Sue, I am so sorry to hear about sweet Buzz...my heart goes out to you. Have a blessed Thanksgiving, in spite of your heartache. My prayer is for peace and comfort for you.
Wendy "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever has!" ~~~ Margaret Meade ~~~ ________________________________ From: Sue & Frank Koren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 3:20:28 PM Subject: [Felvtalk] Buzz is gone Today I had to have my sweet little kitty Buzz PTS. I feel like a very large piece of me is missing. The first time I saw Buzz I fell in love with him. He was terrified, cowering between two up-ended mattresses in an unused bedroom at my brothers' house. He had been abused by neighborhood boys in an urban area where my brother used to live. When my sister in law, Lee, rescued him he was very sick, full of parasites, starving and near death. She and my brother nursed him back to physical health but he was still terrified of people. They named him Buzz Saw because of the way his claws flew whenever anyone got near him. That day Lee caught him in a blanket and handed him to me. I sat with him and gently pet him and talked to him. Within about 20 minutes he was purring. Before we left that day he reached up to me and touched noses. After about a week I talked my husband into keeping him. When I brought him home I put him into our study so he had a smaller space to get used to, and to keep him separate from the other cats. When I took him to the vet a few days later his feline leukemia test came back positive. Buzz was going to live in the study for quite a while so I filled it with cat toys and a cat tree and pretty much spoiled him as much as much as I could. Every evening I would spend hours with him. I was working on a computer project and he kept me company with that. That is how it was from January of '07 to April. At that point it was clear that keeping him separate was not working. We vaccinated the other cats for feline leukemia and released Buzzy into the rest of the house. He loved his new freedom and became every ones quiet little shadow. He loved to watch what was going on. His favorite place was a window bench that looks out on the bird feeder. At night he either slept on a ledge right behind my head or cuddled up next to me, purring. When July came I noticed that he seemed to have no energy and was not eating. When we took him to the vet the diagnosis was anemia. With heavy doses of prednesolone his health and red blood count began to come back. I was so happy watching my sweet boy gaining back his energy and appetite. While he was recuperating I would take him out to sit on the deck on my lap. He loved sniffing the outdoor smells and feeling the warm sunshine on his fur. He would sit and purr out there for as long as I could sit and hold him. In the evenings Buzzy loved to chase DaBird and the laser pointer. His blood was being tested every couple of weeks and soon it was in the normal range. We began to back off on the prednesolone. For several weeks everything was going well until the week that his blood count started going the wrong direction. I prayed that it was just the one time but unfortunately not. That horrible disease was in his bone marrow and the medication was no longer helping. For the last several weeks I watched as he became more and more lethargic. We offered him every special treat we could think of to keep him eating and he would nibble on those tidbits almost to the end. He would sit all day on his window seat and for the last week we carried him to the litter box. He always watched every move I made as I moved around the kitchen. Today when he just put his head down in exhaustion instead of watching, I knew it was time to say goodbye to my darling boy. When I took him to the vet I told him how much I have loved him and asked him to meet me at the bridge. Then he went to sleep in my arms. I will miss him so very much, but now he is in a place where there is no feline leukemia. Sue _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
