Farewell to Marbles

[RachelLouise33]

My cat is 7, and sick with liver disease...I hope she pulls through....I have filmed loads of her but uploaded nothing. Your little Marbles looked happy and content at least. Thank you for posting this lovely video.

[TommyAndGracie]

Beautiful tribute. Losing a pet is very hard. Hope you have many special memories

of Marbles.

[generalaone]

Wow what a nice place to sleep, lucky cat to have you.

[katherenann]

So lovely that you made this. What a love Marble is. It's so hard to say goodbye to them. I miss my Mister man more than life itself. Your Marbles seems like such a sweet girl! <3

[AntonIshkabibble]

What a heart-felt tribute to such a beautiful cat!!! Thank you for giving Marbles such a loving home. You have been a blessing to this wonderful cat. We know the pain of such a loss. Our deepest condolences to you and your family.

[shawandazurline]

I'm crying right now because now both of my cats are dead one died on thanksgiving like I said and my other one died because it wouldn't eat but it would drink (they are both girls) and I miss them so dearly (cries uncontrolibly)

[CRFCat]

Soooo Sorry for your loss. Your kitty looks pretty good considering the crf.

[CRFCat]

My baby is almost 20 and he had his first seizure last Friday. He's eating, drinking and using the cat box since but we've been giving sub q's everyday. I don't think he has much longer but treating the symptoms and keeping him comfy are key right now.

[shawandazurline]

my cay died on Thanksgiving night 2006 and I still miss her and I really feel bad for you :(

[TheJoTubes]

oh you poor person

[russianrider93]

aww i lost my favorite cat skeeter 4 years ago to a heart attack

[doomrules]

Im sorry. god bless you!

[akoitosan]

my dream is to build a cat shelter for aging and sick cats and have enough money to feed and medicate them so what i get there will never have to be put to sleep. rest in peace, kitty. my poor old cat died too. what´s sad is he left home to die all alone.

[redenajean]

Such a beautiful cat! It is so hard to let them go and yours had a really long and looks like a very happy life. My oldest cat is 14 and so far he is doing very well, I also have four others in the house the youngest is fixing to be 2.

[xxneonkidrxx]

my cat had to be put down a couple months ago because he had cancer

[ATVGal]

I am so sorry for your loss.

[14wacker]

@xxneonkidrxx HAHA!

[RIDEaCRF250X]

my cat just go eatin by cyotes. :(

[ADAMSLAYER1995]

ooooooooooooh that one sucks. where u live? In my backcountry neighbor hood u hear them all the time but never see them.

[RIDEaCRF250X]

in New hampshire! and in the middle of now were. lol i have like 20 miles of woods behind me before the next house! but house on the side of me down the street.

[MaxxDRD]

Cute.. Sorry she passed away.. My cat is like 10 years now but still active.. Youre cat seemed healthy and happy on the last day =[

[kitten9007]

Aww she was so cute, i'm sorry she passed away.

[palmpants]

Simba is still on his Sub q treatments, kidney meds and antibiotics. He's not having a good day today. He's loosing his balance bumping into walls like a drunk. :( I see that our other cat is eating the priscription food which is good since he was too skinny and is now gaining weight. :) Can you tell me if Marbles was eating good? or if you ever had to force fed Marbles? Sorry I'm bugging you again!-

[palmpants]

The vet we took simba to didn't give any time limit to live. They said he could last 2 weeks to 3 years. They refused to give him any pain meds (I was lucky to get the antis) cause it damages the kidney's faster. They didn't recommend much at all just change in his diet.

[ATVGal]

You need to go to another vet!!! at a minimun, you should be giving sub-q fluids. neither of my crf kitties ever needed pain meds. You can get a feel for progression of dieases by Creatinine and BUN levels. Ask what these values were for simba!

the other thing I forgot to mention is bloodpressure can raise as crf progresses. you need to monitor this as well.

it sounds like you need to find another vet that is more aggressive / proactive in treating crf in cats. call around.

---Lori

[palmpants]

Can you tell me more symptoms on what to look for with your experience. How long was it after you diagnosied her when she passed?

Did she have ulcers? Did you change her food? Is the sub Q fluids something you do at home? Is it costly? If it's too much for you to deal with I will totally understand. But you'd be helping us understand more on how to help our Simba be more comfortable. I know your heart hasn't healed yet. I feel for you at this time-it's only been about a month right?

[ATVGal]

I have a wonderful vet (Tracy MacFarland - The Cat Doctor - Santa Clarita, CA). She only does cats and she has been doing this for 20+ years. People from from all over to see her.

Anyway, if you want, we can talk offline via normal email. CRF doesn't have to be a slow painful death. If you proactively treat the symtoms, your kitty can still have quality time. Cats can live pretty normal lives with only 10-15% kidney function.

[palmpants]

I had taken Simba to a Cat doctor before his diagnoses. When he was limping on his front paw. We thought he was wrestlng with the dog again. I did tell the cat vet that it was unusual to see his pupils enlarged for a week or two. She didn't question it. Gave us motrin for cats. Not even an x-ray of his leg cause they wanted to put him under antistedic! I refused. He got better then 2 weeks later is when his hind legs went out on him thats when we took him to the other vet.

[ATVGal]

I am so sorry about Simba and wish you and her the very best. Do check in to sub-q fluid treatments if your vet hasn't already talked to you about this. There are also some great message boards out there on CRF.

Warm regards,

---Lori

[ATVGal]

I had to break my reply up into small chunks to post (max 500 characters). Hope you can piece it all together! :-)

[ATVGal]

Yes, I will be happy to share all the info I have but I can only post 500 characters at a time here. Do you have an email address that I can send directly to?

[ATVGal]

Yes, would be happy to share info with you but can only post 500 characters per reply here. Is there an email address that I can send information to.

---Lori

[palmpants]

I'm so happy you replied. Yes, Simba has Renal kidney failure.Diagnoised a month ago. He was loosing weight and drinking alot so we took him in. He is 14. Eating good at night, sleeps all day . The only thing we did was change his food to prescription food. He's on antibiotics for mouth ulcers-he's drooling from it. But I don't know if it's ooze or drool or from the liquid antibiotics or sinus infection. This is our first animal with such a slow death involved.

[ATVGal]

I am so sorry about Simba. What are his BUN and Creatine numbers?

I have lost 2 kitties to CRF (Scooter at 12 1/2 and Marbles at 18 1/2). Scooter died within a year because we didn't catch it early enough (but he lived 6 months longer then my vet thought he would) but marbles lived 4 more years because we caught it early and proactively treated her very agressively.

[palmpants]

She looked good if this was taken the day before she passed? Our simba was a 17 pound cat who is now 7-9 pounds. Marbles was beautiful.

[ATVGal]

Thank you for your kind comments. Yes, this was the day she passed. My vet came to the house that evening and put her to sleep. She was 18 1/2 years old. Her last week, she was getting sub-Q fluids twice a day and her Creatine and BUN numbers were very, very high. Does your kitty have CRF too?

[ATVGal]

There are two things that I found are huge in giving your CRF kitty quality of life. 1) sub-q fluids and 2) epogen once they start becoming anemic. Both of these made huge differences for my kitties. Has your vet talked to you about sub-q fluids. If not ask him/her. It flushes out the kidneys and makes a huge diffence in quality of life. I can't emphasie this enough. And it is easy to learn how to do this at home. As the CRF progresses, you may want to / need to consider epogen injections.