and wormed and seem to have had a bad reaction. She went downhill so quickly there was one morning we thought she had passed away in the night as we couldn’t rouse her. Blood tests after 80 hours with no food being consumed showed a thyroid issue and kidney disease and se we started thyroid meds and she rallied. When her brother passed away on 28th September she seemed to relish being an only child and having us all to herself, but whilst she was lively and happy and more affectionate than ever, we could see clear signs of dementia in her behaviour (yes cats get dementia – she is our second) and eating became an issue. She stopped eating solid chunks and was tested for everything. Nothing physical wrong with the mouth, teeth, tongue, throat but she simply couldn’t eat chunks. We moved her onto mousses and pates and she coped quite well for a while but then couldn’t even tolerate that. She would run eagerly to the food and was clearly hungry but couldn’t eat. More meds for sickness, more steroids incase there was pain and she was fading away. It was so hard to try and make a decision for her as she was happy, she was still playing and grooming and yet she was losing weight rapidly. The last ditch attempt was to try gabapentin and it was a disaster. I have never been so scared for one of our cats ever. Her back end didn’t work, she kept falling over and was like a zombie, but even then she was fighting it and wouldn’t give up. However, she had by then lost 11% of her body weight in 12 days and living on cat soup with no solid food wasn’t going to work and so we took the heart-breaking decision every pet owner has to take at some point. You know from the day you get them that one day you will have to help them run free. Today was that day and Kira passed peacefully in my arms over to Rainbow Bridge to be with her beloved brother.
She is the oldest cat we have ever had, not by much but still the oldest. She was such a character and she leaves a huge hole in our hearts and in our home.
Sleep well little Kira Monkey xx
